My knees give way as everything—having Colton, not having Colton, wanting Colton—becomes too much.

“No you don’t,” Beckett says as he tightens his grip around my waist before I slide to the floor. I take his lead as he nudges me out of the elevator and toward my room. My insides are numb with hurt and bewilderment. I glance up at him as he just shakes his head at me and murmurs so quietly that I think he’s talking to himself. “Jesus Christ, woman, are you purposely trying to push every single one of Colton’s buttons? Because if so, you are damn well succeeding!”

He holds his hand out when we reach my room, and I fumble in my purse for my keycard and hand it to him. He unlocks it and pushes open the door for me, pressing a hand to my lower back to usher me in.

I walk immediately over to my suitcase start yanking dresses off of hangers and shoving them and anything else I can find into the suitcase, hysterical tears spitting out every chance they can.

“Uh-uh. No way! Don’t you dare, Rylee!” Beckett shouts from behind me as he sees what I’m doing. I just ignore him, throwing, shoving, stuffing. Beckett’s protests continue, and I yelp out as I feel his arms circle around me from behind me, holding my arms down, trying to tame my hysterics.

He just holds me awkwardly, hushing me like a tantruming child who needs soothing. He embraces me as I break down and succumb to the tears and the heartbreak of the day. And to what will never be.

“I thought you guys were trying to figure this out. Could figure this out. You’re both miserable fucks apart.”

“And we’re miserable when we’re together as well,” I whisper. Tears he can’t see fill my eyes again, and I just shake my head at him. “He needs to concentrate, Becks. I’m…this…is a distraction he doesn’t need right now.”

“That’s a fucking brilliant statement if I’ve ever heard one…but what does that mean, Rylee?”

I wipe a fallen tear off my cheek with the back of my hand. “I don’t know…I feel like I don’t know anything anymore…I just need some space from him to be able to think and figure it out.”

“So what? You’re going to pack up and leave without him knowing? Sneak out?” He breathes out as he paces the room in front of me. “Because that’s just so much better, right?”

“Beckett…I can’t…” I mumble, “I just can’t…” I grab the handle of my suitcase and start to pick it up.

Beckett yanks it out of my hand, stepping around me to grab both of my shoulders and gives them a hard shake. “Don’t you dare, Rylee. Don’t you fucking dare!” he shouts at me, anger now firing in his veins. “You want to leave him?”

“Becks…”

“Don’t you Becks me. On any other day I’d tell you that you’re just as big of a fucking coward as he is…that both of you are so goddamned stubborn you’d rather cut off your noses to spite your faces. You didn’t work your shit out? I get it. I really do. It happens.” He sighs loudly, releasing me and walking a few feet from me before turning around and getting back in my face. “But by you walking out, Rylee, you’re fucking with my team—my driver—this race—my best friend. So suck it up and pretend for me. At least pretend until the race starts. That’s all I ask. You owe me that much, Rylee.” When he speaks again, he’s eerily calm and full of spite. “Because if you can’t do this for me, so help me God, Rylee, if something happens to him…it’s on you!”

I swallow loudly, my lips falling lax as I look at Beckett, a one-man army on a mission. “Look, Ry, I know it’s easier for you to do it this way…to leave this way…but if you love him—if you ever loved him? You’ll do this for me. If you leave, it’s too dangerous…I can’t have Colton flying close to two hundred miles an hour tomorrow with his head focused in la-la land thinking about you instead of being focused on the goddamn track.” He grabs my suitcase and sets it back down.

All I can do is look at him through blurred eyes and with a hurting heart. He’s so right on every level, and yet I don’t know if I can find it within me to pretend. To act like I’m unaffected when the sight of Colton causes my breath to hitch and heart to twist. When we continually tear each other apart and purposely hurt one another. I cry out a strangled sound, hating the woman that I’ve become in the last few days. Hating Colton. Just wishing that I could be numb again even though it felt so damn good to feel again. But if I can’t have him—have my beautifully damaged man—then I’d rather be numb than live in this endless abyss of pain.

Beckett sees the hysteria surfacing—sees the moment that I realize how much I actually love Colton and the devastation I foresee on the horizon—and mutters, “Motherfucker!” in exasperation at being the one left to tend to my irrationality before calmly walking me over to the bed and pushing my shoulders down. “Sit!” he orders.

