He was about to put it all out there.

Take off the shell he wore so damn tightly.

He just prayed it didn’t hurt.

Brie wasn’t ready.

Not even in the least.

His eyes. Lord, his eyes. It was like she was seeing who he truly was, and she had never seen this side of him. The real side of him. While she found him dazzling in his own right, she was scared. His eyes were the windows into his soul, and they were cracked. So very damaged. As she held his gaze, a piece of pizza hanging from her hand, she realized she was holding her breath as he sucked in a long breath of his own.

“I met her, Hazel, when I was twenty. It was after I had been drafted, and I was a rookie, on the road to the big leagues. I just had to do my time in the minor leagues, and then I would be up there. She was beautiful, amazing, and, now I know, extremely manipulative. But I needed someone, someone to take away the pain of losing Nathan, and she did that.” He chuckled and shook his head. “I thought I loved her, and she claimed to love me. So when my first check came, I blew it on her, spoiling her. And then when the second one came, I told her I wanted to build NateWay One. She was a little hesitant, saying it would be a lot of work, but I wanted to do it. So with the help of Jensen, Wells, and Wren, we built NateWay One. Hazel claimed to have to work all the time, and she cried that she wanted to be there for me. So I asked her to be the manager of the organization because she had a business degree. She jumped at the chance, and I thought we were good.”

Leaning on his legs, he lowered his shoulders as he stared at the ground. “For three years, she worked for NateWay, and I thought she was doing a good job. But Dawn hated her, and Marl wanted to kill her half the time. I ignored them because I was blind and I loved her. They would tell me she was rude to the residents and that something was off, but I didn’t listen.”

“You were in love.”

“I was. She made me feel special, she fooled me into believing she cared about what I was trying to do, and she came to every game to support me. I thought she was in it for me.”

Slowly nodding her head, she whispered, “But she wasn’t, I’m guessing?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Oh, no, not even in the least.”

“And you never knew?”

“Nope, not even when Jensen told me she was bad news. I hate when that guy is right.” He let out a breath, sitting up as he sucked in another one. “First, I found her ID, and it was her name, but the birthdate was wrong. Or so she said when I asked her about it. It said she was ten years older than what she had told me. That didn’t matter, I loved her, but she insisted it was a misprint and she’d get it fixed. She never did, and then I started catching her in lies about her past. I found out she was married twice before and that she had kids she’d never told me about.”

“What in the world…?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “Then she lied about where she was going during the day because when I called the office, she wasn’t there, but she claimed she was. We stopped having sex, and that concerned me. When I brought it up, she told me that she wasn’t interested, that she was tired. I felt like a failure. Couldn’t please my woman? Fuck, was I even a man? So I went out of my way to shower her with gifts.”

She scoffed. “That should have been the biggest warning sign. You and sex go hand in hand.” His lips quirked, and she nodded. “Seriously.”

“Well, I didn’t, and when she kept pulling away, I thought maybe she was cheating on me. When I confronted her about it, she blew up at me. She left and I was broken, but I felt like she would be back. We loved each other.”

“Did she come back?”

“She did, but she slept in the guest room that night, saying she needed space. When I woke up the next day, she was gone again. I thought she was at work. She wasn’t answering my calls, though, and I started to panic. Was she leaving me? Was I losing her? I mean, I had a ring for her. I was going to propose that Christmas, and it hurt. But then the hurt really came.” He looked away, running his hands down his face as his shoulders fell, and Brie’s heart just stopped. “I got a call from my accountant, and he told me I was broke. That the last withdrawal I made had cleaned me out. But I didn’t make the withdrawal.”

Holding a hand to her chest, she put the pizza in the box. “She did.”

“Oh, yeah, she cleaned me out. Not only that, she cleaned out the account for NateWay.”

“Oh, my goodness.”

“Yeah, it was bad. The accountant couldn’t pay the bills, so I had to borrow money from Wells—they come from some pretty big money—and I called the cops. I pressed charges. We were in court for a year, and that drained my soul and what I was able to add to my bank account by then. She wasn’t even remorseful. I found out I wasn’t the only one she did this to. She had done it to three other players, and she really was ten years older than she claimed.”

“What a cunt.”

“Yeah.” He scoffed, shaking his head. “Thankfully, those players testified against her, but she didn’t steal as much from them as she did from me. I got most of my money back, and she went jail for three years.”

A sound of contempt left Brie’s lips as she glared at the ground. “She should have gotten life.”

He smiled grimly. “Yeah. I almost lost everything. My house, my car, NateWay One, and if it weren’t for Wells and Jensen, I would have.”

“You’re lucky to have them.”

“I am. They’re amazing, and I consider them brothers. But at that moment, I promised never to trust anyone ever again or put myself out there again. She let me down. Everyone was letting me the fuck down, people I loved, and I was pissed. I was fucked up for a while. Broke too, so that didn’t help.”

Looking back to the pizza, she felt her heart still pounding, and she found she wasn’t even the least bit hungry. She was sick to her stomach. Upset for this man who had been through so much shit, just like she had. Two broken hearts. It made her feel closer to him, but she knew she couldn’t do this.

“But that’s life. It’s like a dick, it gets hard for no damn reason.”

Sputtering with laughter, she shook her head as he chuckled along. Even in a shitty moment like this, he could make her laugh. Man, he had her feeling all kinds of mixed-up emotions.