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I’m running now.
My apartment is only a ten-minute walk from here, and I make it there in seven. I’m texting Adrian to meet me there, more tears streaming down my face. I’ve just lost everything. I lost my job, my relationship with my father is even more damaged than the one with my mother, I’m going to lose my apartment and will probably have to move somewhere cheaper, find a job somewhere else. But I’ve got him, and he’ll catch me now.
I know he will.
He’s at my apartment ten minutes later, not bothering about knocking but simply bursting inside to wrap me up in his arms and let me sob into his chest.
It’s not even anxiety that has me breaking down. In a way, I wish it was. It hurts a lot less than the heartbreak that’s making me cry.
The last five months have been a lie. Everything I was working toward wasn’t mine, and I can’t help but fall apart a little at the thought of only having made a name for myself because my father paid people to get me a job, paid them to further my career. He told me people were praising me, but it was all because of him.
When I manage to say this out loud, Adrian holds me even tighter.
“He may have been the one to get you the job, but you earned it, Nevaeh. You were such a brilliant journalist, the press officer of Formula One hired you throughGriffin Sportsto write that article for the charity event. If your first article hadn’t impressed at least some of them, they wouldn’t have agreed. I know my team was mind-blown by your work, and that has nothing to do with him. That’s your achievement, Nevaeh, not his.”
I try to acknowledge his words, but I’m hurting too deeply right now to accept them. To let them sink in.
“How could he do this to me?” I ask, leaning back to look into his eyes.
“I don’t know. Maybe he thought this would be good for you, that you’d never find out. It was his way of meddling, like parents do, without realizing the repercussions of his actions,” he explains, and I nod along to his words before more tears and sobs leave me.
“I feel so lost now,” I admit, wiping my face with my hands.
“I know, but, I promise, I’ll stay by your side while you find yourself again. I’ll remind you of who you are until you don’t feel so lost anymore.”
He seals that promise with a kiss, one I desperately melt into and cling onto because I love him. I love him so much, a part of me is glad we don’t have to hide our relationship from the world anymore.
I just wish that part was big enough to make my father’s betrayal sting less.
Chapter 57
Adrian
Nevaeh’ssobshaveslowed.
She’s lying in my arms on her bed while we watchCaptain America: Civil War. I stroke her hair gently, calming her until she melts further into me.
All of her pain sits like a building on my chest, heavy and immovable.
I hate her father for what he did, for making her think she could never achieve anything unless it was with his help.
I hate Lincoln even more for recording us and sending that video to Nevaeh’s bosses. The next time I see him, I’m going to kill him. Val, Gabriel, Cameron, Leonard, Chiara, and James will help me, too, so I’m pretty sure we could get away with it. After all the shit he’s pulled, he deserves to get hurt in return.
Nevaeh’s growling stomach tears me out of my murderous thoughts and back into the moment. I rub an infinity symbol onto her back, leaning down to press my lips to her forehead and linger there for a moment.
“Hungry?” I ask, and she nods, the movement sleepy and slow. “I’ll go get us some food,” I assure her, kissing the crown of her head before slipping out of bed.
Nevaeh sits up, too, scanning her little apartment before worry creases the area between her brows.
“Fuck,” she mumbles, so I move in front of her, taking her chin between my fingers.
“What’s wrong?”
“I left my wallet at the office,” she says, attempting to move out of bed, too, but I grab her shoulders and push her backward.
“I’ll go get it. You stay here. I’ll be right back.” She opens her mouth to protest, but I kiss her so thoroughly, by the time I lean back, she’s smiling a little.
“Okay,” is all she replies.
