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The best option.
He texted her back.I'm out.The moment he sent it, regret bit deep.
Hell. Was he running away? Was Aiden right? But she'd been shot.Twice.She was leaving town. She wasn't interested in a relationship. She was wrong for him in every way.
He needed to be out.
She texted back right away.Out? You're out somewhere? What does that mean? Is that a yes?
Declan laughed softly. Leave it to Piper to be so focused on her dream that she didn't even notice that he'd just broken it off. Shewasa bride protector, and she cared more than anyone he'd ever met. One of the many things he loved about her?—
Shit.
He did love her.
He'd loved her for a long, damned time. Probably since the day she'd rented his carriage house.
He took a moment to breathe it in, and he wasn't surprised how terrifying the thought was. But he was surprised that it also felt good. Alive. Real. He hadn't thought he'd love again. But he did. So, what was he going to do about it?
Declan?
He stared at her message. He couldn't keep going with her andagree to keep it distant. He'd never been built like that, and especially not now.
If he stayed in this sham relationship, it was with one purpose, to see if it could be real…which would break the promise he'd made to her.
He'd broken a lot of promises to Diana, because all he'd cared about was himself and what he wanted.
Maybe it was time to be a better man. To help Piper andnottry to make it more. To respect what she needed and wanted from him in a way he'd never done with Diana. Of course, Diana had wanted a present, loving, communicative husband, and Piper wanted the opposite. Piper wanted the old Declan, and he didn't want to be that guy anymore.
Poetic justice, Diana would probably say.
He laughed softly. He got what he deserved: a chance to be about something other than himself. It kind of sucked, but it also felt weirdly good to become more. To give someone else what they needed because he could. Yeah, this was good. It felt right.
He was doing this, and he was doing it how Piper wanted.Text me the location, and I'll be there.
Yay! Thank you so much! You're the best!
Her joy made his decision right. He'd had no idea it could feel so good to make someone else happy, when there was nothing else in it for him, other than breaking his fucking heart again.
He was a cop.
He could handle pain.
He was born for it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
By Saturday night, Piper was finally beginning to grasp the magnitude of her idiocy.
"Wait a sec," Tori leaned in, grinning. "You banned Declan from emotional intimacy, and told him empty sex was all that was allowed?"
Piper grimaced as she picked up her glass of wine. She'd wrangled an invite to a fundraiser that had potential clients. Declan had needed to work at the bar, so she'd brought her friends as her dates. "I did."
"And how is that working out for you?" Maddie was sitting on a couch, snuggling with her service dog, Violet.
"Great. It's exactly what I need. He bailed me out the other night at a client meeting. He was pure charm. It was perfect." She scanned the room, looking for her targets for the evening, but she was having trouble summoning the fire that usually drove her.
It had been a long, desperate week, and she was four clients short of the four she needed by Sunday night. The two she'd come to see hadn't arrived yet, and it was getting late.
