The Regret Series Complete Collection Box Set: Lost to You, Take This Regret, and if Forever Comes (76 page)

Violence trembled from his seething bones, his face pinched in pain as he cast his devastation on me.

Logan jumped to his feet, his body a barricade as he stepped in front of me. His voice dropped in slow disbelief. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Protective aggression curled through his muscles as he took a stance in front of me. Shielding me.

That was impossible. There was no defense. Nothing that could defend me from the force of Christian.

I stared up at the man, the one who inhabited every significant memory of my life, the pain and the joy, the love and the ecstasy, the misery and the torment.

And anger.

It was glaring. Overwhelming.

I was
so
angry.

Blue eyes blazed at me with disgust, destroyed, spearing me to the couch.

Pain sliced through me, the sharpest knife driven into the pit of my stomach.

And I hurt.

How was it possible to hate a man I loved so much?

Chapter Nineteen

Christian

Present Day, Early October

Elizabeth and I had been through so much.

Indescribable bliss and devastating sorrow.

Our love ran so deep, and yet, it seemed our wounds ran deeper.

Some of those wounds had seemed unbearable, inflictions impossible to recover from.

No doubt one came with the regrets of the greatest mistake I’d ever made, the day Elizabeth had been forced to choose between me and Lizzie before she was even born, the day I’d sent her away to live life on her own, scared and alone.

Another had been the day Lillie was taken from us. Our hearts had ruptured when she was ripped from our lives.

I once believed the other had been the day I’d walked out of Elizabeth’s house little more than three months ago. I couldn’t imagine hurting any worse than that moment, when I’d snapped
the door shut to block out the overwhelming sorrow of the woman I loved, a wall put up between us because neither of us knew how to deal with the excruciating pain.

But that moment didn’t come close to the devastation that hit me now.

Elizabeth balanced just on the edge of his couch, one leg canted off to the side as if she were getting ready to slip onto the asshole’s lap. Those fingers I knew so well were tangled in his shirt while he held her perfect face between his filthy hands.

Malice curled my hands into fists as I took in the brutality happening ten feet away from me.

He was kissing her.

He was fucking kissing her and touching her.

And the bastard had the nerve to do it while she still wore my ring.

Her head spun in my direction, breaking their connection. Shock widened her brown eyes as she gaped at me from across the short span of the room. Still, it felt like I’d never been further from her than I was now. The distance so great. An impenetrable expanse.

Logan jumped to his feet, and the asshole moved to stand in front of her. Misplaced aggression coiled his muscles. As if I were in the wrong. As if he thought it his job to keep her from me. That was his intention. I knew it. Possessiveness radiated from his posture, as if he had some kind of claim on her.

But he had none.

She was mine, and she was always going to be.

Even through the barrier Logan tried to forge between us, her wary gaze held mine. A storm raged in her expression, tightened in shock, taut in anger, flashed with distinct relief and adoration. I didn’t know if Elizabeth recognized she still held it for me.

The asshole’s voice rang somewhere in my mind. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

My attention snapped up to meet his sneer.

Yes, I was most definitely out of my fucking mind.

How could she do this to me?

I said it aloud, the trauma flowing free. “How could you do this, Elizabeth?” It was an accusation, a rush of emotion squeezed from within. I looked at her with disbelieving eyes, my head slowly shaking as the pain tore through me. “How could you?”

Tears slipped down her face, her lips quivering.

And I knew she had been crying, even before I broke through the door. Like maybe she felt it, too, the chaos that had spun me into a complete fucking frenzy as I pounded the sidewalk outside the bastard’s house for the last fifteen minutes. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I’d tried to peer through the drapes of his window, the two silhouettes obscured, though I’d seen them leaning, pressing, moving.

There was no more standing aside.

I was taking her back.

Logan inched a little farther in front of her. He cocked his head to the side as he narrowed his eyes. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

My laughter was ragged, verging on hysterical.

Because there was no sanity in this situation.

“I’m not going anywhere without her.” I spit the words at him.

