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“Why? Why not? You know we’re good together, but we could be something amazing.” I could hardly breath having finally opened up to her with my truth. Adrenalin was making my voice crack, sounding like I might burst into tears. Maybe I would if she continued to deny her feelings. “Please, Destiny.”
“No, Joey, I can’t, and I won’t.”
“Why the fuck not?”
Her bottom lip trembled, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen her look so vulnerable. I opened my mouth to tell her it was okay, but she silenced me.
“I’ll tell you why, Joey. Why I can’t do any of those things. Be any of those things that you want. Because I can never give you everything that you’ll want.”
“It’s only love and support I need, and I know you’re capable of that,” I whispered.
She shook her head. “You need more than that. You’ll want a family, and there’s no way you’ll get that from me.” She let out a breath that was ripped at the seams and full of pain. An ugly breath. “I can’t give you that because that man who beat me and made my life hell kicked me once when I was pregnant. So damn hard that I lost my baby, and he wouldn’t let me go to hospital because people would question the bruises all over my stomach.” She swiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“You didn’t go to the hospital?” I couldn’t believe it. It was fucking horrific. “H-how did he get away with that?”
“Brought in some woman he knew who used to be a nurse.”
“What?” I felt like my eyes might bulge out of my head.
Destiny shrugged. “I think he’d shagged her at some point. She checked me out and said I was fine.”
“Shit, Destiny.”
“She obviously wasn’t that good at her job because I got an infection. It was so bad that when he did eventually let me go, I had to have a hysterectomy. I had to lie and deny I knew about my baby. Do you have any idea how that feels? Denying the existence of the one good thing in your life.”
As Destiny stared at me, her chest rising and falling sharply, I wanted to scream. I’d felt pain and fear in the past. I’d felt dread, but nothing like I was experiencing at that moment. There was a huge lump in the middle of my chest, and I knew if I even took half a breath, it would release as a roar of hurt for Destiny andthe misery that she’d suffered. I wanted to gut him, slowly and painfully and make him pay for what he’d done. What he’d taken away from her.
“So, there you go, Joseppi,” she continued, her voice cracking. “Not such a good catch after all.”
She turned away from me, looking out of the window, our conversation evidently over. I wanted to comfort her, pull her into my arms and tell her it would all be okay. Let her know that I didn’t want a family because I truly didn’t. Never had done because I wasn’t that sort of man. I was an addict, the child of an addict, why would I want to pass that onto some poor kid? She would be enough for me, but it was going to be harder than I thought to prove that to her, and I was petrified that I would never have that chance.
CHAPTER 22
DESTINY
Sitting in my hotel room I looked at my phone and contemplated my choices. I either texted Joey and did something stupid and ended up hating myself, or I sat in my room wishing that I’d done something stupid so that I could hate myself. Alternatively, I could go outside and chain smoke until I calmed down. As it was raining, I decided that was my least favourite option.
Since Ali had helped me to escape from my violent ex, I’d made sure that I didn’t let any man have the power. Without it they couldn’t use it against me, but somehow I’d slipped where Joey was concerned. It was like he’d hypnotised me and with a click of his fingers told me to forget every promise I’d ever made to myself.
Forget that you’re not interested in a relationship, Destiny.
Forget that you want to be in control of your own life, Destiny.
Forgot that we were only ever going to be just sex, Destiny.
When a text buzzed, my heart jumped as I snatched my phone up from the bed. Hope that it was from Joey soon turned to disappointment.
“Fuck off,” I yelled at the marketing message from a restaurant I’d eaten at a couple of times. “Stuff your twenty percent off.”
Any control that I had was slipping away and I hated it. Since Vinny, I’d never once let myself fall for a man. I never felt guilt over the way I treated them. Never worried about my decisions. All that was falling by the wayside, though, because of him, the fucking drummer boy.
We hadn’t spoken since his dad’s funeral and the argument that we’d had in the car. Not for the rest of the journey, nor in his car back to my house—which was then empty as Amber and Ronnie had gone back to their own home to get ready for the tour.
I’d been so damn angry with him. Furious that he’d got me to tell him everything about my relationship with Vinny. Steaming with fury that I’d had to admit the damage the bastard had done to me. How he’d taken my future from me with a few kicks to the stomach.
When the boys supervised their gear being loaded onto the truck, when he and Beau checked the bus over before Terry drove it to the ferry, we didn’t say a word to each other. As we got on the plane, throughout the journey, while I handed out hotel keys and gave instructions on sound checks, I continued to blatantly ignore him. Barely looked at him in fact, yet when I was alone I suddenly wanted to talk to him about it all. Every sordid detail. At least I did until he was face to face with me and I knew then I’d chicken out and just be angry all over again. That was what Joey did to me. He made me confused and mad, and I lost my control.
Maybe it was time I started to listen to my heart instead of my head, because trying to deny my feelings clearly wasn’t working.
