Page 80 of Bleeding Hearts Duet

Chapter Twenty-Five

When I got back to the apartment, Nicole greeted me from the kitchen. One glance at the expression on my face, and she knew.

“Brighton…” she hurried towards me, but I held up a hand to stop her.

“You’ve been lying to me this entire time,” I croaked. “You’ve been helping him this entire time.”

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry. You don’t understand…”

“I understand perfectly,” I confessed. “Jackson was your boyfriend. And you were helping Ryland to get revenge. Because my father took him from you.”

“That may have been true at the start,” she sniffled, “but it isn’t what I really wanted. I told him I didn’t want to go through with it anymore. Once I met you, and I realized…”

“You mean when you purposely met me in the park,” I interrupted.

“Yes.” She cast her eyes to the floor. “I’m so sorry, Brighton.”

“You helped him blackmail me,” I whispered. “You let him have sex with me when I didn’t even know who he was.”

She looked sick at my implication. “I didn’t know,” she swore. “I didn’t know he would go that far. He didn’t tell me that, and I only found out about it afterwards. I’m so sorry, Brighton. You must think I’m a horrible person, but I’ve been trapped in his game too. He won’t let me move on…”

“The flowers?”

“Yes!” she choked back a sob. “Every year he sends me those fucking flowers, along with a note to remind me why he is doing this. To remind me how much Jackson loved me and to justify his need for revenge.”

The genuine pain in her eyes told me what she said was true. She’d confessed the same thing the night she explained her boyfriend had died. That he wouldn’t let her move on. Meaning Ryland. But it didn’t matter now because she was right. She was just another player in his game, and I couldn’t trust her. Not really. Everyone who had come into my life in San Francisco had been planted there, and I wasn’t sure who I could trust anymore.

“I have to leave,” I stated.

“Please don’t go,” she begged.

“I have to, Nicole.” I walked towards my room. She followed along, continuing the conversation while I packed.

“You can stay here,” she insisted. “The apartment’s in my name. We can change the locks. We can do whatever you want.”

“It’s not about changing the locks,” I said softly, trying to ignore the hurt expression in her eyes. “It’s about the fact that Ryland wants my family dead, and I can’t continue to do this. To get sucked back into this vortex with someone who doesn’t even care about me.”

“He does,” she argued. “He loves you, Brighton.”

I smiled sadly at her delusion and shook my head.

“What Brayden did was wrong,” I said. “I’m not going to argue that. But I can’t let Ryland hurt him…”

“I know,” Nicole agreed. “I understand, Brighton.”

“You do?”

She sighed and fell onto the bed, staring at a spot on the carpet. “I’ve told Ryland this isn’t what Jackson would have wanted. It isn’t what his parents would have wanted. But he’s so wrapped up in his grief he can’t even see his way out of it.”

I collapsed onto the bed beside her and released another painful wave of tears. Tears for Ryland and his broken heart.

“I wish I could help him,” I said. “I would do anything to help him.”

“I know.” Nicole clasped my hand in hers. “That makes two of us.”

The room fell silent as we both concluded there was nothing further to say on the subject. Nothing else that we could do. Nicole resigned herself to that fact when she spoke again.

“I’ll call Matt for you.” She stood up and walked towards the door. “You can crash with him, or he can give you a ride to the airport. Whatever you need.”

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