Page 106 of A Dark Duet

“Let me go,” she says, snatching her wrist from my hand.

I look down at her beautiful face. “Brie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you or make it sound that way. I can’t take you home right now. You need to stay with me.”

“I don’t want to stay with you. You need to leave me alone and let me go.”

“No, I can’t. It’s not safe for you to be alone. You don’t sleep when you're all alone and it’s not healthy.”

She laughs sarcastically. “You know what’s not healthy, being around you. Being around a man that only looks at me with pity. That right there isn’t healthy. Stop trying to be my fucking savior. I’m not saying I don’t appreciate you and everything you have done for me, but you need to stop feeling sorry for me. I don’t want your money, help with sleeping at night, and I sure as hell don’t need a pity fuck.”

I flinch at her words, cutting me deep. I have nothing to say to her because I don’t know how I truly feel except that I care so much for her, and I need her. My promise to keep her safe was broken when I let her go and I know I don’t deserve a second of her time.

She walks out and I’m walking right behind her. Jake, Brian, and Nick are waiting by the front.

“Charles left after we assured him it was okay to go. He said to call him to let him know how Brie was doing,” Nick says.

I nod and all three pairs of eyes move to where Brie is standing with her bag over her shoulder in nothing but my oversized hoodie and Converse sneakers.

“Let me ask you guys something. How did you end up at Equinox?”

Jake, Brian, and Nick look at me nervously. Fuck. My stomach clenches, knowing where she is going with her question.

Jake swallows nervously. “I know someone who is a member and got an invite for Jaden after his last fight to celebrate,” Jake says. My eyes close and I know she is going to figure out that we were there by chance, a coincidence.

She bites her lip with her teeth, chewing on her lip and then says, “I see.”

My heart squeezes because that would mean it was exactly the way it sounds. That I was never looking for her.

She turns to me, and her eyes are dark and haunted, mixed with anger and hurt. Fuck, how could I get it so wrong with her? She smirks and it scares me because she is shutting down from me and pulling away.

“If you were never invited, you never would have known I was there. You should have just enjoyed the show and left me alone. It wasn’t like you were looking for me or anything,” she says, walking away.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

She whirls around and faces me once again. “To my apartment, alone.”

“You can’t sleep alone.”

She snickers sarcastically. “I have been sleeping alone. Dealing with my own shit before you and after you. Stop acting like you give a shit and don’t feel sorry for me. I’m doing you a favor and staying away from you. You have a fight card with three fights ahead of you that you have to train for, and you don’t need me in the way,” she says, looking down at her phone, typing away.

After ten minutes, a black Merc pulls up outside with a driver holding open the door.

My face contorts in rage because the only person she could have messaged that has a fucking driver is Ethan Carter.

“You called him?” I growl.

She glares at me. “Yeah, I called him. Told him I needed a ride home because, obviously, I don’t have a car and cannot call an Uber because it’s late. So yeah, I called him. Now get out of my way.”

She moves to leave, and I block her exit. She stops up short and stares at me. “Get out of my way, Jaden.”

“No. I’m not letting you leave. I’m taking you home. My home. Where you belong.”

Giving her my back, I open the front door to the gym and speak loud enough for the driver to hear. “She doesn’t need a ride. Tell your boss that I’m taking her to my house, where she will be in my bed. Preferably, naked.”

“Jaden, what the hell?” she barks, trying to get in front of me to reach the car, but the driver is on the phone relaying my message.

The driver turns and looks my way after he discreetly talks in a low voice on his phone. “My boss says that she would have to tell him herself,” the driver says.

Looking at Brie, I give her a hard stare. “Tell him, Brie. Because if you don’t, I will personally go over to where Ethan is and it’s not going to end well.”

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