Claim Me (Stark Trilogy 2)

“I won’t,” I say, warily. His mood is definitely off, but then again he’s about to fly to a foreign country to be tried for murder. I should probably cut him a little slack. “I won’t ever go.”

“Which is why I have to be the one to leave you.”

I freeze, then play back his words in my head. That can’t be right. Surely, he didn’t say what I think he said.

“I’m sorry,” he says. This time the words are slow and clear and so gentle they bring tears to my eyes. “I’m breaking up with you, Nikki. It’s over.”

A roaring fills my ears. I must be hallucinating. Dreaming. This is a nightmare. Because there is no way—no way in hell—that Damien Stark just said those words to me.

And yet I am standing here, and I am looking at him, and the chill that has settled over me doesn’t have the quality of a dream. It is reality. It is desolation. I remember its cold harshness from my childhood, and that is not a reality to which I want to return.

I realize that I have been slowly shaking my head, and I force myself to speak.

“I—No. No, it’s never over. I’m yours, Damien. Forever. You said so yourself.”

He winces and turns his head away as if he can’t stand the memory of those words. “I was wrong.”

“The hell you were. What the hell is going on here?” I’m angry now, and I’m glad of it. Angry Nikki won’t cry. Angry Nikki will demand some goddamned answers.

“I told you that I would leave if that was what it took to protect you.” His voice is so calm and even that I want to smack him.

“Protect me? Damien, we’re doing fine. I’m doing fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re a mess with all the press about the portrait, Nikki. Don’t try to deny it. I saw the way you looked in the bathroom. You wanted to slice deep into your flesh. You were ready to break the mirror to get at the glass. You wanted blood, Nikki. You wanted pain.”

I am silent. I can’t argue, because what he says is true. I can only say simply, “But I didn’t go there.”

“It will get worse. It already has.”

I don’t know what he’s talking about.

“The press, Nikki. They’re not focusing on me. Damien Stark indicted for murder. You’d think that would be interesting, right? Apparently not as interesting as his girlfriend. Who, according to those assholes, isn’t really his girlfriend at all. Just an opportunistic little whore who’ll sleep with anyone who can help her get ahead, murderers included.”

My stomach twists violently, and I’m grateful I only had coffee this morning. “I don’t care,” I lie. “I can deal.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

“Dammit, Damien, I’m not a mom-and-pop food company. Pulling out isn’t going to save me. You’re going to destroy me. I need you. You. Don’t you get that?”

“I can’t bear to see you broken. Not when I’m the one who is breaking you.”

“You are breaking me!” I shout. “If you walk away from me, you’re going to snap me in two.”

“No,” he says simply.

I only realize I am crying when I taste the salt of my tears. “I thought you said I was strong. Or was that just bullshit?”

“You are,” he says, his voice maddeningly calm. “Strong enough to stay despite me dragging you into hell. I’m the one who’s weak, Nikki, because I kept you in the spotlight for too damn long. I couldn’t leave you, and that hurt you. But I’m fixing it now.”

He zips up the suitcase and hefts it off the bed. For a moment, he stands there, just looking at me. I am scrambling for words, trying to figure out the magic formula to make him take it all back—but this is not a fairy tale and I am learning the hard way that there is no happily ever after. Then he walks to the door.

He is leaving me. Damien Stark. The man I trusted above all others to never hurt me. He is walking away from me, and he’s ripping my heart out as he goes.

Cold fury whips through me, laced with desolation. Tears trail down my cheeks as I bend and unfasten the emerald ankle bracelet. I take a breath and hurl it at him. “Damn you, Damien Stark,” I whisper. “Damn you for giving up on us.”

He pauses and I see the pain on his face. He glances down at where the bracelet has landed on his feet. He starts to reach for it, then stops. I watch his face, expecting words of comfort. But they don’t come. Instead, I hear only the two words I wish were silenced: “Goodbye, Nikki.”

And then he is gone.

I am not sure how I manage the drive to Malibu, but I do. And when I pull into Evelyn’s drive, I can barely see, what with the tears swimming in my eyes.

“Good God, Texas,” she says as she pulls open the door. “What happened to you?”

“He left me,” I say, choking the words out between sobs. “He thinks he’s protecting me, and so he dumped me.”

She sucks in air. “Damn fool of a boy,” she says. “I don’t care what everyone says about him being a goddamned genius, he fucked this one up, Texas. He damn sure did.”

Her words only make me cry harder.

“Aw, hell, girl, get inside.”

“Is Blaine here?”

“He’s in the studio,” she says, referring to a separate building on the property. “It’s okay. Cry all you want.”

“I don’t want to cry,” I say. “I want him back. But he’s so damned convinced he’s doing the right thing.”

“What the hell does he think he’s protecting you from?” she asks as she leads me to the kitchen and sits me down at the table.

“The paparazzi.”

“Phhht,” she says. “Fuck ’em.”

“I wish they were that easy to blow off.” I eye her critically. “Blaine didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

I don’t want to go into this, but I need help. And she needs to understand why Damien left. Why he thinks that he has to leave.

“I have scars,” I finally say.

She nods slowly. “There’s one on the painting. On your hip. Looks to be some on your thighs, too, but the shadows make it hard to tell. So what happened to you, Texas?”

I swallow. “I happened to me.”

The words hang there, and I wait for my tears, but they do not come. I don’t know if it’s me or if it’s Evelyn, but it’s easier to talk about now. No, that’s not true. I do know. It’s me. Damien has helped me change the way I look at my flaws.