Page 23 of Diesel
“I don’t need you to keep me safe. I need you to love me.”
His face falls, like all the fight drains from him.
“I do love you. I love you so fucking much I can’t breathe sometimes, which is the problem.” Another blow that lands in my chest like a grenade. “You look around and you see the perfect life I’ve created for us, but that’s not the true picture.”
What is he talking about? I wrap my arms around my middle, protecting myself from any more hits. “Then what is?”
His eyes are granite, tension tightly wound around every muscle before he shakes his head. “No one can know about you, Kenna. Not ever.”
My stomach sinks. He’s never going to give me a reason, and I don’t know how to live in this echo chamber of half-truths and lies any longer.
“That’s it?” My voice climbs and I press the heel of my palm into my eye, done with this. “That’s all you’re giving me? Some cryptic bullshit that I’m meant to decode? Well, I can’t, Zane. I’m not a mind reader and when you shut down or you refuse to be honest about what you’re doing, I have to guess and then we both get pissed.”
“I’m not asking you to be a mind reader. I’m just asking you to trust me. Everything I’m doing is for you.”
I did trust him. That’s why I’m still here. That’s why I stayed through the lonely nights, the tears, the feelings of being dismissed and unloved.
I laugh. It sounds thin, scraped over too manyheartaches. “You didn’t bring me here for my sake. You did it for your own.”
“If you really think that then you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”
“I don’t think I know you at all. You chained me to the bed! You’ve brought me to the middle of nowhere without even asking. You disappear for days, weeks and then turn up like nothing’s wrong. Who’s the stranger here, Zane? Tell me what the hell is going on, why you’ve treated me like a pit stop for our entire marriage, why you want me to stay hidden. Tell me because I swear if you don’t, I’ll walk and you’ll never see me again. I can’t love a man who keeps me locked out of his life!”
I’m breathless by the time I stop talking. His throat bobs like his words are stuck in it. This is killing me. I don’t want to tear us apart but I don’t see how we move past this unless he starts opening up. For the first time since I met him, he is no longer the anchor that keeps my boat from drifting. He is the weight dragging me into the water while I drown.
He closes his eyes and then he says, “Sit. I’ll tell you everything.”
EIGHT
MAKENNA
For once I’mthe one who is frozen in place. I don’t fidget or move, but he’s still pacing. Zane never paces. He’s stillness and control, even when he’s furious or hurting. He folds everything into himself like a soldier standing in formation. I’ve only ever seen him unravel like this once before.
When he knew he was going to jail.
He’d stared through me like he was already in chains, locked behind a door he couldn’t reach me through. I still remember that last kiss, the way it felt like he was trying to memorise the taste of something he’d never get back.
That same panic is coiled and humming under his skin now.
And I’m terrified. I can’t imagine what he’s going to say. What the fuck is he going to tell me?
I scan the sharp lines of his shoulders, the ink work snaking down his neck, the little silvery line on his temple. His hoodie clings across his chest, the muscles beneath bulging with every step he takes.
He isn’t Diesel. He’s Zane—myZane. He’s the boy I grew up with. The boy who loved me through all the darkness and suffering.
He’s the man who went to prison for protecting me. He’s the man I made my husband the moment he was free.
And he’s who I thought I’d grow old with.
His brows draw together, knitted tight until there is a small indentation between his eyes. “You look like you want to hurl.”
He’s not wrong. My stomach is rolling. “Yeah, well, I don’t know if you noticed but the last few days have been fucking stressful. Is it any wonder I feel sick?”
He chews over this, just like he does everything, a deeply contemplative look on his face. He’s trying to reason his way through this, trying to make sense of something that he doesn’t completely understand.
“I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to. His apology doesn’t come with excuses or explanations for his behaviour. It’s just given.
