Page 48 of Price of Victory
“You think I’m circling around whatever’s happening like some kind of vulture, looking for scraps I can take back to Morrison Media Group.”
When he put it like that, when I heard my own paranoid thoughts reflected back at me in his voice, I realized how insane they sounded. But the damage was done, and I didn’t know how to take it back.
“Rhett, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did. And you know what? You’re right about one thing. This was foolish. It was foolish of us to think we could bridge the gap between our families, that we could somehow transcend decades of corporate warfare.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it? Your family sees mine as the enemy, and my family sees yours the same way. We were kidding ourselves if we thought we could be different.”
“We are different.”
“Are we? Because right now, you’re looking at me like I’m the enemy, too.”
I wasn’t. I was looking at him like he was the most important thing in my world, like he was something precious I was desperately trying to protect. But I could see how my defensiveness might come across as hostility, how my attempts to keep him separate from my family’s crisis might look like distrust.
“I don’t see you as the enemy,” I said, but my voice lacked conviction even to my own ears.
“Well, I can’t be with someone who does. I can’t be in a relationship where I’m constantly wondering what you’re hiding from me, what parts of your life you think I’m not worthy of knowing about.”
“It’s not about worth…”
“Isn’t it? Because that’s sure as hell what it feels like.”
He was standing now, gathering his jacket and keys with the efficient movements of someone who’d made a decision and wasn’t going to be swayed from it.
“Don’t go,” I said, and I hated how desperate I sounded. “We can work this out. We can talk about it.”
“Now you want to talk? After spending the entire morning shutting me out, now you want to have a conversation?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what? From caring about you? From being part of your life?”
“From the mess. From the scandal and the media attention and all the toxic bullshit that comes with being connected to my family.”
“That’s not your choice to make. You don’t get to decide what I can and can’t handle, what I am and aren’t willing to deal with for you.”
He was right, and I knew it. But admitting that would mean acknowledging just how badly I’d screwed this up, how my own fear had driven me to push away the one person I couldn’t afford to lose.
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry. I should have trusted you with this.”
“Yes, you should have. But more than that, you should have trusted us. Trusted what we’ve built together.”
“I do trust us.”
“No, you don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be so convinced that one crisis could destroy everything we have.”
He was at my door now, his hand on the handle, and I felt panic rising in my chest. This couldn’t be how it ended, not over something this stupid, not because I’d been too much of a coward to be honest with him.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to my dorm. I need some time to think about whether this is something I want to keep fighting for.”
The words hit me squarely in the chest. “Rhett, please. Don’t do this. Don’t throw away everything we have because I had one bad morning.”
“This isn’t about one bad morning, Aiden. This is about fundamental trust. And right now, I don’t think you trust me enough for this to work.”
