Show Me the Way (Fight for Me 1)

He started to frantically pace.

“Rex,” I whispered, trying to break through whatever freak out he was having.

“I can’t . . . I can’t believe I just—fuck!” he shouted and threw an aimless punch into the air. “I can’t do this.”

My knees were shaky, and my heart was erratic. I stretched a hand out toward him. “Why can’t you? Why can’t you do this?”

I’d never been a beggar. I’d never chased a man except for the one who’d broken my heart the day I’d turned eighteen. I was a quick learner. If a man didn’t want what I had to offer, then he didn’t deserve me.

Yet, there was something about Rex Gunner that made me want to shout and plead and pound on his chest. Demand he open up. Show me everything he kept shored up inside.

That same something told me he needed what I had to give. That whatever I’d been lacking, he’d found in me, too.

“I have to get out of here,” he said, stalking for the door.

Shocked and confused, I watched, hurt bubbling up and coating my tongue with disbelief.

He was just going to leave? After what we’d just done?

I pressed my lips together, my chin trembling as I fought tears. Tears bred of hope and frustration. “I told you I’m not afraid. Why are you? All I’m asking is that you take a chance on me. Life’s not worth living without taking them.”

He froze at the door, and he laughed this horrible, cutting sound. He shifted to look at me from over his shoulder. “You want to know why I’m afraid, Rynna?”

His head angled to the side, and his eyes brimmed with a kind of hatred I knew wasn’t directed at me. “I’m afraid because I fuck everything up. I’m afraid because everything I touch? Everything I love? Eventually, I taint it. Ruin it. And then there’s nothing left but misery and suffering and fear. And my daughter . . . my Frankie? She’s all I’ve got left. She’s the one good thing that remains unblemished. And the few bits remaining of me? They belong to her, because I’ve already given everything else. I told you, I don’t have anything to offer you. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, but I refuse to do anything selfish or stupid that would put her happiness at risk.”

He opened the door, but he paused, wavering before he peered back at me again. Surrender carved into every line on his gorgeous face. “I don’t have any chances left to take, Rynna Dayne. I’ve already used up all the ones I’ve been given, and if I take anything else? I’d be nothing but a thief.”

Without another word, he strode out, letting the door drop closed behind him.

It was that moment when the man officially twisted me in two.

Because when he walked out that door? He took a part of me I had no chance of ever getting back.

19

Rynna

I was going to be late.

Shit.

I was going to be really, really late.

And I couldn’t be late.

Everything was riding on this meeting.

In one heel and wearing a fitted skirt, I stumbled out of the walk-in closet, which was filled with a bunch of boxes my grandmother had left behind.

I stumbled, my hand darting out to the wall for support, and paused for a beat in an attempt to shimmy on the other heel. Once I was at least the same height on both sides, I tried again.

Two steps away from the small dressing table on the far side of the room, my ankle rolled.

All the way to the side.

Pain splintered up the outside of my leg.

“Shit,” I yelped as I tried to rebound and stop my fall. The only thing I managed to do was to propel myself forward. Falling fast. My hands shot out, and my fingertips just snagged the edge of the stool a split second before my face slammed against the floor.

My knees weren’t so lucky.

They dug into the worn carpet, pantyhose shredded.

Awesome.

My head dropped between my shoulders, and I fought the sting of tears that rushed to my eyes.

Tears of frustration. Tears of worry. Tears of this heartache that had grown every day since Rex Gunner had walked out my door two weeks ago without another word.

I’d told myself I was just being stupid. Foolish. Chasing a man who obviously wanted nothing to do with me. Just because I told myself those things didn’t mean I could so easily convince myself of them. Not when they felt like a lie.

God. Why did life have to be so complicated? I had enough to worry about without the gorgeous man and his adorable daughter who lived across the street. And somehow, they had become the center of every thought.

Laughter jutted from my mouth.

The maniacal kind.

The kind that could have been sobbing. It all depended on how you heard it. Or maybe on the way you looked at it.