Here’s where I wish that we were discussing this alone, as CK coughs and says, “Christ, Aefre, that is a new low.”
I glare at him as Cole frowns at me. “Get out,” I snarl at CK. “My husband and I are talking.”
“Not anymore,” Cole says as he pulls his hands out of mine. “I can’t deal with this. I’ve tried, Liv, I really have. I promised you, I wouldn’t leave you, but you’ve just made it too fucking hard to keep that promise. I can deal with him,” he glares at CK, “but an other one. Fuck, no. The line has been crossed. I’m done.” He steps back even further as my heart leaps into my throat and my hand goes to my mouth. He looks at Constantine and says, “She’s all yours.” He looks back at me with a half sneer, half grimace, and adds, “If you still want her.”
Chapter 6
“No! Cole!” I screech as I step forward, but he holds his hands up and strides to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. “Cole!” I yell, walking forward myself but CK grabs my arm and Teleports me out to a different suite. An empty one.
“Let me go!” I say as I struggle in his grip. He squeezes tighter and sinks his claws into my bare arm. Fuck that hurts. I scowl at him as not only is he hurting me, he has also cut off my ability to Astral. “Let me go,” I say again. “I have to go and make this right.”
“Aefre, leave it,” he says. “I forgive you.”
I stop struggling and look at him in shock. “You do?”
“Of course,” he says. “I love you. I know you woke up in a confusing and upsetting time and the bond that you had with him made you feel better. Safe. Just as the one you have to me does. Even though I am angry about what happened, I’m not angry with you. It’s just circumstance.” He shrugs and I am now gaping at him. He is being so understanding (which makes me feel dreadful about the rest of the story that I haven’t mentioned and never will). He is being so reasonable and seeing how hard it must have been for me. He is being everything Cole isn’t. He is being the anti-Cole and the penny drops, that is his game. I breathe in a deep breath and say shaking my head, “It isn’t over with him.”
“Yes, it is,” he says and lets me go. “He gave you to me. Just as he said he did in the future.”
“No. It isn’t over,” I say again. “I won’t let it be over.”
My phone starts buzzing in my pocket, startling me as I had forgotten I Astralled it there when I got dressed.
“What?” I snap at Devon.
“It’s bad, Lizzie. He’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” I say, feeling sick.
“Packed a bag and left. He didn’t say where he was going.”
“You let him go?” I shriek at him and having stepped back from CK and his claws, I Astral off back to my suite to land in front of Devon, who jumps a mile and throws his phone in the air. I catch it with deft hands and give it back to him. “How could you let him go?” I ask him as CK lands next to me with a glare.
“I am not his keeper, Liv. He wanted to go.”
Th cold ‘Liv’ turns my blood to ice. He obviously is pissed with me as well. “Dev, you know how much I love him, I need to make this right.”
“Not right now you don’t, just give him some time. He’ll come around. I promise,” he says quietly.
I slump onto the bed and my eye catches something on the pillow. His ring. His wedding ring. I snatch it up and I start to cry. Devon comes to kneel at my feet and takes my hands in his.
“He is just upset. It doesn’t mean anything, Kitten.” He looks over my shoulder and his face hardens. “You can stop gloating. Can’t you see she is devastated?”
It gives me hope that my darling boy will come around, but right now my heart is shattered. “Please leave,” I say to both of them. “Please just leave me alone.”
“Of course,” Devon says, and I grab his hand.
“Check on him, make sure he is okay, please.”
“Of course,” he says again. “He won’t have gone far. He has to be in Miami, so he won’t be far.”
I nod. Of course, he is still in Miami. We are all here because we followed him here.
I lower my head to the pillow, still gripping his ring in my tight fist as the tears continue to flow. Devon wrestles CK out much to my relief and I am alone. All alone. I can’t believe he didn’t forgive me and left me. I should never have said anything. I should have kept it all to myself. No one ever had to know. Why did I open my big mouth? I am the stupidest person in the whole world. In reality, I shouldn’t have done it at all. I got swept away thinking only of myself, as usual. But I told him I would keep within my bonds and I didn’t. I don’t really blame him for leaving me.
I lie like this for some time, it gets dark and still I just lie there. I send everyone away and await Cole’s return. He has to come back eventually. Marriage aside, he is too new to be away from me for very long. I hold onto that hope that he will have to come back to me. He won’t have a choice.
“I’ll go if you want me to, but I would like to stay,” Lincoln says from the doorway.