Savior Complex: A Small Town Love Triangle Romance

“We’re over though,” I say, the panic welling up in me again. This feels an awful lot like goodbye.

“It doesn’t matter,” Nina says. Her face crumples briefly, but she then regains her composure. “You’re off limits. Once you became hers, you were never supposed to be mine.”

“Nina.” The tears fall from my eyes before I know they’re there. She looks up, then places a gentle hand on my face. With the lightest of touches, she smooths away the tears, but more keep coming. “Please don’t do this,” I whisper. “It was supposed to be you. It was always supposed to be you.”

“You’ll survive this,” she whispers. “So will I.”

I watch her face, searching for something to hold on to, anything that tells me she doesn’t mean what she’s saying. It’s not there. I can see her sadness, but I also see her resolve.

It’s over.

I hang my head, my arms dropping slightly. She falls into me, and I immediately wrap my arms around her, not letting go. Once I let go, I’ll lose her forever. As if she understands this, she remains in my embrace. I feel the shudder of her body, the sobs coursing their way through her, my own body shaking as I lose the woman I love. I close my eyes, breathing in the lilac scent of her hair, the sweet perfume of her skin, feel the weight of her body against mine for the very last time.

“You fucking whore.”

We let go of each other at the same time, whipping around to face Jordy standing there with rage in her eyes, her lip upturned at the sight of us, tension racking her whole body.

“It was you? You’re the bitch who’s been fucking my fiancé?”

“I’m not your fiancé,” I remind her, and she lands a glare on me.

“But you were, Brayden. And she,” Jordy jerks her head in Nina’s direction, “she’s just been biding her time to steal the one thing that means anything to me. It wasn’t enough to steal all our grandmother’s money, she had to have my man too. Well, are you happy, bitch? Have you gotten everything you wanted? Or can I offer you anything else of mine to take from me?”

I grip Nina’s shoulders as Jordy’s blows land exactly where she wanted them to. I can feel it in the way Nina tenses, in the frozen air around us.

“That’s enough, Jordy,” I say through clenched teeth. “Those are lies, and you know it.”

“Really Brayden? You want to talk to me about lies? How about telling me you love me while you’re fucking my cousin?”

“You’re causing a scene,” I hiss at her, aware of the eyes that have pivoted in our direction. “We can all talk about this, but don’t ruin Ethan and Claire’s wedding over this.”

She looks around, as if noticing for the first time the spotlight we have on us. She looks at Nina again.

“As far as I’m concerned, you can go to fucking hell,” she hisses. “I never want to see your face or hear your name again.”

At this, Nina wrenches from my grasp and runs through the forming crowd, disappearing from sight. Jordy spins on her heel and walks away in the opposite direction. I move to take off in Nina’s direction, but I feel a firm hand on my bicep, giving me enough pause to look at who’s holding me.

Dan Gallo, Jordy’s dad. Fuck.

“Sir, with all due respect, let me go.”

“Son, you lost my respect about five minutes ago.”

This stops me, and I stay where I am, even when he drops my arm.

“You owe my daughter,” he says.

“Sir, I’ve been owing your daughter our whole relationship, and I can’t do it anymore. I know what I did was wrong, but I was drowning with Jordy. We both want different things, and we’re still trying to make it work. But Sir, there’s not enough there to hold the pieces together. She knows it, and I do too.”

“I know.”

I narrow my eyes at him, caught off guard. “You know?”

“It doesn’t take a genius to see that you two were polar opposites. Hell, Lil and I have had so many discussions trying to figure out the puzzle of you two. I quickly realized it was because of the baby.”

I look away. “I never meant to get your daughter pregnant.”

“We didn’t mean it either when Jordy was on the way. Luckily it worked out for us. Lil drives me crazy, and that woman has an opinion for everything. But she also comes from a deep place of hurt and at the end of the day, she needs to know someone is on her side.” Dan gives me a meaningful look. “I’m afraid my daughter is a lot like her mother. Neither one of them had the kind of mother they needed, and they’ve looked for it in the men they love. Jordy needed that from you.”