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“We would have found him with our sweep,” Cas reassured her.
But that would have put her there, with Kramer, even if only for a moment. And if he had fought Cas and Devan to the point of getting wounded, there was no telling how he would have behaved if Zara had been present.
If they all would have gone up in flames.
Zara seemed to be thinking that as well because a shiver racked her body.
Everything inside him reached for her. From bones to blood, it brought him to her side, whether she wanted him there or not.
He’d barely taken a seat when she pushed herself onto his lap. His arms went around her and he tried to absorb the tiny tremors running through her frame.
Discussion continued around them in murmured tones. Gregor and Cas moved into the kitchen with Devan. Asa didn’t care what they said or what plans they needed to make. His priority, the one thing that mattered and would only ever matter to him, was the woman in his arms.
Her delicate heart and tender soul. She put on this brave, unflappable face because her job required her to be invincible. But she wasn’t.
All those qualities that her fans adored about her, the honesty and the vulnerability. The way she bared her emotions in her music and songwriting, the reason so many could relate to her, was because of the way she carried her heart out into the world like an offering.
Sacrificing its safety for the benefit of people she didn’t even know.
She was the bravest person he’d ever known.
He’d follow her forever.
Her soft breath puffed against his neck and he tightened his hold on her.
“You were right,” she said. Another tremor rippled through her.
He closed his eyes and pressed his lips to the top of her head. A chasm of agony opened up through his middle. He wasn’t right. Not in the thing that mattered.
Shelby had given him enough experience with crazy that he’d been able to predict a logical outcome to the Lyle Kramer shit. But he wasn’t right in how he’d handled it.
And he didn’t know if there was anything he could do to fix the damage he’d done to her. To them.
Because what was love without trust?
The worst part was knowing she’d never have done that to him. She’d have kept talking to him, appealed to his sensibilities, continued communication instead of what he’d done.
In one well-intentioned move, he’d placed himself in the court of people who cared about her, surrounded her, but didn’t stand with her.
Leaving her alone in the center of a storm.
“Please don’t leave me,” she said.
Her words ripped his soul in two.
This was what he’d done. He’d introduced doubt into something that had been balanced and beautiful. And now she felt shedidn’t know him enough to know there was no way he’d leave her.
“Never,” he promised, his voice cracking with the weight of his regret.
Nothing about her life—the crowds, the media, the stalkers, the constant attention—scared him the way the thought of losing her did.
Because being with her was the only thing that made sense.
In a world filled with fakery and fear, she was the truest thing he’d ever known. His heart would never belong to anyone else. It was hers forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I’M ON YOUR SIDE
