Page 142 of Boiling Point
“How? You can’t talk to them and expect to be believed. It’s your word against—how many? It’s shitty, but it’s the truth.”
That almost made him smile, but it collapsed before it could form. “You think you’ve helped me, Gabrielle, but all I see is that you stepped in front of a firing squad I was meant to face alone.”
I crossed the room slowly, the tension between us stretching taut. He didn’t move when I perched on his desk, my knee brushing his. “But we’re in this together, Cal. Isn’t that the whole point? I did it for you.” I touched his knee. “And I’d do it again.”
He stared down at the rug. “They’ll still twist it. You know they will.”
“Maybe.” I swallowed. “But it won’t be because I stayed silent.”
When he finally lifted his head, he looked wrecked. His eyes focused on me for a second, then went distant and glassy. “Protect the family at all costs.” He recited it like scripture. “This is Claire all over again.”
The lines on his face carved deeper. His jaw ticked as he clenched and unclenched it. He looked older than usual. Not in years, but in history—a man trapped in the sedimentary layers of his past.
I winced at his words. “Cal…that’s not fair.”
He looked through me. “Isn’t it?” His voice went thin and sharp, like wire pulled too tight. “When Claire died, the truth was messy—disgraceful. My father couldn’t bear to acknowledge that his reckless, idiotic son was stupid enough to get a girl killed.”
“You didn’t?—”
“So he spun a clean story, wrapped it in silk, and handed it to the press. He wrote it for me, and I had no say. I never got a vote.” He let out a soft, brittle bark of a laugh. “You see it now? The pattern?”
I leaned in. “It’s not the same. You keep saying it is, but it’s not.”
“You don’t see how you’ve gone and done exactly what my family did?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and drew in a sharp breath to tamp down the sting beneath my ribs. “I didn’t write your story foryou, Cal. I refused to let someone else do it while you stayed gagged. That’s the difference.” I dropped to my knees in front of his chair and pressed my forehead to his. “I didn’t lie to protect you. I told the truth because you weren’t allowed to.”
“You’re right. You didn’t lie,” he said quietly. “But you still went into that room and spoke for me.”
“Because no one else would.”
He flinched—not because it wasn’t true. But because it was.
I took his hands in mine. “Remember when you asked me to marry you?”
“Vividly.”
“You said you got into that cockpit with me because you trusted your life in my hands. And you asked me to trust you with mine in yours.”
He was quiet for so long, I thought I’d lost him. That he’d receded into the spiral stairwell of his mind and I’d never get him back. But then he tightened his fingers around mine, anchoring me to his plane of reality.
He dragged in a breath. “I also recall promising never to let you fall.”
“I haven’t.” I nudged him with my nose. “Except in love with you.”
He laughed. And finally meant it. “That’s rather sappy for you, love.”
“Maybe I read too much romance while you were gone.”
Chapter 51
Callum
“Iwas only gone five days. How much did you read?”
“Making up for lost time. I didn’t get a lot of reading done during the semester.” She grazed her teeth along the shell of my ear. “Tough course load.”
A shiver ran down my spine.
