Crowned by Fate (Crowned 2)

“Don’t talk,” he growls out softly. “I’ve failed you way too much, Isa.”

I keep my mouth closed because I’m afraid that if I say anything, one word, it will break him out of whatever he’s about to say. “I don’t deserve you.”

I reach out for him until his warm arm connects with the palm of my hand and I squeeze around it like a vise. “Shhh. Come here.”

“I did something.”

I pause. Thoughts flash through my mind at what that could mean, and honestly, with it being Bryant, the border is vast. But none of that matters.

He clears his throat, and I have to fight the urge to crawl up out of bed and make my way onto his lap. “You can leave tomorrow, baby. I won’t stop you.”

I still, my fingers flexing over his thick arms. Pulling the cover of my sheet off my body, my feet blindly find the floor. “Why are you saying this?” I whisper, until I’ve rounded the bed. My knees connect with his legs and my heart thunders in my chest. “Why the change of heart?”

A dark chuckle reverberates around the room, sending shivers down my spine and right to my toes. “I don’t have a heart.”

My hands come to his thighs. I feel him tense beneath the palm of my hand as I lean forward, skimming my lips over his. Warmth. Comfort. Home. “Why are you saying this?” I repeat.

His hands cover mine and he squeezes but doesn’t kiss me back. I ignore the sting it causes in my chest. I shouldn’t. It’s what I’ve always wanted, isn’t it? “I have to show a united front, Isa. I need a wife, and if you can’t—” he breathes out. “I love you, Isa. It will always fucking be you. Above every-fucking-thing there will always be you, with your smart-ass mouth and your sexy smirk, but I can’t.”

My smile falls and realization comes crashing into me.

“I’m going to win this election, baby. I know you don’t want me, you’ve made it painfully obvious how much you want to leave, so I’m telling you that you can leave tomorrow. I’ll have PR cover it, while giving it a respectable amount of time before announcing my engagement to Stacey.”

I rear back as if I’ve been slapped across the face. Hot tears sting the corners of my eyes. “What?”

“This is what you wanted, I’m only fast-tracking it so you don’t have to wait two weeks.”

I want to scream at him, but the words are stuck in my throat, caged by the pain his have caused.

“I—” I pause, breathing in and out. “You want me to leave?”

Silence. I hate that we can’t see each other, so I step backward in search of the light switch, only the light I hit on is the bathroom. It will do, giving me enough to view his face. “You want me to leave?”

Bryant is sitting on my bed shirtless with his slacks unbuckled. I tilt my head at the way his abs tense beneath the intricate art of his tattoos. It’s the first time I’ve seen Bryant somewhat unhinged. His hair is disheveled all over his head, his cheeks flushed and his neck straining with veins, but his eyes? His eyes are a mix of frantic and defeated.

“Bryant…” I whisper, taking small steps until I’m directly in front of him. My fingers come to his chin. “I don’t want it to be like this.”

He laughs sarcastically. “What the fuck do you mean, Isa?” He glares at me from beneath his lashes. “This is exactly what you wanted. You made it known to begin with, and guess what?” He stands, and I watch as his tongue slicks over his bottom lip and his eyes come straight to mine.

I recognize the shift in him.

You don’t marry a man like Bryant without recognizing his energy shift.

“I fucked Stacey tonight.” He leans down to my ear. “And it felt fucking good.” He barges past me, leaving my mouth open and my heart in tatters on the ground.

You can hate life, but you need to live it anyway.

-Isa

Pain. The searing hot emotion is pulsing through my veins and slashing in my eardrums. I haven’t slept at all. My eyes weak and heavy. I know that I need to get up and get ready, but I can’t get last night out of my head.

It’s not that he fucked Stacey.

It’s that for the first time ever, he’s given up on me.

My plan has suddenly been thrown into a blender and been chopped, sliced, diced, and turned to puree.

Nothing. Matters.

There’s a knock on the door but I don’t answer.

“Isa…” Max says from the other side. “I’m coming in.”

“Really needed a lock in this room,” I mumble when the door opens and closes behind him.

“Are you okay?”

He takes a seat on the chair beside me, his hand coming up to my hair. “I came down to check on you last night when I heard part of that conversation.”