Page 73 of His Little Secret in Discretion
The seriousness in his tone landed hard in my chest. He wasn’t joking. He hadn’t been sleeping. He’d been watching, waiting.
The tears I’d held back all night rushed up at once. My throat burned as I took a shaky step closer, my arms wrapping around myself like I could hold all the pieces in. “You—you had me followed?”
“Ah, ah, ah.” His gaze grew pointed. “I had youprotected. There’s a difference. Don’t confuse the two.”
I could only shake my head, the brisk night making my nose run as I wiped it away pathetically. “I don’t know why you’d even bother. I told you I’m not worth it.”
He looked at me… really looked at me, like he was trying to process my words. “And I told you, Sunshine, that I’m going to marry you.”
After a second, something inside me snapped. Not in anger—dear God, I was too tired for that—but in relief. In bone-deep exhaustion. In the realization that for once, I didn’t have to hold it all together, because he was already here, already standing guard. The weight of everything—my uncle, Felix, the blacklisting, the endless scraping by—crashed into me at once.
Before I knew it, I was stumbling forward, my bag slipping off my shoulder as I threw myself into him. His chest was solid, unyielding, and I buried my face against it like I could disappear. My arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him in. His scent… clean, expensive, sharp, it overpowered the despair of the night that was still clinging to me.
His arms came around me instantly, strong and sure, caging me in without hesitation. He didn’t ask. He didn’t soothe. He just held me, like he’d been waiting for me to break.
“Shhh, you’re okay, Sunshine. You’re okay.”
His words sank into my skin, but they didn’t fix the ache in my chest. I was still shaking, still clinging on like the helpless girl I felt I was. The shame of it burned worse than the cold air biting at my cheeks.
“I’m not,” I mumbled into his shirt, voice muffled against the expensive fabric. “I’m not okay. I’m never okay.”
He tightened his hold, one hand spanning the back of my head, pressing me in until my face was buried where his heart beat steady and sure.
“I can’t keep doing this,” I whispered, my throat raw. “I can’t keep trying to fix everything and—and losing myself in the process. I can’t even get a job. I’m nothing, Blaine. Felix made sure of it. My uncle—” my voice cracked “—he’s never going to change. And I’m the idiot who keeps hoping he will.”
He pulled my hair back softly, causing my head to tilt up as I rested my chin on his chest. He didn’t push for clarification on what I’d told him, just held me as he listened, his boyish charm still present in his facial expression, in contrast to my probably miserable one.
“You let me handle it, baby. You let me handleyou.”
I shook my head, chest heaving as another sob caught. “But what if I can’t? What if I don’t know how to let someone take care of me?” The words came out jagged, humiliating. “What if I don’t deserve it? What if I don’t deserve you?”
“I should be asking you that same question, Sunshine. What if I don’t deserve the beautiful woman who sacrificed herself for the people she loved? What if I don’t deserve to ever look at the ground she walks on? What if I don’t deserve to be selfish and keep you all to myself, hmm?”
My lips trembled, my breath stuttering as his words sank in. He said it so matter-of-factly, like I was some priceless thing he’d already claimed, like he couldn’t even fathom me belonging anywhere else. And at this point, I wasn’t sure I wanted to belong anywhere else either.
His forehead tipped to mine, his voice dropping lower, rougher. “You or anyone else doesn’t get to decide your worth, Sunshine. Not anymore. That’s mine to measure.”
“Blaine…” It was all I could manage.
“And as far as I’m concerned, my little sugar baby Sunshine? You’re everything. More than fucking everything.” He pushed a hair behind my ear, looking down at me like I was the only woman on earth and not the mess I’d made myself believe.
My knees nearly gave out, his words wrapping around me tighter than his arms. I’d been drowning for so long I forgot what it felt like to come up for air, and now here he was… forcing breath back into my lungs, forcing me to see myself the way he saw me.
Something inside me broke at that. It splintered, cracked wide open, and all I could do was cling to him harder, letting the tears soak his shirt, because I didn’t know how to hold myself together. Not when I didn’t have to do it alone anymore.
We’d made it back to his penthouse. When the tears had slowed and the silence between us was softer, he carried me upstairs without asking. One arm under my knees, the other steady around my back, like I weighed nothing. By the time he set me on the edge of the bed, my body had gone limp from exhaustion.
Yanking his shirt over his head in one smooth motion, he tossed it aside, his hands immediately finding the bottom of mine to pull it over my head. His lips lowered to kiss my collarbone as I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer.
His mouth trailed down, heat sinking into my skin with every kiss he pressed against me. My fingers tangled in his hair, desperate to keep him close, to hold onto the one place I still felt steady.
“I know what it's like…” he murmured against my skin. “To think you’re hard to love, Sunshine. To feel like all of your efforts were meaningless.”
I stilled, my chest tightening.
“Blaine…” My voice cracked on his name, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“My mother…” He swallowed. I tried to meet his gaze, but it was slipping past me like he couldn’t quite stand to hold it. “She was addicted to everything but me. Pills to wake up, pills to sleep. Designer bags stacked in closets she never even opened. Champagne at noon, vodka at night. Always chasing something that wasn’t us.” He buried his head in my neck, breathing in my scent once more, his body trembling slightly under my touch.
