“What are you thinking about, baby? Us?” He stares into my eyes, and I can tell he’s concerned about how I’m handling everything. “Because we’re good, Cami. We’re fucking perfect together. I don’t regret a goddamn thing about finally making you mine.”
Is that what I am? His? Property of Mountain?
I’m not sure I agree with this. “Rex.”
“Don’t overthink this, Blissy Girl. It’s just like breathing. Easy. Familiar. Essential. We can talk through whatever doubts and worries you’ve got.”
At least I can say that Rex isn’t afraid to expose all those secrets that linger from the past. There are things about his bloodline and the rest of the founding families that I need to talk to Granny Jo about because I don’t remember all the details.
My parents didn’t live in Raven’s Crest. I grew up in Columbus for most of my childhood until we moved here when I was thirteen. That was the summer I met Rex. He was six years older, wiser, and my first crush.
A year later, my parents died in a car crash. Six years later, his parents died in a house fire. We both understood loss and tragedy. It molded us into the people we’ve become.
But I remember the whispers in school. The rumors I heard while working in the Butter Bliss as a teenager, helping Granny Jo. There were things that didn’t make sense. I’ve always been curious.
“I want to know what really happened three years ago, Rex.”
“With Hannah?”
“Yes.” I swallow against the sudden emotion clogging my throat. “I saw youkissher. Her hand was unbuckling your belt and jeans.” Shaking my head, I drag air into my lungs, trying not to cry as I think about how hurt I’d been. “You broke my heart.”
For a second, his expression mirrors the raw emotion I feel. Pain lingers in his gaze. I believed it was one-sided and belonged only to me. “I’ve never done anything with Hannah. What you saw, she kissedme, Cami. She tried to fuck me because she was drunk.”
“You didn’t stop her,” I accuse.
We had a fight that day and ended up arriving at the fall dance separately. I had been an emotional wreck, but when I saw him with Hannah, it was the last straw. All the gossip about Rex and his many conquests, all the women he fucked, became too much for me to endure. People were whispering, giving me sympathetic glances, pitying me for being so young and naïve.
“I thought you cheated on me.”
Our relationship was new. We only started dating a few months before the dance and hadn’t had sex yet. I thought he was going after what he wanted because I hadn’t slept with him yet.
“No,” Rex growls. “I didn’t. Hannah wanted you to believe that I did.”
“But you didn’t correct me. You didn’t tell the truth. Why?”
“Because I had to let you go, Cami.”
What? Why?
This doesn’t make sense. “Rex?”
“I heard you, baby. When you were talking with Emma.”
Emma is one of my oldest friends in Raven’s Crest. I really should reach out and let her know that I’m home.
I try to think of what conversation he means. It’s not working. “I don’t know, Rex.”
“It was easier if you believed I cheated and didn’t want you. I knew I couldn’t break up with you because I loved you too much, Cami.”
Loved—past tense.
My heart aches with those words. Tears sting my eyes as I hold them back.
“You don’t remember,” he guesses.
“No. I don’t.”
“The day we had that big fight was the same night as the dance,” he begins.