Elizabeth whimpered, grasping at the collar of her shirt as she scrambled back on his couch, climbing to her feet on unsteady legs.

I could see the line of her, her face blocked from view, her body shaking as she fumbled a few steps back. And it almost felt
like relief when she came around and stood in the small open area behind the couch. Her face was downturned, and she wavered in indecision.

I made it for her.

“Go get in my car, Elizabeth.” The command slid out low.

A cry erupted from her, as if she were in physical pain. I knew she was.

Logan rushed around the other side of the couch, as if to shield her, as if he knew anything about the woman crumbling in the middle of his room. “She isn’t going anywhere with you.” He extended his arm back to keep her at bay. “Baby, stay back,” came as a quiet assault from his mouth, as if he were sharing some kind of private conversation with her, telling her without words that she didn’t have to be afraid of me.

Baby
.

He called her baby.

Hostility rolled from me in waves as a sweep of possessiveness broke, taking over every cell in my body.

When he took a single step toward me, I charged him. My shoulder collided with his chest.

A horrified scream rose up from Elizabeth, blended with the cries she couldn’t seem to contain. They fed the agitation, the madness that left me unhinged. Because without Elizabeth, I was in pieces. Shattered.

Caught off guard, Logan fumbled backward before he regained his balance. On his toes, he bounced in aggression.

“You are fucking crazy,” wheezed from his lungs. He rushed in, swung wide as he aimed for my face. The punch missed as I ducked my head.

My arm cocked back, insanity flooding from me unlike anything I’d ever known. All I knew was I wouldn’t let him have
her. I wouldn’t, and I couldn’t fucking stand the thought, knowing that the two of them had been together.

Was she sleeping with him? Had she been curled up with him in his bed?

Blinded with fury, I slammed my fist into the underside of his jaw. His head rocked back.

A guttural groan roared from his throat.

Her undying presence nipped at my soul, teased and taunted as I bore down on this asshole who for even a second thought she could somehow be his.

I hit him again, the strike landing on his cheek.

He stumbled back, his own fury mounting a resistance as he surged forward.

Elizabeth screamed.

My attention darted to her, to the one I wasn’t sure I knew any longer.

Sadness poured from her as she witnessed me coming unglued.

Unprepared, distracted by her, his fist connected with my nose. Pain exploded, splitting my vision.

Blood gushed, and I saw red.

I lost it, losing myself in the pent-up rage that I’d harbored for so long. I unleashed it on him, the anger for her, the anger for me, the anger at the injustice of this fucked up world.

Her desperate voice hit my ears. “Christian, please, stop.”

I stumbled back, aggression still curling through my senses as I glared down at the piece of shit who was trying to steal her from me.

I swiped the back of my hand beneath my nose and across my mouth. Blood smeared. Sniffing, I turned my attention to Elizabeth. She was crying, lost, just as fucking lost as me.

“Go get in my car, Elizabeth.” It was hard, harsh with the anger. I realized most of it was directed at her.

She vacillated, shifting, so obviously drawn to the door and drawn to this place where she hid, where she hid behind lies and pretended she didn’t have to face what we’d gone through. Her unsteady gaze met with the intensity of mine.

“Go,” I said.

The brown of her eyes flamed and dimmed, a roil of confusion, harboring a disturbance unlike anything I’d ever witnessed, a disturbance as severe as the one boiling inside of me.

Anger and regret.

Revulsion.

Pain, prominent and suffocating.

Underneath it all was the love that would ever let us go.

She dropped her gaze and shuffled around me, quietly slipping out the door.

I stared at Logan who was trying to pick himself up off the floor, my entire body rocking with hatred. Blood dripped from my nose. Harshly, I wiped it with the back of my hand.

“Stay away from her. Do you understand me? This is
my
family. Did you see that ring on her finger? Do you think this is a game? That woman belongs to me. She always has and she always will. Don’t think for a second you can take her from me. She will love me until the day she dies.”

I’d told a million lies in my lifetime.

That statement was one I knew as the truth.

“Fuck you,” he sneered, roughing the heel of his hand across his bleeding face.

