Page 197 of Hold Me Until Morning

“He was a bad guy, Hailey. Really bad. I didn't realize just how bad until I was in too deep. After he’d already given me enough money to pay off my mother’s debt. After I’d already taken the money and given it to her...”

“What happened?” I almost begged it.

A shiver rocked down Cody’s spine. “There was this guy who’d gotten a couple beat downs. Owed a shit ton. Refused to pay. Brent came to me with an extra hundred grand to take care of the problem.”

Horrified disbelief slammed me on a rogue wave. “Oh my God.”

Cody’s throat rolled heavily as he swallowed. “It’s why your father hates me. I went to him for help, and I confessed what was going on. He called a friend at the Feds to take care of Brent and break up the ring he was running. He told me I got a free pass since I’d done the right thing and come to him, but he warned if I ever showed my face anywhere near him or his family again, he was going to see to it that I never had the capacity to make that mistake again.”

He sucked for the air that had gone missing. “It was the day I left, Hailey. When I came to tell you goodbye because I couldn’t leave without doing it. Then I turned my back and buried my head and kept my nose clean for the last six years, always looking over my fucking shoulder for the day those crimes were going to catch up to me. Worried that someone who knew me then was going to come back for me. That, or your father would finally turn me in.”

“Cody.” I whimpered his name. “But you’re here. With me.”

After every warning.

After every danger.

He pulled back, his thumb tracing beneath the hollow of my eye, the gold of his gaze flaming in the muted light.

“Told you that you’re worth it. Whatever the cost, Hailey, you’re worth it. If anyone has Karma coming their way, it’s me, Hailey. It’s me. So drop this bullshit that you’re in any way responsible for this.”

He was wrong, though.

Pruitt was my responsibility. Cody had nearly been killed because of him.

I blinked through the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “Pruitt isn’t going to stop until I give in.”

“Pruitt can go to hell.”

“This isn’t some drunk guy at a bar throwing fists, Cody.” I begged it. “Pruitt is dangerous, and he won’t let anyone get in the way of what he wants. I should have realized the lengths he would go. I should have run far away, hidden where he could never find us. I never should have come here.”

Cody pulled back and cupped both hands around the sides of my face. “Fuck that, Hailey. You’re right where you belong. With me.”

“I won’t be responsible for you getting hurt any more than you already have been.”

Cody gave me the slightest shake of his head. “It’s too late for me, darlin’.”

He kept staring down at me, both thumbs brushing my cheeks.

Energy thrummed.

Pulsing and compelling.

That connection writhed in the space.

Demanding to be acknowledged.

“It’s too late,” he repeated. “I’m already gone. Already done for. Already yours.”

“Cody.” His name shuddered off my tongue.

Begging him to stop.

To see reason.

His thumbs swept over the moisture that wouldn’t stop falling, voice rough when he murmured, “I’m in love with you, Hailey. So in love with you that there isn’t a piece of me left that doesn’t belong to you.”

My lips parted on a shattered exhalation.

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