Page 37 of Ruin Me, Daddy

Temper flashed in her eyes. “Yeah? What about your responsibilities to me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You promised me you’d tell Ace about Roulette, that you’d make sure he didn’t lose his shit over it. But then you walked away. You promised me it would be okay and then you left me.”

Now it was tears sparking in her eyes, tears that threatened to drown him if his own guilt didn’t do the job first. “You’re right. I broke my promises, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby.”

Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply, wiping at her cheeks with her free hand. “It’s fine. I handled it.”

“You told him about Roulette?”

The withering look she gave him when she opened her eyes would have reduced most men to ash on the spot. “Are you joking? Of course I didn’t tell him about fucking Roulette. I just told him that if he needed to talk to me about anything related to the band he could go through Simon, but otherwise not to fucking contact me.”

“How’d he take that?”

“About as well as you’d expect,” she said with a shrug, but the nonchalance of the gesture didn’t match the weariness in her eyes. “He left me alone for a couple of days, and I heard from Crash he was out partying and hooking up with groupies, telling everyone how happy he was to finally be rid of me.” A bark of bitter laughter escaped from her lips. “Less than a week later he was back, begging me to forgive him, to give him another chance.”

Which, in the past, would have worked. But that night at Roulette, Silver had sworn up and down that she was done with Ace, for good. And for the first time in their shared history, Ice had believed her. “You never did tell me what he did to make you so sure you’d never go back.”

“Does it matter?”

“Maybe.” Lifting a hand to her cheek, he brushed away a tear, and forced himself to ask the question he should have asked months ago. “Did he hurt you?”

“Not how you mean. Not physically. But yes. He hurt me, in ways I didn’t even know a person could hurt. And that’s all I really care to say about it for now.”

“Fuck, baby. I’m sorry. I never should have left you to deal with all of that on your own.” And he knew even as he issued the apology, that it would never be enough. That he’d be repenting for that particular sin the rest of his life.

God, what a fucking mess he’d made of things.

“No, you shouldn’t have. But I suppose I should be used to broken promises by now.”

“I deserve that,” he murmured, dipping his head to press a kiss to her forehead. “But it won’t happen again. We’ll go home, I’ll tell Ace about Roulette, about last night, about everything. And I’ll make sure he stops hassling you.”

Relief washed over her face as her eyes fluttered closed. “Thank you. I know I should be strong enough to deal with him on my own, I just?—”

“You’re the strongest woman I know, Amanda Sterling. But it’s okay to let someone else be strong for you every now and then.”

That’s what Daddies do.

Keeping that thought to himself, he pressed his forehead to hers, and for a while they simply stood there, soaking in each other’s strength.

“I should call Simon, see about scheduling our flight,” she said without pulling away.

He’d promised to be strong for her, but he was powerless against the misery in her voice. “Tomorrow’s soon enough. California isn’t going anywhere.”

And when she smiled up at him, gratitude shining from her eyes, he knew no matter how strong he was, she would always be his ultimate weakness.

Silver

She knew, logically, that they were only delaying the inevitable. Eventually, they would have to return to California. And when they did, Ice would finally tell Ace the truth about Roulette night. About his feelings for her. When that happened, Ace would come even more unglued than he normally did during one of their breakups.

And if Ice ever learned the truth of why she had finally, for real called it quits with Ace, he would come unglued.

Either way, their band was ruined, and it was all her fucking fault.

Nice going, Yoko Ono.

Part of her wished she’d stayed in California. Wished she’d tried to work things out with Ace. Or at least put her anger aside enough to be professional with him, despite his betrayal.

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