Page 59 of Defeated

I think I do.

My gaze returns to Chris, and I speak quietly. “I didn’t trust him before. My first impression of him was that he was kind and someone I could trust, but I still believed the worst about him. I nearly killed him.”

“When someone hurts you, it makes trusting all the harder.” Colton nods at Penny. “Someone hurt the woman I love and I have to fight a daily battle with myself not to twist the fucker’s head off every time I see him in town.”

“He lives in Winter Lake?”

“He’s a doctor.”

“Oh.” Good thing we don’t need doctors for anything but the most serious, near-fatal healing, because this doctor would not survive a meeting with Colton from the growl in his voice.

I want to ask Colton when he realized he loved Penny, and if it feels anything like this frantic, desperate feeling I have when I think about leaving Chris and never seeing him again.

Or how my heart literally stopped when I thought he might die saving me.

Colton studies me for a beat and then straightens from the side of the car. “Time to get out of here. Penny and I skipped over late lunch. How about we drop you two at my house?”

I look at Chris, and he looks back.

I nod. “Okay.”

Back in Colton’s apartment, I’m suddenly nervous at what’s coming.

But also determined.

And terrified.

Let’s not forget terrified.

Colton and Penny dropped us off and headed back out to grab some food, saying they’d be back in an hour. Plenty of time for me to say everything I need to.

After thinking hard on the drive here, I’ve finally figured out what I want—and need—to do.

It’s something I should have done years ago, and it’s why I’m so terrified.

I’m standing at the lounge window, arms crossed, peering out into the darkening late-afternoon street as Chris stands behind me.

Something struck me shortly after Chris leaped in to defend me.

Something so important that I need to tell Chris, and I don’t know how. There’s trusting someone to have your back in a fight, the way I trust him to have mine. But this thing… this new thing I’m trusting him with feels so much bigger—and terrifying.

“Zoe?” Chris’s voice is quiet.

When I don’t turn to face him, he joins me at the window.

“Now that Colton is here, I suppose you’re going to be packing up and going back with him to Winter Lake,” I say, trying to keep my voice flat. Nerves are cramping my belly, and I’m scared.

“That’s right,” Chris says. “Between the four of us, it shouldn’t take long to finish packing up the U-Haul.”

I nod.

There are things I want to say. Plenty of things, but actually opening my mouth and saying them is proving impossible.

And then Chris grasps my arm and gently turns me to face him, and his fingers grip my chin and angle my head up.

He gives me a probing look and then a faint smile. “I knew sleeping with you would be a mistake.”

All the muscles in my body tense at his soft admission. Before I’m conscious of having moved, I’ve backed up, getting ready to run away from more cruelty.

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