Our Broken Pieces - M.E. Clayton Page 0,42

fucked in the head,” he replied. “I treated you worse than anyone else back then.”

I was pissed, confused, and a whole host of other emotions I didn’t have time for right now, but I was not going to let him rewrite history. I was not going to let him turn what we had into something that, while wrong, wasn’t fake. It had been real.

We had been real.

What we had felt for each other had been real.

Yeah, from the outside looking in, it would appear that he had treated me horribly, but he hadn’t. Once we had gone public with our relationship, everyone had been in awe of how attentive Gage had been towards me. No one dared call him pussy-whipped to his face, but nothing else had existed for Gage when we had been together.

Nothing.

“You never did anything that I hadn’t wanted you to,” I said, trying to force the truth out of him. “Everything we did, everything you did, was wanted. Craved, even.”

“Until it wasn’t any longer,” he tossed out. “Right?”

“Gage-”

Whatever I was about to say was cut off when he stormed my way, grabbed a fistful of my hair, twisted it, pulling a cry from my lips. “Right?!” he roared.

Suddenly, I was taken back to that restroom in the park when Gage had first taken me. Ten years later, I was still as sick as I’ve ever been, because this, right here, was what I’ve been waiting for. But before I could act, the conference room door burst open.

I guess indoor voices ceased the second civility had.

“Gage!” Mr. Cavanaugh’s voice rang through the tension in the room.

I watched as Mr. Cavanaugh’s gorgeous face loomed behind Gage, his hand on his shoulder. “Not now, Lorcan!” Gage snapped.

“Yes. Now!” Mr. Cavanaugh snapped back.

After a few tense seconds, Gage released me and stepped back. I stood there feeling stupid, scared, pathetic, and confused as hell as Mr. Cavanaugh maneuvered himself between me and Gage.

His back towards me, he said, “I have to draw the line somewhere, Gage.”

I could hear Gage scoff, even if I couldn’t see him. Lorcan Cavanaugh was every bit as tall and broad as Gage. “Since when do you acknowledge lines?”

Mr. Cavanaugh straightened to his full height. “Since the conference room, in which you’re standing in, has windows for anyone to look in and see you with your hands on Ms. Anderson, Gage. Nine-one-one being on everyone’s speed dial is that line.”

Before Gage could respond, Mr. Cavanaugh turned to me. “Go back to your desk, Ms. Anderson.”

And I did.

I fled like a coward.

Twice now.

Chapter 24

Gage~

The ice in the tumbler clinked with another pour gone; an entire bottle of scotch nearly gone.

What the actual fuck?

After Lorcan had kicked me out of his building, I’d gone straight home and have been nursing my rage with all the available liquors at my disposal.

Lorcan had been right to intervene, or else I’d probably be in jail right now, but I still couldn’t shake how right everything had felt the second I had accosted Mystic in that conference room. It had felt like a bear awaking from hibernation; alive and ready to do what’s in its nature to do.

There had been a lot going on in my mind-and in my fucking pants-but more than anything, I had wanted to break and ask Mystic why. I had wanted to ask her why did she fucking just up and leave me. But I hadn’t. Partly because I hadn’t been thinking straight, and partly because did it even matter all these years later?

I also knew, after my first three glasses of liquor, that I wasn’t going to be able to work with her on the Darwin proposal. There was no way I could stand to be near her and not lose my shit. I’d either kill her or fuck her, and neither was a good idea. I had too much to live for in regard to the former, and I valued my sanity in regard to the latter.

However, I still haven’t managed to calm down and I still found myself wanting to know why she left me. I knew it shouldn’t still bother me all these years later, but it did. I had loved that fucking girl with everything in me. I had loved her beyond reason, and she had walked away from me without any thought to what that rejection was going to do to me.

And it had done a lot.

While my father might have damaged me, Mystic had broken me.

She had managed to do