“No, I don’t need or want anything to do with that word. I need you. I need you back, Lex. I need things the way they were between us.” I’m pleading like a pussy, and I don’t really give a shit. “I need you, Lex. We’re good together. We fit. I get you, and you get me. The reason neither of us had a relationship in the last six years is because there’s nobody else out there for us. It’s you and me, ride or die. And I don’t want to ride or die without you.” My hand glides over her hair, and I memorize the soft silk of her waves, too afraid she’ll keep them away from meforever.
Lex steps back, peeling my limbs off her one by one. Her features turn to stone, that lively affect of hers all but a memory. “We’re not together.” She looks right past me as she says it. “This was a fluke, and it won’t happen again. There will be no personal conversations, no dates, no rolling around the sheets, and for God’s sake, no relationship.” She says that last part as if she were incredulous at thethought.
“Funny, you weren’t so repulsed by me last night.” Our eyes lock in a standoff. The gloves are off, and I’m ready to go twelve rounds. Hell, I want to. “You love me, Lex. You’re too afraid of losing control to give us another try. Let me in, Lex. Give us anotherchance.”
“You’re the one who loses control!” She drills her finger over my chest. “That’s your role in this disaster,remember?”
I close my eyes because it’s too hard to fight her on it. “Lex, as much as I don’t want to drag the past into this”—rage rockets through me, and I thunder at the top of my lungs—“that’s not whathappened!”
She takes a quick breath. Her face grows pale, and for a second I want nothing more than to rewind the last tenseconds.
Lex takes a step in, her eyes seething with a newfound hatred for me. “Don’t you ever raise your voice to meagain.”
“I raised my voice because I’m flat out frustrated that I can’t make you see thetruth.”
Her shoulders sag, her entire person wilts into me a moment. For a brief second, gone is the ice queen that erects herself like some automatic response to rejection, pain, andhurt.
“I know,” she whispers. Her hand rises to my face, and for a moment I’m convinced she’s going to slap me, but instead, she pats my lips as if she were blind and needed to feel them in an effort to get to know them better. But my heart shatters to dust because deep down I know it’s her way of saying goodbye to them. “I’m so very sorry about Emilia. Be sure to tell Teagan I’ll help plan her party.” A lonely tear rolls down her face, and it knifes me to see it. “Don’t you ever speak to meagain.”
She snatches her purse off the sofa and bolts out the door. No shoes, no pants, no underwear—I’m pretty certain. Nope. Lex Maxfield cannot get away from me fastenough.
Lex doesn’t want me to speak to her everagain.
It’s going to be a long, lonely, awful, hellish life withouther.
And in no way will I ever acceptit.
