“How do you know?”
She bites her lip, like she’s not sure she wants to talk about it right now, then launches into a lengthy explanation about the visit with her mom the day after we met and the confrontation earlier today at brunch. When she’s done, there’s an angry spark in her eyes that matches the one burning inside of me.
And I recognize it immediately.
Our siren song of destruction.
The familiar invitation to join her in setting flames to everything, every circumstance and choice, that kept us from each other. But I can’t accept it, not this time. “She was right.”
Her brows pinch together. “What?”
“Your mom,” I clarify. “She was right. She did you a favor by throwing the note away.”
“How can you say that? The note was our only chance at finding each other. It would have helped me realize you weren’t just a figment of my imagination!”
I hate the vehemence of her tone—the outrage she seems to be feeling at having a future with me stolen by her mother—because it makes a stupid amount of hope surge through me.
Hope I can’t afford to feel when I know that, no matter what, I’m going to have to let her go.
“And it all worked out the way it was supposed to. You and I were never a good idea. We wouldn’t have worked.”
I push to my feet and walk over to the window, pacing back and forth in front of the glass I want to put my fist through. Having this conversation with Sloane right now feels like the purest form of torture.
“You don’t know that, Dom. We never had a chance.Youdidn’t give us one! You saw me with Eric, and you didn’t say anything. You just treated me like shit. Why?”
“Because he was my best friend, Sloane. My brother. What was I supposed to do? Steal you away from him? Tell him about our night together and beg him to let me fuck you first?”
She flinches, but I can tell my crass words are pissing her off, not hurting her. Her mouth opens, working to craft a response to my comment, which is so far out of line I want to snatch it out of the air. She rises from her seat, and for a second I think she’s going to walk out, but instead, she comes over to me.
“Don’t be an asshole, Dominic. That night was about more than sex, and it wasn’t fair for you to make such an important decision for all three of us!”
She’s right. The decision I made did impact all of us, but I’m the only one who carried it. I’m the one who shouldered it every single day. I stare down at her, letting her see the weight of the past twelve years crushing me like boulders. A lifetime’s worth of wanting something I could never have. A thousand days of torture and pretending, making choices that left everyone happy except for me.
Dropping the act should be a relief, but I’m just pissed at her for forcing me to relive the night I hate her for forgetting.This conversation needs to end now.I scrub my hands over my face.
“You said you had questions. Ask them, so we can be done.”
Chapter 40
Sloane
Now
Dom looks at me, and I wish for the first time in weeks that his eyes were somewhere else. Because one glance into the liquid pools of midnight shows me the fire raging inside of him. The darkness and shadows and ghosts that can only be conjured by reminders of things you’d rather forget.
His words are sharp, reminding me of all the times over the years when he’s used this exact tone to make me believe he hated me. It hurts to be taken back to those moments, to that feeling, but I see it for what it is now.
Deflection.
Him trying to make me retreat when I should be advancing. And I’m so lost in bearing witness to him in his own private hell that it takes me a full minute to think of my next question, which is just an extension of the conversation we’ve been having.
“Why didn’t you say anything? I mean, we were alone for a few minutes when we met in your room. You could have told me then or any of the other times we were alone.”
Dom exhales harshly. He’s frustrated that we’re still on this, but I just have to know. “What would it have changed, Sloane? At that point, Eric was already in love with you. And when I saw you with him, Iknew. I fucking knew he was better for you than I could ever be. You were so happy, smiling and looking at him like he was the only person in the world for you.”
“But that night…”
“You weren’t yourself. You were angry and drunk, and I saw your fire and felt my entire world shift. I looked at you and thought ‘Finally, someone who’s just as ready to burn the world down as I am,’ but I didn’t question why you wanted to.”
