Page 97 of Call You Mine

Not without Damon by my side, and there is no world where that will happen.

“That’s enough, Wynter,” Scarlett says, her voice suddenly breaking as she wipes away her tears. Teasers she’s shed for me after all the times I was so horrible to her, insulting her andher upbringing like she meant nothing compared to me and my family. Yet here I am now, begging her to save me.

Scarlett places her hand tenderly on my shoulder as she scoots in closer to us, her voice so gentle and heartwarming. “You need to rest and Ace needs to calm his anger before he says or does something he will regret. This is between you and Damon, and all we can do is to be here for you, to support you in any way you need. What we can’t and won't do,” she says, looking her husband in the eye. “Decide your future with him.”

“Like hell we won’t. There is no way I’m ever letting Damon fucking Drake come anywhere near my sister or her baby. You’ll move in with us, have this baby with us, and we can help you raise it alongside Caeli and our new baby. We’ll move away if we have to, but there is no fucking way I’m letting him get to you. Not after he laid a hand on you…” his voice breaks, sorrow so visible in his eyes is almost palpable. He feels guilty, guilty he didn’t see all of this before, and now he’s desperately trying anything to ensure my safety.

But Scarlett’s right, that’s not what I need from him.

“Ace,” she says, her voice now calm in order to not further incite him. “Baby, we can talk in the morning, figure this all out, go to the cops and tell them about the threats. Do whatever we have to do, but right now we need to let Wynter rest.”

“Thank you for being here for me, for listening.”

Ace hugs me tight, tighter than he ever has, and kisses my forehead. I wrap my arms tightly around his body, snuggling into his neck and cursing the years we let keep us apart, the monster we let interfere with our relationship. “God, Wynter, I don’t even know where to apologize for all of this. All you went through because I failed in my one job to protect you.”

My brother, my dear brother, breaks down sobbing for me, for my pain, my sorrow and it nearly kills me.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

DAMON

“I’m going to ask you this once more. Who are you running from, Princess?”

“My husband,” she said.

That was it, the moment my entire world came crashing down. Everything went black, a sharp ringing in my ears as her voice echoed in the empty room. Husband. One simple word that meant the end to this passionate affair between us. Because that’s all it has been, an illicit affair between me and a married woman.

I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me, but this, this I never imagined. It would have been be stupid of me not to suspect there was someone else after the way she showed up at my door, covered in blood and open wounds, with fear brimming from her gorgeous eyes. The way she clearly was running from something, always afraid and looking over her shoulder. Then came the messages, the texts I assumed were from a secret lover she’d left behind. When she wouldn’tconfess, I figured maybe it was her mother who was harassing her, sending her the packages that visibly made her skin crawl.

I left it alone. I tried my hardest to stay away from her, to hold on to some control of the situation when I felt things shifting between us. But I couldn’t. My restraint ran thin every time she touched me to seduce me. Every time I kissed her, felt her beneath my fingertips, tasted her, it grew thinner and thinner until it finally snapped, creating a domino effect that would soon come crumbling down. I could feel it in my bones, in the depths of my soul. Every crack, every break. With every look, the slightest touch, she came closer and closer to pulverizing the wall I set up between us until it could no longer stand on its own. Because I allowed myself to drop it down and let her in.

I gave into temptation, the sexual tension so palpable between us was impossible to ignore and I no longer wanted to deny it. I agreed to her stupid friends with benefits scheme, even though I knew it would never work. I did it all because I couldn’t continue living without claiming her. Without tasting her on my tongue, caressing her body with my hands, feeling her sweet pussy tighten around my cock as she lost herself and came for me.

Soon enough, as expected, we acted like a proper couple. Spent every night together in bed, hung around our group of friends, going places together although we no longer had to pretend. I brushed off the uncertainty and trusted that she would eventually tell me when she was ready.

It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. For someone who needed to control every aspect of his life, I took a chance, let fate have at it and it fucking backfired.

I released her, the anger coursing within me from her betrayal felt all too familiar.

She came to me for a reason, and now I knew what it was. Wynter was running away from a man, not just any man—her husband. And she had the fucking nerve to stand here and tell me she was having my baby. God, the universe has some fucked up sense of humor.

My silence was deafening. I could see the panic in her fear-stricken eyes. The regret she felt for her treachery, though only because she’s been caught and her so-called plan was coming barreling down.

How long was this ruse of hers going to continue if she hadn’t gotten pregnant? Because I’m one hundred percent certain that if I hadn’t discovered her pregnancy, she would have never confessed to being a married woman.

Wynter is fucking married, yet she stood there trying to tell me she lo…I couldn’t even think the word, let alone say it out loud. I couldn’t even get myself to think about it. The rage flowing through my veins was uncontrollable. I was an untamable, raging fire and she was the unruly bitter cold. Both of us were dangerous and volatile in different ways. Yet she was the only one who could extinguish my ire and I the only one who could ignite her passion. Together, we were indestructible.

In one second, she destroyed me. Destroyed what could have been us.

Everything I thought we had was a fucking lie. She played me for a fool, something I swore I would never again be after what I’d gone through with Scarlett, then falling into Clarissa’s trap. The joke was definitely on me now. I did this. I let my guard down, even though every instinct in me told me not to. Every part of me knew this was a risk I shouldn’t have been willing to take, but I couldn’t stop myself. Wynter became a drug I needed, a high that was too powerful, too euphoric to ignore. She was mine, branded by me in every single way, though all of it meant nothing now.

What started out fake was even more counterfeit than I thought. Every part of this foolproof plan turned out to be flawed beyond repair. What we had, what I’d accepted was real after that night I tattooed her, the same night she’d become tattooed on my heart, was a fallacy of my making. I needed to get Wynter Servite out of my head.

Wynter rushed out of the bar and I let her go. I couldn’t get myself to move. I was frozen in time. Everything around me was moving in slow motion, yet I couldn’t do a damn thing but stand there like a statue and watch the woman I thought I loved walk away from me.

How could I love something that didn’t exist?

When she muttered those two words that hit me like a knife to the chest, I didn’t understand how to react. Wynter was pregnant. A fucking baby. Wynter was having my baby. I couldn't help but chuckle out loud to myself. Me, a father—there’d been nothing more ridiculous to me. How the fuck was I supposed to be a dad? I never knew mine, and I was better for it. Growing up there was rarely a day I imagined what my life would have been like if I’d known him. It wouldn’t have changed anything. He would have still been a deadbeat who probably would have screwed me up more if I’d known him. But then I met Nico, and for the three months I knew him, he was the closest thing to a father I’d even known.

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