Page 28 of Renegade Ruin

“Have you considered that maybe it’s not about being okay?” she whispers, almost like she’s afraid to say anything. “Maybe it’s about figuring out how to live again.”

“Oh, it’s just that easy?” I groan. “It’s as simple as saying I don’t want to feel this way.”

“And which way is that?”

I run my uninjured hand through my hair, tightening around the strands at the base of my skull. “Like I’m constantly falling short of who everyone expects me to be. Like I’m drowning withevery breath. Like I’m the only one who remembers them. Like I can’t move on.”

Tears stream down my face, the weight of my plea heavy in my chest. I’m not sure why I keep letting things slip to her. She’s not on my side. Not really. Everything she does is for the sake of the team. But there’s just something about Willow that constantly catches me off guard.

She worries her lower lip, catching it between her teeth. “What if you could not feel it? Even for just one night?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

WILLOW

I chew the inside of my cheek and ignore the way my heart threatens to race clear out of my chest.

This is a terrible idea.

What the hell was I thinking coming here? And now I’m seriously considering telling Bishop to use me as a distraction.

He’s looking at me like I’m an idiot. Like I couldn’t possibly know the first thing about pushing aside the ache in my chest.

Then again, he thinks I’m doing just fine.

I really should take it as a compliment that the act is working. He has no idea the lengths I go to pretend like I’m okay in front of the world. Where he’s always the extrovert, I’ve always identified as the introverted extrovert. I’d much rather stay at home and curl up with a good book than attend a gala. Not that the press would have you believe that. But that’s what I want them to see. I know how to turn on the charm when it’s needed and lock away the emotions that don’t play into the narrative of the night. It’s a perk of growing up the daughter ofAdrianna and Richard York. The family motto is forever ingrained in my brain: Never risk the York legacy. But it always catches up with me. Usually in the form of a panic attack. Which then leads to mehiding in my work for weeks because when I’m lost in something else, the nerves and emotions can’t touch me.

God knows how I cope with things is far from the right answer, but it’s a step above the train wreck sitting in front of me on the bathroom floor with tears streaming down his face. Not that I haven’t been there. Hell, I lived there for months after my mother died. And then a week after the plane crash.

I’ve been there and I know the way out—anger, distraction, indifference, acceptance, healing.

I’m on step two of my five-part plan, and I’ll live there until it doesn’t hurt as much to think of my father and the team. It might not be scientifically proven, but hey, it’s what’s worked for me.

I thought I was finally reaching acceptance when it came to grieving my relationship with Bishop. That’s what tonight was supposed to be.

On the car ride over, I constructed and rehearsed the perfect speech, letting him know exactly where he could shove his distraction. I was ready to walk away and build the wall between owner and player. No more watching his back. No more fixing his mistakes.

So much for closing the damn book.

From the moment I heard the crash of the glass standing outside his hotel room, followed by his choked sob, I knew I wouldn’t be able to shake this man. Then he opened his mouth and bared the tiniest bit of his soul with me, and I was a goner.

He needs this. But so do I. Especially if I’m to survive the next months—shit, the next week—of playing this never-ending game that is owning this team. I need something I can hold on to. A distraction that can live rent free in my mind.

And maybe, if I’m honest, a little closure on whatever it is that runs hot and fast between us.

Bishop is still scrutinizing my words when his brow raises, and he tilts his head curiously. “How do you propose I stop feeling this way?”

“You already did.”

“What?”

“A distraction.”

His incredulous stare lets me know he’s not following my logic.

“On the first night we met, you distracted me on the balcony. You kissed me, distracting me from the speech I had to give.” I pause, a manic attempt to give myself a moment before I continue. He presses his lips into a line, nodding to spur me on. “Then on the plane you called that kiss a distraction.”

“The best kind,” he says with an annoying smirk that has me rolling my eyes.

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