“Can we at least sit down?”
I would have told him to fuck off, but the creases of pain that still lined his eyes had me rethinking my stance.
“Fine.”
All too aware that I was still in my towel, I made sure to keep my legs together and my breasts fully covered.
But then I was stuck waiting as he struggled to form the words he said he so desperately needed to tell me. Irritation spiked hard and it took everything in me not to yell at him. But just as I was about to get up and walk out of the room, he finally opened his mouth.
And shocked the hell out of me.
“I lied about everything.”
With my mouth gaping, I didn’t know exactly how to respond. “Everything, huh? Why so little?”
“Breaking up with you, telling you I didn’t want to be with you, the whole thing about your mother planning the wedding…it was all a lie.”
It was everything I had wanted to hear, and yet, I didn’t feel moved in the slightest by his words.
Not even when he stared at me with all the sincerity in the world, his dark eyes pleading with me to understand.
“Is that everything?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“Bailey, I had to do it.” His tone turned urgent as he got to his feet and reached for me. The moment his hand touched mine, I melted into his touch, but it only took a few seconds for the pain of his actions to ricochet through my mind.
“Okay,” I said, yanking my hand from his. “You had to do it. Good for you. Can I get ready for work now?”
I didn’t wait for him to answer before I turned away.
“Bailey, he tried to kill you!” His breath sawed out of his chest like he was back in that fire.
All it took was me closing my eyes to remember how he looked when he showed up at my apartment. But that was then, and this was now.
I kept walking.
“He cut the brakes on your car. If I hadn’t been driving, that would have been you.Youwould have been dead!”
Spinning around, I got in his face. “And so instead, you decided to kill me in another way.”
“I was trying to protect you. You have to believe me!”
“I have to?” I laughed. “I love it when people say that. Guess what? I don’t have to do anything. You fucked up.”
“He was trying to take you from me. In the hospital…he was there. He threatened you, and there was nothing I could do about it. He didn’t give a shit that you were innocent. He wanted to hurt me and my family, and he would do anything to achieve that!”
Fear burned bright in his eyes, just as it had in mine when I saw him lying in that hospital bed, thinking it was all my fault.
“I don’t deny that you were scared,” I answered softly. “In a way, it makes it easier to think that you only broke things off with me because of that psychopath, and not because you were afraid of being with me.”
“Then let me make this up to you. I can make this right. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you see that I love you.”
I huffed out a laugh at that, only to realize the humor brought on aflood of tears. I swiped at my cheeks, pissed at myself when my fingers came away wet.
“Odd that the first time you tell me you love me is when you’re trying to get me back.”
“I would have told you back then, but we were together only a few days before Austin started his shit again. And then…it seemed like everything was falling into place, just as it was so I could make you believe that…”
“That you didn’t really want to be with me,” I whispered. “It all worked out so perfectly for you.”
