Dangerous Ties by Jenna Gunn

Author:Jenna Gunn [Gunn, Jenna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 38

I don’t bother to excuse myself. The conversations go on without me as I stride out of the room with a head of steam propelling me.

I tap on the guest room door. “Hey, you okay?”

No sound.

“Madeline?”

Again no reply.

I’m ready to bust the thing down, but I force myself to stop. She’s safe. She’s hurting, but there’s nothing in there that can harm her.

I try to get a grip on my shit. Making my voice normal as I can, I ask, “Hey, you okay?”

After a beat, I try the knob and find it unlocked. That’s when I hear her crying. Dammit. I stride forward until I’m standing with my forehead on the bathroom door.

“Babe…”

“No… go away. I need a minute.”

“Not happening, sweetheart. Talk to me.”

She goes silent and something inside me twists painfully. I want Madeline to trust me. Not just with her safety, but also with the things that hurt her heart.

I try the bathroom doorknob too. It turns. Madeline’s not much on locking doors.

“Can’t a girl get any privacy when she’s having a breakdown?”

“Not when you leave with hurt in your eyes.”

She looks so small sitting on the floor. Knees tucked up against her chest. Tears line her lashes, making the emerald color of her eyes darker. “I didn’t want anyone to see that.”

I saw it. I felt it more. “You can’t hide from me.”

She gives me a sad scowl. “Obviously, when you didn’t even ask if you could come in.”

Her eyes track me as I move into the room. She grumbles when I grab her hand and lift her to her feet. My voice has a raspy tone when I say, “Come here.”

“I’m right here.”

My hands go around her waist and I lift onto the counter. It hits me how weak she feels in my hold, how she sags into my grip and sits dejectedly on the counter.

Gone is the spitfire.

When I tuck my finger under her chin and tilt her face up toward me, she tries to look away.

“What’s going on, baby?”

“Don’t,” she whispers.

“I can’t ask about your wellbeing?”

Her lashes drift closed. “Don’t call me babe, or baby. Or sweetheart.”

“Why?”

“Because it hurts.”

Another blow lands against my chest. I caused her hurt. That’s never my intent. “Look at me.”

She whispers, “Please don’t make me open my eyes.”

Those pretty green eyes stay closed. It gives me a chance to openly study the tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose. Cinnamon stars laid out in little constellations.

Falling. Hard.

I wait her out as I agonize over what’s happening inside of me.

This can’t be. I can’t go there. I can’t give that part of me again.

But fuck if I can stop myself.

“Beckett…” Madeline whispers and I realize my own eyes have drifted closed.

“Yeah, honey.”

She flinches in my hands. “I don’t want to talk. It hurts too much right now.”

Neither do I. What I want doesn’t involve talking. It involves me showing her how she makes me ache so badly that I could rip into pieces.

The links in the chain to my control were already damaged, the pressure causes them to split open and fall to the floor.

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