Derisive laughter flooded from me. I backed up, lifting an accusatory finger at him as he straightened. “I’m not joking. Stay
away from her. You don’t know her…not for a second…don’t pretend like you do.”

Then I turned and ran out the door I’d barreled through not five minutes before.

Maybe I’d fucked up and maybe there’d be consequences to pay, my actions lawless as I’d lost myself in my rage. But that mattered none. I’d made a promise to fight for her, and I’d pay whatever cost.

She was worth everything.

Night had completely taken hold, the darkness thick, a blanket of clouds squatting heavily over the city. My silver Audi sat at the curb. The tinted windows concealed Elizabeth waiting inside.

I fought against the anger still burning through my blood, fought against the image of the two of them on his couch. I was sure I’d never be able to purge it from my mind. It blinded me. Scrubbing my palm over my face, I opened the door. The overhead light glowed to life, illuminating Elizabeth in the passenger seat. With her head downcast, she twisted her fingers in knots on her lap.

I sat down, started my car, and put it in drive. Tension stretched between us, the tightest band, something explosive threatening to snap. Anger and fury and unanswered questions bounced between us as I seethed in the silence.

I glanced at her, my lip curling as I swiped the residual of blood from my lip. She didn’t look at me. She just slowly rocked and cried, silent tears gleaming in the street lights that flashed through the windows.

God, I loved her so much. I wanted to hold her, tell her it was going to be okay in the same second I wanted to lash out at her.

It took me all of thirty seconds to get back to her house.

I pulled into the drive and cut the engine. It ticked and hummed. We just sat there, me looking ahead, Elizabeth staring at her hands. The air was so thick, and I could almost hear the heavy thud of her heart. Nausea swirled in my raw stomach.

How would we ever get past this?

With her head down, Elizabeth fumbled blindly with the handle, a sob escaping her as she clambered from my car.

Climbing out, I trailed her up the walkway toward the front door. In the stagnant silence that twisted us tight, there was no room to breathe.

The air was thick, heavy, dense as I hovered right behind her while she fumbled to produce her keys. She trembled as she slid it into the lock and let us into the house that was supposed to be our home.

The door swung open.

She stepped inside, stopping in the entry with her back to me.

Quietly I latched the door behind us, and I edged forward, my chest an inch from her back. A single light burned from deep within the kitchen. It cast a faint glow into the dim-lit room. The walls enclosed around us, a stir of anger and a rush of need. I could smell her, her hair brushing against me as she inhaled, her body palpitating with the ragged breath.

“Did you fuck him?” The words dropped from me in a slow accusation. It was laced with all the hurt of finding the two of them together.

I sensed every one of her muscles tighten, the slow sway of her body as she shook her head.

“No.”

It was a whisper, enough to weaken my knees with the rush of relief, still stoked the fury for what she had given into.

My fingers weaved through her hair, and I barely tugged her back, her jaw lifting as I brought my mouth to her ear. “Is that what you want, Elizabeth? Someone else to touch you?”

A tortured whimper escaped her throat. “No.”

Slowly I turned her around and pushed her up against the wall beside the door. Her back hit it with a thud. A whine rose from deep within her, escaped as agony into the room, something akin to the torture eating me alive. Brown eyes flashed to mine, and she lifted her chin, rigid, this broken girl who looked at me with bitterness and need.

I fluttered my fingertips down the slope of her neck. Every ounce of the pain she’d caused me squeezed into the words that I forced from my mouth.

“Tell me you don’t love me anymore.”

She clenched her jaw.

I erased all the space separating us, flattening myself to her as she shrank against the wall. Still she said nothing.

I curved my fingers around her neck, my thumb pressing under her jaw as I forced her to look at me. “Tell me you don’t love me anymore, Elizabeth.”

A strangled sob broke loose from her, bounced around the strained tension of the tiny room.

I gripped her face between my hands. My mouth descended on hers. Her lips were chapped, pouty and full, all wrong and perfectly right. And I wanted to erase it, expunge the asshole from her lips, delete the past.