Page 116 of Shark’s Pride

I stopped Elijah near the door. I kept my eyes fixed on Abbi while addressing him. She looked small and lost against the huge glass plates of my office windows.

“I think she’s ready,” I murmured.

“The hell she is,” she called.

Elijah scowled. “I know it sucks, okay? But I’m sure Bas has explained—”

“Fuck off,” she snapped at Elijah.

“Baby.” I walked back over. Once more pulled her into my arms. I was more forceful about the embrace this time. “Jesus… Please don’t do this.” But she didn’t reciprocate a thing. She stood as stiffly as the pillars holding up the window, refusing to return my affection. “Abbigail.” I buried my face in her hair while whispering the desperate plea.

“Damn it!” A matching entreaty broke through her defenses. She dropped her head to the center of my chest, drenched my shirt with her racking sobs.

“I hate this more than you do, Red,” I whispered into her hair.

“Then don’t do this! Please!” She curled her hands into the fabric beneath her face. “Please don’t send me away. There has to be another way. We can think of something together. Don’t give up on us.” She raised her face, compelling me to meet her harrowed gaze with the matching sorrow in mine. “I’ll—I’ll be better. I promise, Bas. I’ll be a better girlfriend. If this is about last night, I swear, I’m—”

I stopped her rambling with a plunging, passionate kiss. I swept my tongue so deep into her mouth, she moaned. That didn’t stop her from answering my need with her own exigent hunger…her tearful, lustful rage.

We devoured each other like that for extended minutes. I yearned to make it hours, even days, but Elijah gave us a fresh stab of reality by pointedly clearing his throat.

Reluctantly, mournfully, I dragged my lips up from hers. But with a hand still at her cheek and my gaze still penetrating her as deep as my kiss, I vowed, “No more apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong. And now, I just need you to be my good girl and go with Elijah. I will try to see you soon. I promise.”

She coiled her fingers tighter into my shirt. Shook her head hard enough to make her tears fly out, their depths glistening in the sunlight before splashing to the floor. “Why?” she rasped. “Why are you doing this to me? To us, Bas?”

“Because I love you with all my heart, Abbigail,” I whispered. “Know that every single day, okay?”

I pulled back to a full arm’s length. Forced myself to stare more deeply into her eyes, despite how her tears gutted me. Destroyed me. But I reached up anyway, swiping the tiny puddles beneath them away with my thumbs. Another excuse to touch her, if only in this small way, for one more moment.

“Be brave for me, baby. Remember I’m protecting you.”

“But that’s not what it feels like.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” she flung between heavier sobs. “Because you know what it really feels like? That you’re giving up on us.”

“Never!” I grabbed the other side of her face, forcing her to listen to me. To see me. All of me. Every ounce of torture this already was for me. “Are you listening to me, damn it? Never. I love you, Abbigail. I would die for you.”

Right words, wrong time. My declaration doubled the intensity of her sobs. Knowing I’d only make things worse from this point on, I pushed her into Elijah’s arms. Might as well have handed the guy my arms, legs, and intestines. It would have been less painful.

Elijah all but carried Abbi out of my office. I already knew he had the back elevator waiting and then the town car at the loading dock. Joel would drive them straight to the safe house. Elijah would call later to let me know she was settled in. He had a prescription for a mild sedative if she needed it.

As soon as they were gone, I shut the door.

Actually, I slammed it. Hard enough to make the windows shiver and pens roll across my desk. I didn’t give a shit. I wasn’t returning to that desk today. The plan for the rest of the afternoon? A whiskey stupor. A deep, dark, heavy one.

One moment.

Changing everything.

Bringing karma’s ultimate payback to the great Sebastian Shark.

I had no idea living through heartbreak, like all the ones I’d already caused in my life, would hurt so damn badly.

And the nameless bastards who were causing it? They wouldn’t be nameless for much longer. And when I knew those names, they were going to wish they’d never—ever—come across mine.