Page 52 of Mad for Madison

“Nothing I didn’t deserve,” I muttered, dragging myself back toward the couch.

Austin followed, his boots clicking against the floor. He shrugged off his coat, draping it neatly over the back of a chair before sitting down across from me. His expression softened, but his voice carried a weight I wasn’t ready for.

“You look like hell,” he said plainly.

“Thanks,” I muttered. “That’s the goal.”

Austin leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, and studied me like I was one of his puzzles to solve. “You’re not the first to run yourself into the ground over love, you know. Believe it or not, I’ve been here too.”

I laughed, but it came out bitter. “Yeah, sure. Except you got the happy ending.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You think it was easy? You think Luca just fell into my lap without me fighting for it?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

“You admire my journey, right?” Austin said, leaning forward. “You’ve said as much before. But do you even know what it cost me to walk away from that life? To let myself believe I deserved more?”

My throat tightened. I looked away, focusing on the pile of empty food containers in the corner.

“Madison,” Austin said, his voice sharp enough to pull my attention back to him. “Loving someone doesn’t mean you’re perfect. It doesn’t mean you won’t screw up. It means you choose them anyway, every single day. It means you fight for them when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard.”

“I already failed,” I said, my voice cracking. “I walked away.”

“So? Walk back,” Austin snapped, his tone cutting through my self-pity. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever made a mess of things? News flash, sweetheart: we all do. The difference is in what you do next.”

I stared at him, the weight of his words pressing against the walls I’d built around myself.

“I can’t?—”

“Stop saying that,” he interrupted. “You can’t undo the past, but you can choose what comes next. Sitting here in this cave of self-loathing isn’t fixing anything. Get up, clean yourself up, and go to him. Or don’t. But don’t you dare sit here and pretend you’re beyond saving. You’re not.”

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating.

“Come with me,” Austin said suddenly, standing up and grabbing his coat.

“What?”

“Come with me,” he repeated, his tone firm. “We’re getting you out of here. No arguments.”

I hesitated, but something in his eyes—steady and unrelenting—told me I didn’t have much choice.

The car was already waiting for us in front of the building. Austin didn’t let me shave and shower, but he did allow me to comb my hair a little bit—it didn’t help much; I was a mess—and he packed me into his elegant limo, told the chauffeur to go, and we moved on. The windows were tinted, so I couldn’t see where I was being taken. “Is there a point to this kidnapping?” I asked.

“There is,” Austin said and went quiet.

I didn’t dare ask. I feared he would take me to his friends and to Luca in order to cheer me up and shower me with compliments. I didn’t want to hear how passionate my work was. The person who had driven that passion was gone.

The car slowed down as it turned a corner many minutes later, and Austin sighed. “I lied,” he said.

“What?”

He chuckled. “I pretended I didn’t know what happened.”

That made his little speech about love make more sense. I narrowed my eyes. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere,” Austin said. The car came to a halt. “We’re here.” A small smile touched his lips. “Sorry. I always had a thing for drama.”

As Austin opened his door, so did I, only to step out before the warm, vibrant windows of Neon Nights. The door of the bar swung open, and Mama Viv stepped out. “There you are,” she said in her deep voice. “I almost started to worry, Madison.”

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