She’d been absolutely determined not to let him give up his career for her. On that awful evening at the hotel, stopping him—saving him, whether he’d asked to be saved or not—had seemed like an imperative, its importance clear and unquestionable.
But why did she assume she wasn’t worth his career?
Alex always had a comeback for everything, and he’d had an answer for that question too. He’d shared it with her before, multiple times. Sorrow and rage in every syllable, he’d tried to tell her what she believed, how she saw herself.
You’re not important enough to defend, even when someone insults you to your fucking face. He’d phrased it as a question, but it was more an angry lament. A condemnation of how little she valued herself. How you feel isn’t important. You’re not important.
She’d told him that wasn’t true.
But even then, part of her knew he was right.
The best thing the world offered an ugly little girl was indifference. Pity stung exactly as much as insults, if not more, so she tried to avoid either. She tried to avoid notice. Even as a child, she’d understood it was important to stay quiet. Unobtrusive. And above all, undemanding.
Fortunately, adults were generally happy to ignore a short, fat kid with a bird’s face, and she was generally happy to encourage their lack of attention.
Other kids, though … they couldn’t be avoided, and they wouldn’t be deterred.
But crying over the cruelty of others to her parents only upset them, and nothing her mom and dad did blunted the relentless tide of abuse, so she eventually stopped coming to them. And they never questioned whether that cruelty had actually ceased, probably because they didn’t really want to know. Especially when her tormentor was also her cousin.
They loved her. She knew that.
But they’d taught her that family peace was more important than her feelings.
And since then, she’d spent decades giving away pieces of herself, because she didn’t matter. Not as much as everyone else.
She’d given herself away at work, with every overtime shift she took, every holiday she worked in place of a colleague, every time she chose to ignore her increasing misery and work harder. She’d given herself away to her parents, who’d learned she would drop everything to help them at any time, no matter what they wanted. At their urging, she’d given herself away to her asshole cousin too, even though she hated him—shit, she really did hate him—and she’d desperately needed a real vacation, not a job babysitting a man who required love rather than supervision.
Eventually, she’d given so much of herself away, there’d been almost nothing left by the time she boarded that flight to Spain.
Sionna had tried to tell her, tried to help her, but Lauren hadn’t listened.
And then Alex had given her back. Piece by piece.
By prodding her to speak, to respond and make her voice heard. By encouraging her—as Sionna had—to be a shrew, to demand her due and act in her own best interests. By paying constant attention to her. By offering gifts. By defending her with all the love and rage and loyalty in his enormous, reckless heart. By glorying in her pleasure fully as much as his own. By insisting that her feelings and her safety and her happiness and her presence in his life mattered, always.
More than a random fan. More than even his career.
She hadn’t asked for anything from anyone in years. Hell, she’d volunteered to give away more of herself and rejected receiving anything in return.
Alex had forced her to take. For her sake, and for his too, because he was a generous soul, and her happiness made him happy in return.
But even he couldn’t make her take that goddamn hotel money. Even he couldn’t make her accept the most loyal heart she’d ever known, despite how desperately she wanted it. Even he couldn’t make her believe she was important and worth all his sacrifices.
In the end, there was only one person who could do that.
And she was terrified out of her fucking mind that she’d ruined everything.
From atop the nightstand, her cell rang.
The number on the screen baffled her. She’d broken his best friend’s heart, so why in the world was Marcus calling her?
Well, if he wanted to yell at her, she deserved it. And maybe once he was done and she’d groveled a bit, he would tell her when Alex planned to return from Florida.
Or … had something gone wrong during Alex’s vacation? Had there been some sort of accident?
She snatched up the phone and stabbed at the screen. “Marcus? Is Alex okay?”