Page 73 of Take My Hand

Hayden’s grip on my hip tightens, but he doesn’t speak. Or maybe he does. I don’t know.

“Oh,” Daniel says with mock sympathy. “She hasn’t told you that?” He steeples his hands in front of his chest and cocks an eyebrow at me. “Keeping secrets from your boyfriend? See, how am I supposed to believe you when you say you weren’t cheating on me?”

His words rip through me, spilling my guts on the floor around my feet for everyone around to witness.

He turns his attention back to Hayden. “Well, allow me to fill you in then. She aborted my child a few months before your tour. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

His mouth keeps moving, but I don’t hear any words. Hayden’s hand leaves my hip, but I don’t feel its loss. I will my legs to move, but they stay planted to the floor as if my shoes are made of bricks instead of leather.

She’ll kill your baby too.

In a daze, I vaguely see Hayden gripping Daniel’s shirt, spitting words in his face that I don’t hear. Reid stalks past me in a blur, elbow cocked back before connecting with Daniel’s jaw. I see the blood pool at the corner of his mouth, but my mind still isn’t catching up. Isn’t processing what is happening around me.

I feel an arm gently wrap around my shoulder, trying to steer me away.

Nikolai.

Allowing myself to be folded into his large frame, he turns me away as Walker tries to pull Hayden and Reid off of Daniel.

My body feels as if it’s floating, my ears stuffed with cotton, my vision clouded like my eyes are dilated. I try to keep up with Nikolai as he shoves a path across the floor, but he must sense my disorientation as he slows his pace, tucking me closer to his side. Bodies jostle into me as he leads us through the crowded dance floor, but I barely feel them rock us side to side.

My feet are moving underneath me but I don’t feel them. I don’t feel anything as Nikolai takes us down a dark hallway and to a metal, crusted door that must be a rear exit.

When we reach the end of the hall, he says something that I don’t hear and heads outside the back door to an alley that stretches behind the club.

She hasn’t told you that? Well, allow me to fill you in.

I stand inside, motionless.

Nikolai returns moments, minutes, hours later, and gently guides me outside to a waiting SUV. I recognize Arun behind the wheel but a greeting is lost before it ever hits my lips as Nikolai folds me into the front seat. He buckles my seatbelt for me, as if knowing my fingers wouldn’t cooperate if I tried.

He says something to Arun that I don’t hear before shutting my door and heading back inside.

I stare out the front of the car, counting backward from hundred. But I have to keep restarting as I zone out and lose my place.

Arun reaches over and places a comforting hand on my shoulder, but I can’t bring myself to engage.

She aborted my child just before the tour.

I’m not sure how much time has passed when Hayden pushes through the door of the club, Nikolai and Walker dragging Reid behind him.

Hayden beelines to my door, throwing it open but then hesitating before doing anything else. I’m scared to meet his eyes. Those warm, brown eyes that I’m hoping, I’m praying to a god that I don’t even know exists that he will still look at me the same way he did yesterday. Or this morning, or even just a few hours ago.

His hand is steady as it grazes the side of my face, angling my head to bring us forehead to forehead. He blows out a heavy breath and I pinch my eyes closed. We stay there, just like that, as the guys silently pile into the backseat. The car's temperature rises a few degrees with more bodies inside and my skin is clammy against the leather of the seats.

After a few moments, breath for breath, Hayden pulls away, shuts my door, and climbs in the back.

The shock of the last hour begins to ebb as we drive through the streets of LA, taking with it the numbness that I begin to favor over the impending dread that is now settling in. The shame that coats my skin.

I try to gauge Hayden’s face through the side mirror of the car, but his head is resting back on the seat, brows drawn into a frown, and eyes closed.

As the realization of what Daniel revealed fully sinks in and settles into my bones, I grow more and more worried about what Hayden will look like when he wakes up.

And how he’ll look at me.

25

HAYDEN

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