Page 29 of Breaking the Alpha
He sat in his car long after the sun set, unable to stop scrolling through the thousands of comments and incapable of not clicking on every link.The first three posts were filled with people attacking him for everything Windy Leigh was alluding to on her own social media.Cheater, narcissist, bastard, emotional abuser.The few people who dared to question the accuracy of his ex’s narrative were bombarded as harshly—if not worse—than him.
And still, always and everywhere, were those fucking AI photos.
It didn’t matter to anyone if the tattoos didn’t match or the eye color was off.The people behind the mob mentality were too fueled by one another, not to mention Windy Leigh’s five-times-a-day updates on her new life as a single, heartbroken woman trying to move on after surviving a marriage to the worst kind of man.
He didn’t care about the hit to his personal reputation.LA was the kind of place where people either forgot about sketchy pasts or reveled in them.What got to him was the knowledge that he was on borrowed time.Sooner or later, his brothers would see it.They would read the comments and accusations and it wouldn’t matter if they didn’t believe the bullshit swarming around him because it would be out there.It would be out there along with the Baker name, and it would taint everything Birch and Grey had done in Epson to shake the trash reputation inherently tied to their last name.
Then there was Angelina.
She trusted him.Listened to him.Felt safe around him.She talked with him as though his thoughts and opinions were important to her.When he was around her, he felt more seen and heard than he felt with any other person, even his own brothers.
What would she think of him if—when—she saw those photos and comments?Would she ask him about it or would she simply ghost him out of her life?Would that gentle smile he drew from her every time he walked into Wholly Yours with a new sweet coffee concoction disappear completely?Or would she see through the bullshit like she saw through his façade?
It didn’t matter if the most recent posts Jodie put up were garnering more positivity.The negative was still there, poisoning everything it touched.Windy Leigh wasn’t backing down from her narrative, and he was barely spinning one of his own because he couldn’t deliver what his agent wanted.She was demanding his small-town world, and he was determined to hide it.Neither his brothers nor Angelina deserved to have their names or faces tied to him.
There was nothing more important to him now than protecting them.
*
Angelina was wrappedin a comforter when River arrived at her doorstep, the bracelets she made him still on his wrist.But it wasn’t the jewelry holding her attention.
“Hey,” she said softly, stepping onto the porch and enveloping him in her blanket when she realized he was shivering.“What happened?”
He wound his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her head.“Nothing.I just need to be here.Up here.With you.”
Taking his hand, she led him inside, trying not to be too obvious in her assessment as she watched him kick his shoes off, the muscles along his shoulders and back ripping with tension.She could see the tendons in his neck straining, the twitch of his jaw as he adjusted his backpack and followed her to the sofa.
She’d noticed he hadn’t come home yet.The basement was too still, too silent.In four short days, she’d become used to hearing him downstairs and being reassured by his presence.It was comforting to hear signs of life, to know she wasn’t completely alone night after night.It didn’t matter if he stayed in his suite and gave her space—she knew when he was there and she liked it.
He sat, his body thrumming with nervous energy and stress as she joined him and cocooned him the best she could with her arms around his chest and her legs crossed over his lap.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she murmured against the nape of his neck.“Indulgence Night wasn’t the same without you.”
He grabbed her hand and lifted it to his lips.“I’m sorry I missed it.I won’t next week, if you want me here.”
She tightened her hold on him, hoping he could feel her steady heartbeat against his back.“At the risk of sounding less roommate-y and more clingy, you can safely assume I’ll happily have you join me for Indulgence Night whenever you’re free.”
Some of the tension in his body dissipated as his breathing began to sync up with hers.They sat in silence for a few minutes, his large hands keeping her in place until he took a deep breath, blowing it out loudly.“Angelina?”
She hummed in acknowledgement, drawing circles on his chest with her thumb.
“I know you aren’t psychic or anything, but you…” He paused, as though trying to collect his thoughts.“You know things.Feel things.Right?”
“I guess that depends on what you mean by know and feel.”
He cleared his throat and ran his hands along her legs, still wrapped around him.“You see through bullshit and you notice things most people don’t stop to notice.”
Uncertain where he was going with this, she nodded.“I guess so, yes.”
“Then you’d know if I was a bad guy, right?”She felt him tense up again, his shoulders rolling out to unleash a little of it as he spoke.“Like, would you be able to tell if there were rumors about me that weren’t true?”
She splayed her hand over his heart.“What’s this about, River?Did something happen tonight?”
“No.Yes.Kind of.I was just thinking about some shit going on back in LA and then I started thinking about you and it—” He shook his head as though he was clearing his thoughts.“It scares the hell out of me how much I think about you.How much I already need you to make sense of things for me.How much you change my perspective on things.I want to see me through your eyes because I’ve been seeing myself through other people’s eyes my whole life, and I don’t recognize the guy they’ve made me.”
*
River felt theabsence of Angelina’s body pressing against him the moment she moved, her long legs untangling from around his hips as she crawled off the sofa with his admission.
