She couldn’t breathe. She tried taking deep breaths, but she couldn’t breathe. It hurt too much. Tears slid over her nose and landed to puddle in front of her eyes on the harsh tile of the floor. The door opened and Adam came in. He didn’t say anything, he just lay down next to her. His hand found hers, and he laced their fingers together.
Her sobs shook her, and she couldn’t stop them. Her entire body cried out in denial, her soul felt like it had been torn in half. She missed him, and he hadn’t been gone for more than a few hours.
Adam rolled and pulled her into him, his stomach against her back, and he held her while she shook from grief and her sobs robbed her of breath. Adam held her while she cried, not saying a word, but just holding her to let her know he was there and she was loved. She appreciated that more than she could say.
Her sobs quieted, and she stared at the white plastic of the small tub in front of her. She wanted to feel numb, but she didn’t. Every breath, every movement hurt. Never had she imagined losing Nikoli would hurt this much. She felt like she was the one who’d been in the accident this morning. Her skin felt raw, her lungs burned, and her heart…her heart was just broken.
She was broken.
***
“You look like shit.”
Nikoli raised blurry eyes to see his brother standing above him. Kade took a seat across from him at the table. The waitress came over, and he asked for a beer. “What are you doing here?”
“Luther called me. Said you’d been drunk for the last week and you wouldn’t listen to him.”
Luther needed to mind his own damn business. Liquor numbed the pain.
“What has gotten into you?” Kade continued. “You’ve never been much of a drinker.”
That was before he lost the one person who really mattered to him.
“Go home, Kade.”
“No, I’m not going home.” He thanked the waitress as she set his beer down in front of him. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you seriously binge drinking because of some chick?”
“You don’t know a thing about Lily.” He winced at the slur in his voice. “You don’t understand what I did to her.”
Kade’s eyes sharpened. “Nikoli, you didn’t do anything that can get you in trouble, did you?”
Nikoli snorted. “No.”
Relief swept over Kade’s face. “You need to pull yourself together, little brother.”
“I love her.”
That made Kade shut up. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.
“Then why the fuck are you sitting here, drunk off your ass, instead of with her?”
“You know why.”
Kade flinched. He did know why.
“She’s not Jessica.” Her name still brought a scowl to both their faces.
Jessica Frasier. Her name still left a bad taste in Nikoli’s mouth. The summer before he started Boston University, he’d gone to spend the summer with Kade in Virginia. Jessica had been his brother’s girlfriend. Blonde, beautiful, and a manipulative bitch at heart. She’d started to flirt with him the day he’d arrived. Kade had told her how proud he was of Nikoli for what he’d accomplished, had told her about Nikoli’s business.
His brother had been in love with her.
It hadn’t mattered to Nikoli. The woman had convinced him that she loved him after a few weeks there, and he’d believed her. He’d been young and stupid, and he’d almost ruined the relationship between him and Kade. It still wasn’t what it was, but they’d both realized soon after who Jessica really was at heart. Nikoli had hurt his brother, had taken what was his and never looked back. Maybe the pain he felt now was karma’s way of paying him back.
She’d demanded things from Nikoli from the beginning, and he’d obliged her by buying anything she wanted. He’d left his brother’s apartment and had been staying with Jessica. He’d come home one day and overheard a conversation she was having with someone on the phone. She’d been gloating about landing the rich brother, laughing while she told whoever about how she’d convinced Nikoli he loved her and about how she was now set for life.
Realizing what she’d made him do, he’d simply walked out and gone to find his brother. It had hurt, sucker punched him. At the time, he’d thought he loved her. He’d been so ashamed of what he’d done to his brother. He’d confessed to Kade what he’d overheard, and Kade had forgiven him. Jessica had manipulated them both. It had skewed both of them in their expectations of women. Neither had had a relationship that lasted longer than an hour since then.
Jessica had ruined him. Nikoli had loved her, or at least he thought he had at the time. He understood the difference now. He understood the difference between lust and love. He loved Lily, but he’d lusted after Jessica, and in the process had almost lost his brother. It would cause any sane man to pause.
“Nikoli, you know I’m the first person to advocate bachelorhood, but I think you need to get over it and go get your woman back.”
Nikoli’s head snapped up. Kade sat there sipping his beer. Looking all sage and wise.
“The day I met her, I knew you were sunk. The way the two of you were together…there was a connection there. I went home thinking my little brother found his one.”
Nikoli was shaking his head before his brother even finished speaking.
“I can’t.”
“Little brother, you’re sitting here so drunk, I don’t think you can stand up. Luther says you’ve been like this all week, blowing off classes, and angry at the world. If you love the girl, you need to own up to it.”
“I told her I didn’t love her.” Nikoli downed the shot of tequila he’d just poured. “She said she loved me, and I sat there and broke her. Her face…” He closed his eyes at the memory.
“I’m sure if you talked to her…”
“No,” Nikoli interrupted his brother. “It’s better this way.”
Kade didn’t say anything after that, but the look of disgust he gave Nikoli spoke volumes. Yeah, he was stupid. He knew that, but he was afraid.
Kade asked for his bill and paid Nikoli’s tab as well. “Let’s get you home. If you want to destroy your chance at happiness, man, go for it, but I’m not letting you binge drink anymore. If I have to call every bar in Boston to cut you off, I will.”
Nikoli barely remembered Kade hauling him up. All he could think about was Lily.
It was better this way.
Chapter Nineteen
Nikoli tossed his empty beer can in the direction of the table and studied the crowd. His frat house was packed with drunken hot chicks, and he was finding it difficult to even look at one. He kept thinking about Lily. Her eyes haunted him. He hadn’t been back to the penthouse since their night there. God knew he’d tried, but the thought of going there without her was too much. Maybe it was time to put it up for sale. He was graduating this semester and leaving Boston. He and Luther were setting up their corporate offices in New York. They’d decided on that two years ago, but now Nikoli was rethinking the location. Lily was moving to New York after graduation.
Fuck. She shouldn’t be able to do this to him. He was seriously reconsidering relocating to a different city. She was just a chick. He tried to tell himself that every day, but he knew better. Lily Bells was special. She was kind, beautiful, full of love and joy, and she made him feel. Feel so much more than anyone ever had. She made him feel in a way that touched him to his core. It scared him. Enough that he let her walk away from him. Even after she told him she didn’t want Boy Wonder, that all she wanted was him. He’d broken her heart. Her eyes…fuck, he could still see the pain in her eyes. It cut him to his core, and he hated that she could do that to him.
Hated that he loved her.
At least he’d stopped drinking himself into oblivion every day.