Page 56 of Better than Famous

It was mine.

I had dragged him into this. Crashing into his life, taking his bed, and eating his food, I let him develop feelings for me, all while knowing I was radioactive. I had let him believe he could save me, when all I had really done was paint a target on his back.

As I stared at the man standing across the room, my chest ached. He was the one who’d bought me curly fries in a storm and listened to my song in the dark. The man who had made me feel safe for the first time in a decade. Nash was going to destroy him. He would drag Ben’s name through the mud, dig up every mistake he had ever made, and ruin his life, his career, and his family’s reputation. Just to win.

"You aren’t the reason." My voice came out a meek, soft thing. "I am."

Ben lifted a pair of eyes full of pain, full of the belief that he’d failed. Shame radiated off his broad shoulders in waves. I wanted to cross the room and take his hands. Reassuring him was my first instinct, to tell him he had given me my voice back and that nobody could take that away. But the words died in my throat. Nash’s broadcast played on a vicious loop in my head.

Violent local. Being manipulated.

"I brought the monster right to your door." Stepping backward, my bare feet slid across the laminate floor. Numbness crawled over me. "I’m so sorry."

Retreating further into the short hallway, I stopped in the doorway of my bedroom, wrapping my arms tightly around my ribs. The mechanical roar of the helicopters pressing down on the roof matched the frantic, erratic beating of my heart.

It sounded like the end of the world.

Chapter Twenty-Four

BEN

Nash had won. I realized that with cold, sickening clarity as I stood in the kitchen, the dishes rattling in their cabinets from the rotor blades overhead. He hadn’t sent lawyers to drag Sutton out or sent security guards to break down the door. All he’d needed was for me to hand him the weapon.

He’s destroying you to get to me, Sutton had said.

But he wasn’t destroying me. I was already destroyed. Nash was just pointing a camera at the rubble. He was using my history to build a cage for her, and every minute she stayed in this house, every minute she remained associated with a "violent felon," she welded the bars shut around herself.

I turned away from the counter, the movement stiff and mechanical. My gaze swept over the kitchen—the coffee mugs still sitting in the sink, the cardboard box of curly fries crumpled in the trash can. The domestic scene was more like a mockery now. I had played house with her. I had let myself believe that I could be the man she needed.

I knew what I had to do.

The logic was brutal, simple, and irrefutable. If Sutton stayed, she lost her freedom. If she distanced herself from me and spun a story about hiding alone, she might stand a fighting chance. Cutting her loose was the only option. Amputating the limb would save the body. Plans and logistics flew through my mind at the speed of light. Tapping my lip, I nodded. I could get her out of here, but Mindy needed to be in on it.

I picked up the burner phone from the counter. It was light and cheap in my hand, a piece of plastic that held the only exit strategy we had left. My boots felt heavy on the laminate floor as I crossed the room. Reaching the short hallway, I stopped. Sutton stood frozen in the doorway of her bedroom. Leaning against the frame with her arms crossed, she dropped her gaze to the phone in my hand. She whipped her head back and forth, like she was clearing the cobwebs.

“Who are you calling?" Her voice was steady, cutting through the hum of the air conditioning and the fading roar of the helicopter, apparently moving away for the moment.

My grip tightened on the phone. "I’m calling Mindy. We need to arrange a route out of here. The front gate is a zoo, but there’s a fire road that cuts through the mangroves to the north. If we time it right, we can get you into a car before the press realizes you’ve moved."

"I didn’t ask for a car."

"You don’t have to ask." I stepped forward, trying to use my height and my authority to end the discussion before it started. "It’s the only play, Sutton. You saw what they’re saying. Every second you stay here makes it worse."

"Yeah, I watched it too," she agreed, not moving an inch. "I saw Nash spinning a narrative. And now I see you reacting exactly the way he wants you to. He pulls a string, and you dance."

"I’m not dancing," I snapped, anger flaring hot and fast to cover the pain. "I’m assessing a threat, and the threat is me. I am a liability to you. As long as you’re with me, you look unstable. I’m handing him the conservatorship on a silver platter."

"So your solution is to send me away. To pack me up and ship me off where I’ll be alone, where I’ll be surrounded by his lawyers and his doctors."

"You won’t be alone. Mindy will be there. You’ll have your team. You’ll have legal counsel, and support that isn’t a disgraced firefighter."

"I don’t want a team." She pushed off the doorframe and stepped into my space. "I want you. I’m making a choice, Ben. Right now. I choose to stay."

"You’re making a choice based on incomplete data," I countered, holding up the burner phone like a shield. "You chose the guy who made you pizza and gave you a place to stay. You didn’t choose the guy in the mugshot. You didn’t choose the felon."

"I chose the man," she said fiercely. "All of him. The parts that fix things and the parts that break things. Do you think I’m naive? I knew you had something in your past. But I also saw the way you stood between me and that car with the tourists. I saw the way you looked when you thought I was threatened. I know exactly who you are."

"Then you know I can’t let you do this. I can’t let you throw your life away on me."