Page 13 of The Broken Keys

“Understood. I’m just grateful for right now.” All I can focus on is the way she looks in the candlelight, softer than I remember but no less beautiful.

“Callum, can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“The therapy thing. What made you decide to try it?”

I take a drink of my water. “You really wanna know?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. You knew it didn’t work for me, so I’m curious.”

“Fair point.” I pause for a beat or two. “I almost OD’d. Woke up in the hospital, and Guns was there crying. Not just regular crying, like ugly sobbing. I realized that if I died, it wouldn’t just be me. It would destroy him and my other mates.”

“Callum…” She reaches for my hand. “Bren never told me.”

I slip my palm into hers. “The band was sworn to secrecy. They had been begging me to get myself together for years. I finally grew up and listened. It helped that my ma was getting treatment and had been clean for a while.”

“That’s great. It sounds like you’ve made a lot of positive changes in your life.”

“I have, but there’s still work to do.”

“So, talking with a professional works for you?”

“Yeah, my therapist helped me understand I wasn’t just self-medicating the obvious stuff. I was punishing myself for things that weren’t my fault.”

“Like what?”

“Like losing you. Not being strong enough to protect what we had and believing I deserved to lose everything good in my life.”

Livianna is quiet for a moment, then takes a deep breath. “Callum, I need you to know something.”

“What?”

“I know you didn’t cheat on me.”

The words almost knock the wind out of me. I pull back, adjust my place setting, and try to calm the racing in my heart. The restaurant noise fades to nothing.

She knows. She fucking knows.

“Lily…wow. Who told you?”

“Bren told me about how that night was staged.” Her voice is steady, but her eyes are bright with unshed tears. “Why did you put me through all that hell? Why did you let Zara and Leon ruin us?”

I can’t breathe. Can’t think. She knows the truth about that night, but she doesn’t know everything. She doesn’t know what Leon did to me to make me helpless to his demands.

I rest my arms on the table and do the best I can. “I know you won’t understand this, but they had me by the balls. Zara wanted to pay you back for getting her fired, and Leon was happy to help.”

Livianna sits straight, backing away from my excuse. “Bren told me all of that. What I don’t understand is why you gave in. It doesn’t make sense. You’ve always been extremely protective of me.”

I swerve. “How long have you known?”

“Since I moved to Malibu.”

There it is. The reason she didn’t come to me looking for answers. She was already withhim,and that meant there was no room for me.

I need to make sure. “Why didn’t you talk to me about it when you found out?”

“Because knowing you were manipulated doesn’t erase thepain of what I went through. I needed time to figure out who I was without all that trauma defining me.”