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After a breath, I unlocked and opened the door. “Hi. I’m not feeling so great.”
She pushed the door open and barged in.
When she went in for a hug, I shook my head and put an arm out, backing away. “I’ve got broken ribs,” I exaggerated.
“Oh.” She backed away. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” She licked her lips. “I owe you so much?—”
“It’s the job,” I said, interrupting her and backing away for more space between us. This was going to be incredibly hard, but it had to be done.
She batted her eyelashes and lowered her gaze to my crotch. “Yeah, but I’ve been thinking of all the ways I could repay you.” She grinned. “You didn’t get shot below the belt.”
I put my hands in front of me to hide the reaction she caused. “We shouldn’t… We can’t.”
Confusion crossed her face. “I’m sorry. Since you’re standing, I thought…” She waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter. What are your doctor’s instructions? How soon can we…you know?”
God, this was hard. Without the right, soft words to make this easier, I blurted out the harsh ones. “We can’t because I’m not right for you.”
Her face dropped. “What? I love you, and?—”
“We have to end this,” I said before she could go on. More mentions of the L-word were not the way to go. “Before?—”
Anger welled up in her face. “Before what? Did you not listen to me? I fucking love you, Duke Hawk. I drove over here planning to tell you while I was banging your brains out.” Her jaw clenched. “Did you hear me? I love you, and I thought you felt something for me, too.”
I took in the deepest breath I could with my wounded ribs. “You’re the one who’s not listening. I’m not right for you.”
“You’re worse than my father. I’m the one who gets to decide what’s right or wrong for me, not him or you.”
“Your father was right.” I motioned between us. “This isn’t going to work. You should go.”
Her face turned even redder. “You mean you don’t want to put in the effort to make it work.”
The words were poison on my tongue. “That’s right. I don’t.”
The door slammed behind her with finality.
She was safe.
My world collapsed around me.
CHAPTER 41
Duke
The next morning,Friday, I lifted my head. Big mistake—a swarm of angry birds was trying to peck its way out of my skull. Settling back down into a puddle of my own drool was equally bad. This was the price I paid for doing the right thing—the thing that would save Serena. But the pain in my skull was second to the hole I’d torn in my heart. I’d never forget Serena. To save her, I’d walked away, and to save herself, she had to forget me.
I had to pee something fierce, so I levered myself up and took a long gulp of vodka from the bottle on the coffee table—hair of the dog. Hobbling, I made it to the bathroom.
“You won’t feel like running for a while,” the doc had said, and that was an understatement. Between my head, the bruises, and cracked ribs from the bullet hits, and the knife wound, only my toes didn’t hurt.
Heading back to the couch, I grabbed the bottle for two more slugs, hating the burn as it went down. I’d know it was enough when it didn’t burn anymore.
Staying shitfaced was the plan for the foreseeable future. I lifted the bottle for a fourth gulp. Alcohol, lots of it, would ease the pain, and with time, I’d learn to live without her. Time—that’s what I needed. And a fuck lot more vodka.
Setting the nearly empty bottle down, I decided I could do this with class and drink out of a glass. Classy, yeah, classy drunk sounded good. So, I detoured to the kitchen before I had so much I couldn’t walk. To save my eyes, I didn’t turn on the light.
“Fuck,” I yelled when I stubbed my toe on a damned stool and almost fell over, hopping to the counter on my heel. Fuck, my big toe felt like I’d cut it off with a dull knife, and it was my good leg too.
Keeping my injured foot off the floor, I balanced on my bad leg, ignoring the pain in my thigh as I reached for a glass in the cabinet.
