I can hear Candace crying, and my heart just crumbles to have her so upset. I’m terrified to see what this has done to her. She’s always been nervous of crowds because she’s always feared running into him. Now that it’s happened, I’m worried she’s going to shut down. Worried about what this has stirred up and awakened inside of her.

I quickly finish up, throwing on a pair of boxers, and slide into bed with her where she’s curled up, crying into her pillow. I scoop her in my arms, and it isn’t but seconds before I feel her tears running down my chest. Sliding us down in the bed and under the covers, I hold her close, and her loud cries begin to soften.

She draws her head back and then presses her lips to mine, but my stomach is in knots so it’s hard for me to do much of anything aside from keeping myself still.

“Make love to me,” she whispers before covering my lips with hers again.

I can’t do this. Not now.

“Baby, you’re crying.”

“I don’t care,” she says when she tugs me in and starts kissing my neck, but I don’t want to do this. It feels wrong, and she’s so upset. Pulling back to look at me, tears still spilling out, she says, “Kiss me.”

“Candace, you’re upset.”

“I need to be close to you right now. I want to get him out of my head, and you’re the only one who can do that for me.”

I roll on top of her, hating what I’m about to do because it feels so wrong when she’s hurting so bad. “Are you sure, babe?”

“Yes.”

The thought of making love to her in the shadow of him makes me sick, but if this is what she needs, I won’t deny her. As soon as I slip my hand under her top and take her breast in my hand, she starts pulling my boxers down. Rushing.

“Candace,” I plead, wanting her to slow down.

“Please, Ryan.”

Hearing her desperate voice, I take off my boxers and then sit back as I remove her shorts. She quickly strips her top off and pulls me down to her, urging me, so I go ahead and slide inside of her. Nothing about this feels right. With her eyes closed, she grabs my hips, wanting me to move faster, so I do. As she clings to me, and I give her a part of me that I never wanted to experience with her. She won’t look at me, and I don’t feel like I could even ask that of her. Holding on to my hips, she encourages me to thrust myself inside of her. I never wanted it to be this way with us. So disconnected and too fast.

I watch as she cries. She’s cried while we’ve made love in the past but for completely different reasons. It kills me to know that it isn’t me behind her closed eyes; it’s chaos mixed with me. It’s him, it’s that night, it’s this night, it’s everything I never wanted to bring into our bed.

Moving at the speed we are, it doesn’t take long for both of us to come, and when I roll off of her, I pull her close to me and cling to her, hating what we just did. My chest is heavy, and my throat is achingly tight. I reach down and find her hand, locking my fingers with hers.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers on a broken voice. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

And even though I never want to do that again, I would if it was really what she needed, so I tell her, “Don’t be. You take whatever you need from me,” because I’d give it all no matter how much it hurt me just to take away an ounce of her pain.

Waking in the middle of the night, I open my eyes to see light filtering from underneath the bathroom door. Candace isn’t in bed with me, and when I walk over to the closed door, I can hear her soft cries on the other side. Slowly, I open the door to find her sitting on the edge of the tub with her head in her hands.

Kneeling down in front of her, I rest my hands on her legs. She doesn’t respond to my presence, she just keeps her face covered as she tries to control the sobs that are breaking through.

“Talk to me, baby. Please.”

“It’s . . . I just, I can’t get it out of my head now.” When she lets her hands fall, her eyes are so swollen and red. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Her wrecked voice penetrates me, and I feel my throat begin to restrict again as I fight my own tears back.

“I’m so sorry,” I release on a hard breath. “I’m sorry I lost it like that and scared you.” I pause for a moment, and then admit, “I scared myself.”

She catches her breath and looks at me. She’s worn out, but I continue to talk.

“I wanted to kill him.” Those are the words that break me and cause the tears to escape. “I would have killed him if it weren’t for Max pulling me off of him. I’ve only wanted to kill one other person in my life, and he’s dead. And now I wonder if I’m turning into him.”

When I drop my head onto her lap, she lifts it back up and holds my face in her hands as she says through her tears, “You’re nothing like him. I don’t have any doubt about saying that. And I’m not scared of you. I never have been.”

“I completely lost control. Wasn’t even fully aware of what I was doing.”

She slides off the edge of the tub and onto the floor with me as we wrap each other up in our arms.

“I wasn’t scared of you, Ryan. I was just so scared of losing you,” she cries. “I was afraid you’d kill him and I wouldn’t have you.”

“Baby, I’m so sorry. But I’m here. I swear you’re not gonna lose me,” I assure her. “I promise you that he will never step foot in my bar again.”

We cling to each other, and when we both calm down, she softly says, “I’m sorry about earlier. I just . . . I wasn’t thinking.”

“Don’t be sorry, babe. I love you. I’d give you just about anything if you asked me for it.”

“It was wrong. Selfish.”

Brushing the hair off of her face, I tell her, “Do you know how much I love you?”

“Hmm,” she hums.

“You don’t ever have to worry about me because I’ve never wanted anyone the way I do you.”

She kisses me, and I linger in it before picking her up and taking her back to bed. I can’t help the worry that still consumes me. I wonder how she’s going to feel about everything when she wakes up. I can only hope that tonight doesn’t have a lasting impact on her because I feel like she was just starting to come out of herself. But all I can do tonight is hold on to her, hold on to my hope.

Waking up, I roll over to Candace but she isn’t here. The bed is empty, and when I look over to the bathroom, the door is wide open and the lights are off. She’s probably downstairs drinking her coffee.

“Candace,” I call out as I sit up, still half-asleep.

When there’s no response, I walk out of the room and see her cell phone lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

What the hell?

“Candace,” I call out again as my pulse quickens, wondering where she is. I rush over to the windows only to see that her car is gone. Panic and confusion start to tear through me. What the hell happened last night? Where is she?

I throw on a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt before getting my shoes on and then I’m out the front door and in my jeep. I rush over to her house and figure if she isn’t there then she must be at Jase’s, but when I pull up, her car is in the driveway.

Thank God.

I knock lightly, and when no one answers, I check the handle to find it’s unlocked. Worried about why she’s here and not in my bed, I go ahead and let myself in, making my way back to her room. As soon as I open her door, she’s in a frenzy, slinging the sheets from her bed across the room.

“Candace?”

She snaps around, and her face is worse than it was last night. Puffy with bloodshot eyes, and she’s crying.

“Get out,” she seethes, and my gut knots. I don’t know what’s going on, but the look in her eyes is freaking me out.

“Babe, what’s going on?” I ask as I walk towards her, but she shoots her arms out at me, not wanting me to come any closer.