I thought I was stronger.
Evidently, I can fight a war and run a multibillion-dollar brand, but I can’t break it off with this little poet without turning my insides into thorns.
“But?” she urges.
Do it, Lincoln. Take the shot.
“But—I’m done with it. All of it, Dakota. I’ve made a big goddamned mess of things. I tore up your heart and mine along with it. That’s not something I’ll keep doing while it’s still in my power to stop it.”
For a single second that feels like an eternity, she’s quiet.
“So that’s it then?” she mutters.
I don’t answer.
Maybe she was right when she called me a coward.
“You got your wedding campaign out of the deal.” Her face goes red. “And your fun, and now you’re just tossing me aside.” Her eyes glisten with fresh, molten tears.
“Dakota—”
“Just like before. You...you used me,” she whispers. Then she throws her head back and stares at the sky, cloudy and unsettled with distant thunder. “I should be used to it by now. I’m such an idiot. When will I learn? I never fucking will, I swear.”
She turns and starts moving away.
Fuck, I can’t let it end like this.
“Wait. I’m mangling this. It’s coming out wrong.” How do I make her understand?
I can’t love.
I can’t.
Cupid, that rat bastard, doesn’t hit people with cute arrows. He blows up their lives with lethal missiles.
He’s not doing that to mine. He’s not reducing her life to rubble.
“Dakota, I hate this. Listen, I can handle fucking up myself, but I can’t do that to you. I can’t ruin your life while you’re still young and beautiful and so smart. You still have a chance with a better man than any I’ll ever be.”
Tears stream down her face now, each breath racking her entire body.
“Lincoln?” Her voice is barely audible as she stops and turns.
“Yes?”
She flips me off, her eyes glowing like hellfire, and then she’s gone, one more shadow in the storm.
“Wait! I’ll call a car for you.”
She doesn’t stop.
She doesn’t even throw me a backward glance.
I start after her, but she doubles her pace.
After she’s out of my sight, I walk back inside the hospital, a drenched mess of a human being in every way imaginable.
I’ll go sit with Wyatt. I don’t want him to be alone when he wakes up, though tonight would be one hell of a time.
My laptop sits in the chair I’ve lived in for days. I pick it up and collapse into the chair. At least I don’t have to worry about sending that email anymore.
Still, now I need to work out what stepping away from the company looks like, and who can take my place without running the empire into the ground.
The worst part is, Mother is still the majority shareholder. I’ll have to talk to her and I’ll get a nuclear earful when she finds out why I’m leaving.
I could tell her I need to help Wyatt, but she won’t like that one bit. She’ll probably also tell me to take a month off instead of backing away completely.
I’m not even sure a temporary leave will work unless Dakota quits, which is always a grim possibility. She moved out of state after her last breakup.
Something about running her out of this city wrenches my gut.
So does that last parting look with the one-gun salute.
No woman has ever looked at me with such contempt before. Any chance I had with Dakota Poe in my next five lifetimes was slaughtered outside this hospital.
“Burns, you are one dumb SOB,” I whisper.
It’s far too easy to imagine Wyatt saying those words.
Whenever he wakes up, he’ll probably invent new ways to call me a fucking fool.
And if Dakota can’t hack it—if she packs up and heads home to North Dakota—will that little jagoff be waiting for her?
I already agreed to avoid pressing charges if and when they assure me he’s set up with a therapist, a job, and a place to live at least five hundred miles from Seattle.
Dammit.
Dakota basically said I’m just like him, and I can’t even argue.
He ruined her past, and I just flattened her whole future.
I push my face into my hands, pressing my knuckles into my eyes.
I’m doing everything humanly possible to make this right. To let her walk away with minimal damage.
Whatever she chooses next shouldn’t bother me.
It shouldn’t, but it does.
It’s her life, and she’s better off without the pond scum named Lincoln Burns.
21
Still Beguiling (Dakota)
Welp, the asshat actually did it.
He stepped away from the company without even the courtesy of showing up for one last all-staff meeting. He just blasts an email to the entire crew.
Dear all,
I’ve recently found myself dealing with a personal tragedy that requires all of my attention and my heart. It wouldn’t be fair for me to stay on at the helm of Haughty But Nice dividing my time. I can’t do that to you.