“I paid Bill to leave you alone,” Saint corrected, still calm.
It wasn’t calming me.
It was making something inside me crack.
“All the money,” I whispered, my voice shaking now, “all the money I’ve been working for, all month… it’s mine?”
Saint’s eyes softened.“Yeah,” he said.“It’s yours.”
I stared at him.
It should have felt like relief.
It should have felt like a miracle.
Instead, it felt like someone had reached into my chest and ripped out the one thing I’d been clinging to.
Control.
I laughed once, short and sharp.“You did that without telling me.”
Saint frowned slightly.“I didn’t want to stress you out more.”
“I was already stressed!”I snapped.“I was living in it.And you thought the solution was to go behind my back and make deals with loan sharks?”
His jaw flexed.“I thought the solution was to fix it.”
“It wasn’t your responsibility,” I shot back.
Saint’s eyes hardened.“It was your responsibility?”
“No,” I said, and the word came out raw.“It was mine because no one else was going to handle it.”
He leaned forward slightly.“Belle, you shouldn’t have had to.”
“That’s not the point!”I threw my hands up, flour dusting into the air like smoke.“You don’t get to decide that for me.You don’t get to decide what problems I can handle or can’t.You don’t get to swoop in and pay off my life like I’m some charity case.”
Saint went still, and something flashed across his face.Hurt.Anger.Maybe both.
“I wasn’t buying you,” he said, voice low.
“I know that,” I snapped, then immediately hated myself because I did know that, and it didn’t matter.“But you made a choice about my life without me.”
Saint stepped closer, his presence heavy now.“I made a choice to protect you.”
I shook my head hard.“You don’t even know me.”
His voice sharpened.“I know you’ve been running yourself into the ground.”
“That was my choice,” I said.
“No,” he said, and his calm finally cracked.“That was you being forced to clean up after a man who didn’t deserve you.”
My throat tightened.“Don’t talk about him.”
“Why not?”Saint shot back.“He deserves to be talked about.He deserves to be called what he is.”
I clenched my fists.“Stop.”
