Page 18 of Ruined

“Could have fucking fooled me when he told me that he was tired of the relationship, that he couldn’t fucking deal with my neediness anymore,” I snarled at him. Jesup sighed as he shook his head. I threw my hands up into the air in exasperation, glaring at Jesup. “Jesup, he fucking kissed some random whore right afterward. I fuckingbeggedhim not to do that shit to me, and he fucking did it anyway.”

“He did what he needed to do to keep you safe, Adelaide.”

I released a humorless laugh, throwing my arms out to the sides. “Obviously, I could fucking do that myself if he had just stopped fucking babying me.” Jesup rolled his eyes. “I’ve been taking care of myself since the moment he dumped me and I met Joey. So, don’t youdaretry that fucking shit on me.”

“When he broke up with you, Adelaide, you were still young and naïve,” Jesup told me bluntly. I narrowed my eyes at him in a warning. Jesup knew the kind of shit that I grew up in. Iwasn’t fucking naïve. I grew up in a goddamn trap house. “You still needed emotional support. You have to admit that. Tristan needed to protect you, and he did what he needed to do for that to happen,” Jesup tried to reason with me.

“From what?!” I finally yelled at him, losing my cool. “What thefuckdid he need to protect me from so badly that he had to fucking break me like that?!”

“Vin.” Tristan’s voice rang through the workout room, making my heart trip in my chest. I swung my angry gaze to his. “I was trying to protect you from Vin.”

My eyes widened in shock as I looked up at him, but then, I glared, clenching and unclenching my fists at my sides. “Obviously, you didn’t do a good enough fucking job,” I snarled at him. “Because guess who the fuck isstillafter me? FuckingVin.”

Anger flashed in Tristan’s eyes as he narrowed his dark, gleaming eyes at me. “Oh, I did,” he corrected me. “Your preciousJoeygot you in this fucking situation all by himself. I owed Vin a shit ton of money, and he was threatening those close to me to get what was owed to him.” Tristan stepped further into the room, and Jesup slipped out, leaving me alone with the man who’d broken me. “Remember that day that I didn’t show up to school?” he asked. I swallowed thickly. I remembered it well. I had been panicking all day because Tristanalwaysshowed up to school, even if he was so sick that he could barely stand, just to make sure that he was there to protect me from assholes. “When you finally saw me that night when I came home, my face was bruised and bloody.”

I nodded my head, my heart clenching in my chest as I remembered him collapsing in the foyer of his house as soon ashe shut the door behind him, giving in to the pain when he was finally safe. “Vin had finally gotten his hands on me that day, and he threatened to hurt you.”

That had happened a week before my eighteenth birthday.

“I did what I had to do to protect you from him, Addy,” Tristan told me quietly, his dark eyes swirling with protectiveness. He stepped closer to me. “I never stopped loving you, Addy baby. Everything I said to you was to protect you from my shit.”

I shook my head at him, my heart beating so fast in my chest that it physically hurt. Everything he was telling me… fuck, it was so overwhelming. “How—what?” I started, unable to actually complete a sentence. I was shocked as hell.

He reallyhaddone all of that to protect me.

And I had been such a fucking bitch to him when he finally came back.

But dammit, I’d been hurt. I had buried all of that pain that he had caused me foryears.

Tears filled my eyes, and I squeezed my eyes shut, turning away from him as I drew in a deep, shaky breath, desperately trying to calm myself down. I didn’t want him to see me cry, to see me break down like this.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that to begin with?” I asked him, hating that my voice came out weak and shaky.

Tristan’s large, calloused hands settled over my shoulders. Warmth slid through my veins, thawing the ice around the part of my heart that had always been his. He slowly turned me around to face him. A tear trickled from my eye as I looked up at him, unable to keep it from sliding down my cheek.

He had never stopped loving me. Why did that hurt?

His face fell as he watched the tear trickle down. With gentle hands, he quickly reached up and wiped it away but kept his hand on my cheek afterward. “Because if I had told you what was going on, Addy, you would have never let me let you go,” he told me honestly, and I knew he was right. I hated that he was right. “I had to break your heart in the worst way possible to keep you safe.”

Another tear slid down my cheek, and my bottom lip trembled as I stared up at the man that had once held my entire heart. With a soft sigh, Tristan pulled me into his arms and pressed his lips to my hair. I quickly wound my own arms around him, pressing my body close to his, the steady thud of his heart keeping me calm and grounded.

“Did Helene know?” I asked him quietly.

Tristan shook his head. “No one but Jesup knew,” he told me. I breathed a little easier now that I knew that my best friend hadn’t kept such a huge secret from me. “I couldn’t risk you finding out and trying to play the hero. I needed you to hate me. It fucking hurt like hell to let you go, to let you down, but it had to happen.”

I pulled myself tighter against him, tightening my arms around his torso. I took in all of the warmth, strength, and comfort he was giving me, soaking it up. He slid his hand down my back, his other arm flexing around me in response.

I looked up at him, and his dark eyes met mine. “So, what are you going to do now?” I asked him. “Are you going to break my heart all over again, destroy me for good this time?” Since Vin was still around, I assumed that was Tristan’s plan again. Sure,I had fought him every step of the way on this shit, but if he walked away again, I wouldn’t recover.

Tristan shook his head. “I’m older, and I’m stronger,” Tristan assured me. “I’ve got the right men to back me, and my club is strong.” His warm hand cupped my cheek, his eyes tender as he kept them locked with mine. “And we all protect our club women, especially our queen, Addy.” My cheeks warmed at his words, and my stomach swooped. “Vin won’t get close to you ever again, not if I have anything to do with it. He’s crossed me wrong for the last fucking time. I’m a hell of a lot meaner than I was when we were kids, and fucking with you has deadly consequences.”

My heart warmed at his words, my soul lighting up the slightest bit with hope—hope that he really wanted this with me, that he wouldn’t fucking destroy me again.

And this time, when Tristan bent his head and pressed his lips to mine, I didn’t want to pull away. I didn’t want to fight him on it.

I succumbed to him. I let him have me.

With one hand on my lower back, Tristan pressed me closer to him, and his other hand slid up into my hair, holding my lips to his. I gripped his shirt in my fists, obediently opening my lips beneath his when he licked along my bottom lip. A shiver ran down my spine as his tongue slid against mine, and I moaned softly. I slid my hands under his cut, feeling the rippling power of his muscular frame.

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