Page 174 of Colt

My reply came out strangled. “What?”

His fingers squeezed mine. “My mom took an overdose last night. My father’s had her committed to a psychiatric hospital. She needs me, baby. I’m sorry.”

His words hit me like a sledgehammer.

I blinked in shock, my mind trying to process his words. Biting my lip nervously, I looked around the room, still dazed and half asleep, trying to get my head together. “Okay. Give me thirty minutes to shower and change. It won’t take me long to get ready.” Scrambling to my knees, I went to get out of bed when Colt took my hand and pulled me back.

He tugged me back down to my ass and framed my face with his hands. “Freya. I can’t take you with me.”

Tears filled the backs of my eyes and my heart clenched painfully. “What do you mean?”

Colt sighed, running a hand through his hair. His eyes were bloodshot, face etched with exhaustion. “Please try to understand how bad a state my mom’s in. I know her and she hates people seeing her vulnerable. On top of that, I have to confront my dad. You’d be a distraction, and I need to have my head in the game if I’m gonna get my dad to back off Mom. He makes your dad look like a Boy Scout, Freya. I don’t want you breathing his air.”

Each word was like a shot to the heart.

My eyes welled up. “But you can’t leave me here after what’s just happened.”

His hands angled my face upward. “I’m sorry, Freya. I have to.”

“No!” I insisted, my hands raising to grip his shoulders tightly. “We’ve just come out as a couple, Colt. If you leave me here my dad will think he’s won. Everything we’ve gone through in the last few days will have been for nothing.” My voice held a thread of panic, the thought of him leaving me after everything filling me with dread.

“My mom needs me, baby,” he rasped. “Please try to understand—”

“I do,” I said, cutting him off. “Just please don’t leave me here on my own. I won’t be any trouble, I promise. I need you too, Colt. You promised we wouldn’t get separated again, but you’re leaving me.”

His forehead rested on mine. “It’s just for a few days. I’ll sort everythin’ out in record time then come back for you. We’ll go on that vacation we talked about. Remember the houses on stilts in Bora Bora? We’ll go there, I promise.”

I squeezed my eyes shut tight to hide the pain shooting through my heart.

My senses were pinging on overload. I didn’t know why, but I knew deep down he wouldn’t be back anytime soon. I knew if he didn’t take me with him, it would be a while before I saw him again. I couldn’t explain without looking like a stage one clinger.

Tears filled my eyes at the wrenching pain in my chest.

My palms grew clammy, my knees weak. I wanted to beg and plead for him not to leave me, but I could see by the set of his jaw that he’d made his mind up. Covering my face with my hands, I sobbed.

“Hey. Come on.” His hand slid around my nape. “It’s just gonna be for a couple of days. I’ll go sort Mom, get her some help, then I’ll have a little chat with my dad. I fuckin’ love you so much, how could I not come back for you, Freya. It’d feel like my heart had been ripped from my chest.”

I looked up at him teary-eyed. Studying the flecks in his ocean-blues and committing them to memory. My hand gently ran over his face, feeling every curve and dip.

Colt leaned forward and pressed a searing kiss to my lips before pulling back and getting to his feet. I watched heart-in-mouth as he pocketed his keys, phone, and wallet.

Everything had been perfect when I’d gone to sleep. How could I wake up to him intent on leaving? Everything had happened so fast it felt like a bad dream.

He walked to the door, pausing at the threshold and craning his neck. “I love you.” He shot his sexy smirk, but instead of it lighting me up like it usually did, something withered away and died inside me, because I realized something. Colt did love me, but not enough to take me with him. He’d done the one thing he’d promised he wouldn’t do, abandon me.

I’d never ask him not to go. If it was my mom in trouble you wouldn’t have seen me for dust, but Colt would’ve been by my side, always, especially in the dire circumstances we found ourselves in. An icy fist wrapped around my heart, squeezing painfully, and a shiver ran down my spine, the premonition hitting me again that if he left me now, nothing would be the same.

“I’ll call you when I land,” he said huskily, eyes searing into my face as he studied me briefly before turning away and walking down the hospital corridor, each step of his biker boots echoing eerily like a hammer to my bruised and battered heart.

I remained frozen in place, my stare fixed on the door Colt had just disappeared through, my mind willing him to come back to me.

My composure finally broke and tears spilled down my cheeks. I tried to hold back the sobs ripping at my throat, but it was no use. Covering my face with shaky hands, I let the wave of unhappiness drown me, my shoulders wracking with the force of my sorrow.

I wept for him, for me, and for everything that had gone down between us and the club. On the surface, I knew Colt had left to help his family, he believed it down to his soul, but I knew him better.

Loving Colt for so long meant I knew him completely. He thought he’d left for the right reasons, and he had, but he also hadn’t. He’d been thrown a lifeline, an opportunity to have a break from everything, including me, and he’d grabbed it with both hands.

My beautiful man clearly needed time to compartmentalize. What Dad had done to him had screwed with his head. Colt needed time to come to terms with losing the only man he’d ever considered a father, and to embrace the changes that had been forced upon him.

---