“Stop!” I swallow hard as months of anger erupt. “Don’t you understand, you stubborn arse, I don’t want to go—”
“Scarlet?” A man’s voice stops my words—my heart—like a fatal dagger.
“Daniel,” I whisper, turning slowing toward my ex-fiancé emerging from the small bathroom with all kinds of pain etched into his face that’s covered in several days of stubble, bags sagging heavily beneath his eyes like he hasn’t slept in months.
“You’re alive.”
I nod. Right now, with every cell in my body, I wish I weren’t. I’m beating the most impossible odds. I’ve been given a second chance, but I no longer want it. He heard everything I said to Theo. I’ve been in that bathroom enough to know there is nothing soundproof about it.
“I came for you. I came to tell you how sorry I am for letting you push me away. I came here in hope of finding you alive, holding you until you took your last breath, whispering I love you over and over until all you feel is my love—not the pain. But…” He clears his throat and blinks back the tears filling his red eyes as he clenches his jaw.
There is no explanation that I can give him that will ever make him understand. “I love you, Daniel.”
He shakes his head. “Finish.”
My eyes narrow a bit. “Finish what?”
“Finish what you were going to say tohim.” He jabs his finger in Theo’s direction. “You don’t want to go… where? London? With me? With Oscar?”
My gaze shifts back to Theo, but his eyes hold as much contempt as Daniel’s. Apparently, I’m the worst human alive.Alive…I internally laugh.
“It’s—”
“Don’t you dare say it’s not what I think!” Daniel yells.
I jump. I wasn’t going to say that. My trembling lips fold between my teeth as more tears spring free with every blink.
My name is Scarlet Stone, and I was with my best friend when she died. Her parting words to me were: “The only thing worse than living with regret, is dying with regret.”
“It’s exactly what you think,” I say each word slow and evenly, but I say it looking at Theo. “I came here to die and fell in love with another man. I didn’t count on findinghimanymore than I counted on living.”
Theo glares at me, like he has some superpower stare that can break me and everything we shared. I tip my chin up, owning my feelings for him. Owning them in front of Daniel, knowing that I’m completely shattering him for a second time. Love is indiscriminate in its path—healing some people while destroying others.
Theo pushes off the wall and closes the space between us. I love this man and I know he loves me, even if it pisses him off that he loves me.
I know how he feels.
It pisses him off that his heart let me in.
I know how he feels.
It pisses him off that he needs my touch.
I know how he feels.
“Go home. I don’t love you.” He brushes past me and slams the back door behind him.
I turn and chase him, led only by my heart. My brain registers the look of utter devastation on Daniel’s face, but my heart leads the way, and for the first time in my life, I let it.
“Theo!” I run to his truck and bang on his window as he backs out of the drive.
He ignores me. I keep banging my fists against the glass.
“Stop it. He’s going to run you over, Scarlet.” Daniel wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me away from the truck.
“No. No. No…” I try to wriggle free.
“Come on. Let’s go home.”
