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“I don’t deserve her.”

“I know,” he agreed. “You don’t deserve her one bit. Leah was one-of-a-kind and you totally pissed it away.”

“Thanks, man. Thanks.”

“Point is, Carter, you have to be the man that deserves her.”

I exhaled slowly, rubbing my temples as I listened to him.

“Now don’t sneak away again,” he added, solemnly. “I’m not happy with that shit. Leave her alone, let her heal and come back when the heat on us has died.”

I chuckled mockingly. “The heat will never die, Rome. If anything, it’s only going to get worse! Soon, I won’t be able to take a shit without someone standing there.”

“Doesn’t matter. You can’t just spring shit up like that on Leah, especially when you have Molly in the next fucking room.”

“Molly is here on her own terms.”

He ground his teeth together, holding back his anger as he said calmly, “Yeah, well, everyone is under the impression you’re with her. You want the paparazzi to catch you chasing around Leah instead? That sort of shit is bad news for us.”

“It’s none of their business—”

“You want Leah to get caught in the middle of that fuckery?” he cut in, louder than before. “The girl’s living her life. The last thing she needs right now is to get dragged into something she isn’t ready for. The baggage that comes with fame is too big.Don’t dump that on her. Not after all the work she’s done to look after herself.”

He grabbed me by the shoulder then and squeezed, bringing his face closer to mine.

“You want her,” Rome stated calmly. “Now you've seen her, and now you know who you should be improving for. Don't just change for her, Carter. Change for yourself. Wait until the heat has died down, ditch Molly, and Leah could be yours.”

It wasn’t a matter of “could” for me. It was a matter of “must.”

I didn’t just need Leah.

Iwantedher.

And fuck Rome.

He wouldn’t get his way.

Twelve

Leah

You convince yourself for so long that you’re done with someone. You think you’ve been through the worst of it, and that the pain couldn’t be as potent as it was the second that heart of yours snapped open.

All of that was rubbish, though. Truth was, the heart never closes back up again. Not all the way. There are cracks and scars along its surface, a sharp reminder that it’ll never be smooth and untouched again.

Needless to say, I was throwing myself a full-blown pity party tonight, musing myself by constructing metaphorical bullshit. I was getting creative, especially after I’d dug out Melanie’s bottle of vodka she’d left in my car that I’d forgotten to leave at the apartment. I’d gulped a few mouthfuls down in an effort to get to sleep. Sadly, it wasn’t working, and I ended up facing the wall.

I tried to shut my eyes for the hundredth time, but darkness wouldn’t come, no matter how hard I tried.

I want more, he’d said.

Now he was sleeping upstairs while I was drowning in my sorrows in my old suite bedroom. It was Deja Vu all over again. Iknew time was slipping through my fingers. That he was likely to leave tomorrow, and maybe that was a good thing. He’d rocked my world, and not in a pleasant way, but more in aholy-shit-I’m-not-over-him-entirelykind of way.

It would be good when he left, I told myself. He’d go back to his world, and I’d continue living in mine.

So why did that hurt so much?

Why had what he said clawed its way inside my soul? I knew what my brain was telling me. It was warning me not to accept his word. He could be taking me down that same path again. But my heart—that damn freaking muscle—was playing by its own rules.

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