He squats down in front of me, the motion much like a parent does to a child, and it makes me realize what a good guy Beckett really is. He reaches out and puts his hands on my knees, looking me squarely in the eye.

“He fucked things up, right?” All I can do is nod my head, my throat clogged with emotion. “You love him still, correct?”

I tense at the question. The answer comes so willingly into my mind that I know even though I love him—that loving him will most likely bring me a truckload of continual hurt—it’s just not enough. “Beckett…I can’t keep doing this to myself.” I lower my head, shaking it as my breath hitches again.

“Remember when I told you that Colton was going to push you away to prove a point?” I nod my head, listening to him but really just wanting to be by myself, wanting to take my suitcase with items sticking out of it at all angles and make a mad dash to the airport—back to structure and predictability and a life without Colton.

And that thought alone robs me of every emotion possible.

Beckett squeezes my knees to get me to focus back on him. “Right now is that time, Rylee. You need to push away everything in your head. Clear all of the assumptions out and think with your heart. Just your heart, okay?”

“I can’t do it anymore, Becks—”

“Just listen to me, Ry. If you really love him, then keep knocking on that fucking steel gate he has around his heart. If he’s really worth it to you, you’ll keep at it.” He shakes his head at me. “The damn thing’s got to give sometime, and you’re the only one I think is capable of doing it.” When I just stare at him with my mouth lax, he just shakes his head at me. “I told you, you’re his lifeline.”

I just stare at him, unable to speak, trying to digest his words. Am I his lifeline? Can I possibly be his lifeline? I feel more like a weight dragging us toward the bottom of the ocean than a lifeline. And why does Beckett keep telling me to clear all assumptions?

“That can’t be. Love doesn’t fix—”

I’m startled from my thoughts from a knock on the door. I start to stand but Beckett just pushes back down on my shoulder and goes to answer it. When he opens it, I see Sammy shoves Colton through the door before Beckett slams it shut.

Despite everything Beckett said, just the sight of Colton ignites my temper. I’m off the bed in a flash the minute he stalks into my room. “Uh-uh! No way! Get that egotistical asshole out of here!” I shout at Beckett.

“Fuckin’ A, Becks! What the fuck is this?” he yells, confusion in his voice. He glances down at the haphazard packed suitcase and grunts. “Thank Christ! Don’t let the door hit you in the ass, sweetheart!”

I step toward him, fueled with fury and ready to detonate.

“This is over here and now!” Beckett’s voice booms at us like a parent scolding his children. We both stop mid-motion as Beckett turns toward us, exasperation on his face and obstinance in his stance. “I don’t care if I have to lock you in this fucking room together, but you two are going to figure you’re shit out or you’re not leaving. Is that understood?”

Colton and I both start yelling at him at the same time, and Beckett’s voice thunders over ours. “Is that understood?”

“No way, Becks! I’m not staying in this room another second with this asshole!”

“Asshole?” Colton whirls on me, his body mere inches from mine.

“Yeah! Asshole!” I sneer.

“You want to talk about assholes? Try that stunt you pulled with bar boy back there. I believe you claimed the title right then, sweetheart. ”

“Bar boy? Wow, because having a harmless drink is so much worse than you with your gaggle of whores earlier, right?” I shove at his chest, the physicality of the action giving me a small iota of the release that I need.

Colton steps back from me and walks to the far side of the room and back, blowing out a puff of air from his lungs. My room feels small with Colton eating up the space, and I just want him gone.

He looks over to Beckett and shoves his hands through his inky hair. “She’s driving me fucking crazy!” Colton yells at Beckett.

“You’d know all about the fucking part seeing as you fucking Tawny is what started this whole thing in the first place,” I scream back at him.

Since Colton is standing beside Beckett, it’s hard not to notice the completely dumbfounded look on his face. “What?” Beckett stutters.

“What? He didn’t tell you?” I grind out looking at Beckett, my fists clenched as images flash through my head. “I told the asshole that I loved him. He bailed as fast as he could. When I showed up at the Palisades house a couple days later, Tawny opened the door. In his T-shirt. Only his T-shirt.” I focus completely on Beckett because I can’t bring myself to look at Colton right now. “Colton didn’t have much more on than that either. Told me nothing happened. But that’s a little hard to believe with his notorious reputation. Oh and the condom wrapper in his pocket.”