The Bachelor Contract(55)

“The hell you will!” Brant shoved his chest. “That’s not your job!”

“And it’s yours?” Cole sneered. “Four years and she still has nightmares. Four years and she still cries over you. Four years, Brant. You’re going to destroy her—again. And the worst part? This time, you’ll know exactly what you’re doing, but because you’re a selfish bastard you’re going to take every part of her with you and leave me the pieces, the pieces that I would take if she let me—but she won’t. Because I’m not you.”

“That was beautiful,” Annie said, wiping her cheeks.

Brant stared straight ahead, his heart pounding so hard his chest hurt. “You don’t think I’m hurting? That I don’t know why she cries? Do you think for one second that I don’t hate myself for leaving her? Hate myself for allowing her to push me away when she needed me the most?”

Cole swore. “Then do the right thing.”

“I’m trying!”

“By micromanaging her life? Sleeping with her?”

“I told her I wanted to be friends!” Brant yelled.

The room fell completely silent.

Cole’s jaw fell slack.

And both women shook their heads like he was the absolute biggest idiot in the known universe.

“Please tell me you got that on camera,” Cole said aloud.

“All of it.” Annie gave him a thumbs-up. “I’m thinking of slowing down the last part and then adding an idiot meme over his forehead.”

Brant glared at Annie then jutted out a finger at Cole. “I’m trying a different tactic. I’m going to be her friend, just like you are. I’m going to be there for her. I’m trying to do better. She deserves at least that.”

“She has enough friends.” Cole kicked the tile floor, paced in a semicircle, then kicked the ground again. “And it’s never been enough. Because none of us are you.”

Hope flared in Brant’s chest only to die back down again when he realized that if she never saw him as a friend, as someone she could trust, how could they ever move past everything?

And why did he suddenly want to? What changed?

Everything. Everything had changed in that bathroom.

Hope flared in his chest. Because she hadn’t known the real reason why he left. Amazing what a few words strung together in a sentence can do.

She didn’t mean to say the words back then. He was just too angry and hurt, too done to stay and let her apologize. He was too afraid. Fear had turned into anger.

Brant gulped and looked down.

“I was afraid,” he admitted out loud to himself, to Cole, to Annie, and to Carol. “I was afraid.”

Annie sighed.

Cole clenched his teeth and then exhaled. “Afraid?”

“Have you ever loved someone so much that it hurts to breathe, only to realize after they leave that it hurts because somewhere along the way you stopped living for yourself and instead you were living for them? Only them.” Brant swore. “I was so fucking afraid that I’d lost her, and a part of me wanted to be punished for adding one more thing to the list of fuck-ups, so when she was delirious with pain and blamed me? I took it. I took it because my worst fear came true. And because I blamed myself for everything. I deserved it. And then I lashed out because I was afraid it was true. Better that she hate me just as much as I hate myself—sometimes hate is easier than sadness.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Cole asked. Annie and Carol had quietly gone back to work.

“Not everyone gets second chances.”

“No,” Cole agreed, his eyes narrowing. “Do you really think you have a shot in hell now?”

“Not really.” Brant bit down on his lip until he tasted blood. “But what if…I earn that trust again?”

What if he could win her back? What if he lost? What if the past was still too much for them to overcome?

God, he hated what-ifs.

And again, the temptation to just walk away was so strong he felt paralyzed. It would be easier.

Anger and pain always were. There wasn’t any fighting it; you just succumbed to the darkness and the stark realization that you’d never come out of it.

But peace? Love? They demanded to be fought for.

He just wasn’t sure if he was too battle-scarred to win that sort of fight, at least without help. He wanted to win her—but he had to deserve her in the first place. After seeing the look on her face in the bathroom when she assumed he’d left her, it was going to take a hell of a lot more than friendship to get her to forgive him for walking out on her—for walking out on them.

“I’m saying I’m going to regret the next few days,” Cole finally said.