What was the harm of staying with Faith?
Right. Her brothers know. Soon, her parents will know. And you really want all of that to come down on you?
That’s not simple. That’s not casual.
That’s complicated.
But still. The idea that he could have her, for a little while longer. That he could keep her, locked away with him...
It was intoxicating.
“You want more of this?” he asked, trailing his finger along her collarbone, down her rib cage, then skimming over her sensitized nipple.
“Yes,” she said, her voice a husky whisper. “But not just more of this. Levi, you have to know... You have to know.”
Her eyes shone with emotion, with conviction. His chest froze, his heart a block of ice. He couldn’t breathe around it.
“I have to know what, little girl?” he asked, locking his jaw tight.
“How much I love you.”
That wasn’t just a single knife blade. That was an outright attack. Stabbing straight through to his heart and leaving him to bleed.
“What?”
“I love you,” she said. She shook her head. “I didn’t want it to be like this. I didn’t want to be a cliché. I didn’t want to be who you were afraid I would be. The virgin who fell for the first man she slept with. But I realized something. I’m not a cliché. I’m not a virgin who fell for the first man she slept with. I’m a woman who waited until she found something powerful enough to act on. Our connection came before sex. And I have to trust that. I have to trust myself. Until now, everything I’ve done has been safe.”
“You went away to boarding school. You have excelled in your profession before the age of thirty. How can you call any of that safe?”
She clasped her hands in front of her, picking at her fingernails. “Because it made everyone happy. Not only that—for the most part, it made me happy. It was the path of least resistance. And it still is. I could walk away from you, and I could continue on with my plan. No love. No marriage. Until I’m thirty-five, maybe. Until I’ve had more of a career than many people have in a lifetime. Until I’ve done everything in the perfect order. Until I’m a triumph to my brothers and an achievement to my parents. It will make me feel proud, but it will never make me...feel. Not really.
“A career isn’t who you are. It can’t be. You know that. Everything you accomplished turned to dust because of what your ex did to you. She destroyed it, because those things are so easily destroyed. When everything burns there’s one thing that’s left, Levi. And that’s the love of other people.”
“You’re wrong about that,” he said, his chest tightening into a knot. “There is something else that remains through the fire. That’s hatred. Blinding, burning hatred, and I have enough of that for two men. I have too much of it, Faith. Sometimes I think I might have been born with it. And until I make that bitch pay for what she did to me, that’s how it’s going to be.”
“I don’t understand what that has to do with anything.”
Of course she didn’t understand. Because she couldn’t fathom the kind of rage and darkness that lived inside him. She had never touched a fire that burned so hot. Had never been exposed to something so ugly.
Until now. Until him.
“Then choose something else,” she said. “Choose a different way.”
“I’ve never had a choice,” he said. “Ever. My fate was decided for me before I ever took a breath in this world.”
“I don’t believe that. If people can’t choose, what does that mean for me? Have I worked hard at any of this, or was it just handed to me? Did I ever have a choice?”
“That’s different.”
“Why?” she pressed. “Because it’s about you, so that means you can see it however you want? You can’t see how hypocritical that is?”
“Hypocrisy is the least of my concerns,” he said.
“Whatisyour concern, then? Because it certainly isn’t me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I warned you. I told you what this could be and what it couldn’t be. You didn’t listen.”
“It wasn’t a matter of listening. I fell in love with you by being with you. Your beauty is in everything you do, Levi. The way you touch me. The way you look at me.”
