Chapter 164 A Coward's Way

Chapter 164 A Coward's Way
The door of the penthouse clicked shut behind me, sealing out the echo of the elevator and the lingering, suffocating weight of the afternoon. The apartment was entirely too quiet. No music. No television. Just the low, steady hum of the HVAC system and the grey afternoon light bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting long, fractured shadows across the hardwood.
I set my bag down on the entryway console, the strap slipping through my fingers. My fingers were still cold from the walk, and my temples throbbed with that familiar, low-grade ache.
The morning at Eliza’s house had left a hollow space inside my chest. Seeing her sitting on that couch, trying to smile through the wreckage Gavin had left behind, had felt like watching a mirror shatter in slow motion. Gavin’s cowardly silence, the way he hid behind whiskey and unreturned messages, the way he thought walking away was a mercy—it all felt uncomfortably close to home.
And I needed to know that Nate wasn’t building toward the same kind of destruction.
"Nate?" I called out, my voice bouncing off the high ceilings.
Footsteps echoed softly from the hallway leading to his private study. He appeared a moment later, walking out of the dim light with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the top buttons of his shirt undone. He looked tired. Not the exhausted kind of tired that sleep could fix, but the bone-deep weariness of a man carrying a weight he refused to share.
He stopped a few feet away, his dark eyes locking onto mine. He didn't smile, but his gaze softened instantly, taking in the slump of my shoulders and the tension in my jaw.
"Hey," he murmured. "How was it with Eliza?"
"Heartbreaking," I said, the word slipping out before I could stop it. I crossed my arms over my chest. "She’s trying to hold everything together. She’s putting on a brave face for my sisters, but she’s completely gutted. And do you know why? Because Gavin decided that walking away was somehow a kindness."
Nate didn't flinch. He didn't defend his best friend. He just stood there, watching me.
"He thinks he’s protecting her by keeping her at a distance," I pressed on, my voice rising, the frustration of the entire week finally bubbling over. "He thinks that because his life is complicated, because he’s messy, he’s doing her a favor by cutting her loose without a word. It’s infuriating. It’s cruel. Is that what men in your world call noble? Is that what you all think love is—just abandoning the people who care about you the second things get difficult?"
I expected him to push back. I expected him to argue, to offer some cold, logical defense of Gavin’s guarded nature like he usually did.
Instead, Nate remained uncharacteristically quiet.
He didn't move. He didn't cross his arms or look away. He just stared at me, a profound, heavy sorrow flickering in the dark depths of his eyes. The lack of a defense unnerved me more than an argument ever could.
"Nate?" I whispered. "Why aren't you saying anything?"
He took a slow step forward, closing the distance between us. When he reached out, his hand was steady, his palm warm as it cupped the side of my face, his thumb brushing gently over my cheekbone.
"Because he’s wrong," Nate said softly, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Then why are you letting him do it?" I asked, my voice cracking. "Why aren't you calling him out?"
"Some men think the only way to save a person is to leave them," Nate murmured. "It’s a coward’s way to be a hero."
The words hit me square in the chest, stealing the breath right out of my lungs.
I stared up at him, reading the unmasked terror hidden behind his stoic facade. He wasn’t just talking about Gavin. He was talking about us.
"You're terrified," I realized.
"Every single day," Nate answered without hesitation. "I look at what my mother did, what Vane is trying to do, the whispers in the halls, the nightmares that almost pull you off this balcony—and every instinct screams at me to build a wall so high nothing can touch you. But a wall keeps me out, too."
My lower lip trembled. All the anger I had carried back with me evaporated, replaced by a fierce, desperate ache.
"Don't you ever walk away from me, Nate," I breathed, my hands flying up to grip the lapels of his shirt, pulling him flush against me. "Don't you dare try to be a coward."
"I won't," he growled, the raw promise vibrating against my mouth just before his lips crashed down onto mine.
His mouth slammed into mine. Teeth clicked, bruising and clumsy, missing the soft angle of the lips in a blind rush of friction. There was no rhythm to it, only a hard, greedy collision of breath.
His hands didn't stroke; they clawed. Nails dug into the meat of my lower back, lifting my weight off the floor before my legs even found his waist. I buried my face hard against his throat, skin scraping skin, inhaling the sharp tang of cedar and sweat as he staggered backward. The back of my knees hit the wooden arm of the sofa, and we tumbled sideways, a tangled heap of limbs.
He didn't give me space to breathe. His weight pinned me down, heavy and solid against the cushions, shutting out the grey light from the windows.
"Mila," he grated against my skin. His mouth dragged a hot, wet line down my neck, teeth catching the sensitive skin above the collar until I flinched.
His fingers didn't untie or unhook; they tore. Fabric ripped with a dry snap under his palms. Buttons pinged against the hardwood floor, rolling into the shadows. He shoved the torn silk down my arms, pinning my wrists to the cushions above my head as his palm swept rough and flat over my ribs.
When he drove into me, I choked out a raw, wet sound, my hips bucking upward to meet the impact before my brain could catch up.
"Open your eyes," he panted, his face inches from mine.
I stared up at him, my vision blurring at the edges, my fingers hooking into the skin of his shoulder until my nails broke the surface. He didn't slow down. The sofa groaned under us, the wood screeching against the floorboards with every brutal, rhythmic shove.
There was only the wet slap of skin, the heavy rasp of his lungs pulling air, and the sharp, stinging friction of our bodies colliding over and over again in the dim room.
When it hit, it didn't feel like release; it felt like a collision. A violent, shattering spasm that tore a hoarse cry straight out of my throat, my legs locking tight around his waist as he drove into me one last, punishing time and buried his face in my neck, trembling so hard his teeth clicked against my collarbone.
We lay tangled on the cushions in the gathering dusk, chest to heaving chest, slick with sweat and breathing each other's stale air in the quiet dark.