But wasn’t that what young love was? Feeling that passion? That preoccupation with another human?
“I told him to keep on her. Her death wasn’t an accident. She swerved into the opposite lane of traffic because she was trying to lose her tail.”
My hand flew up to my mouth. “Oh my god.”
“Exactly.”
“Does anyone else know about this?” I asked tentatively.
“The P.I. does.”
I nodded, taking it all in. Tugging on my hair, I made my way to the couch and sat down, trying to process. So the cops had called the incident an accident. The way Donovan spoke, he sounded like he believed he was culpable of murder.
And was he? What he described was…well, it wasn’t normal. It certainly wasn’t healthy. But who was I to be the therapist? I liked to play rape with the guy who’d saved me from being raped myself.
But hiring a P.I. wasn’t a crime. Whatever they’d fought over, whatever his jealousies had been or his insecurities were that had driven him to feel like he needed one—those belonged to a different Donovan. He’d been so young.
And even if there had been an investigator on the road that night tailing her, someone that Amanda had been trying to escape, wouldn’t it still be an accident? It wasn’t like the P.I. had tried to run her off the road. It wasn’t like he’d meant for this to happen.
Donovan was taking too much of this on himself.
And the more I thought about it, the more I understood how he felt—I really did. Death did that, skewed things, built nests of guilt out of twigs of misdeeds and neglect. When my father died, and I’d been across the country at Harvard, I’d blamed myself for not being around. If I had been there to help carry the burden of raising Audrey earlier, maybe he wouldn’t have felt so much pressure. Maybe he wouldn’t have had the heart attack that had killed him.
I did blame myself. A lot of the time, at first. It didn’t mean I’d actually killed him. And even though Donovan had been overzealous in his passion, he hadn’t actually killed Amanda.
Maybe no one had ever told him that before.
I looked up to find Donovan watching me with hawk eyes, probably trying to read my mind. “I know you feel responsible, but this wasn’t—”
He cut me off. “This wasn’t my fault? I paid that driver to be there. I told him not to lose her. I told him to be aggressive.”
My heart pinched. All these years he’d been holding this inside. Been carrying this weight himself.
I shifted so I was facing him with my entire body. “Donovan…” I said gently, tenderly, wishing I could take his pain away.
“And it won’t happen again,” he stated emphatically. “Do you see now? How I can’t let it happen? How I won’t be that person again?”
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I jumped up and ran to him. “You can’t do this to yourself.” I threw myself against him, running my hand over his chest. “You can’t keep holding yourself hostage over something that happened over ten years ago. It was an accident.”
He refused to hold me in return. Refused to even touch me. “It wasn’t an accident. It was my fault. She’s dead because I loved her.”
I reached up to cup his cheek. “You can’t spend the rest of your life punishing yourself for something that you didn’t intend to happen. You can’t spend the rest of your life alone.”
He stepped back, pushing me off of him. “I’m not punishing myself for anything.” His expression was hard, his tone harder. “I’m making sure that no one else gets hurt. I’m keeping yo—” He cut himself off. “I’m keeping others safe. Like I should have kept her safe.”
We stared at each other, unmoving. We were at a strange stalemate. In simple terms, I wanted something that he refused to give. If it were really that simple, I could walk away. I could recognize the futility of fighting for him and walk the hell away.
But it wasn’t that easy. It was thread upon thread of complicated, so many strands between us that wove us together. Even when he’d first taken my virginity, back when I’d been na?ve and innocent, I knew that his broken fit my broken.
I ached for him now. I agonized for every day he’d let himself believe he deserved to be alone. I anguished thinking that he might walk out of my apartment without me changing his mind.
I couldn’t let that happen. I refused to let him leave without a fight.
But he’d already pushed me away, already withdrawn. There was only one way I knew to reach him.
“Donovan,” I said, untying my robe and letting it fall to the floor. “Touch me.” I approached him and wrapped one hand around his neck and rubbed the other over his cock, which instantly came alive under my palm. “Touch me,” I whispered again, as I pulled his mouth down to cover mine.
He hesitated only a few seconds before he tangled his fingers in my hair and yanked it until I moaned against his lips. Then he devoured my cries with his tongue, licking them up, savoring them.
Soon he began biting down my jaw and neck.
I pressed my mouth against his ear and told him what he needed to hear. “I know you’ve been carrying this weight around for so many years, and it’s hard to put it down because you don’t know how not to carry it anymore, but you have to put it down now. Put it down and let me make it better.” Let me love you.
His kisses slowed as I spoke, and by the time I’d finished, he’d completely stilled.
Then, suddenly, he yanked my head back again, hard. Harder than he had ever before. With his other hand at my throat, his eyes pierced into me. “Who could forgive a man for something like that? Who would want a man like that?”
“I would!” I cried, meaning it with everything I had in me. “I do! I forgive you!”
He searched my face, and for half a moment I thought I had him. Thought that he got it. Thought that we had a chance.
But suddenly the green flecks disappeared from his eyes and they turned dark.
“Well, I can’t,” he said roughly. “I’m not risking anyone, Sabrina. This is the life I’ve chosen, and I’m not changing it for you.”
Without another word, he pushed me away and walked out the door, leaving me naked and broken and alone.
Thirty-One
Monday morning I woke up with puffy eyes and a pounding headache.
Coffee and a long shower helped with both, but even though I knew makeup would fix the rest, I called the office and said I’d be in a couple of hours late so I could miss the operations meeting scheduled for that morning. I knew I’d have to deal with seeing Donovan eventually, but it didn’t have to be first thing on a Monday.