His grip on my wrist tightened, his chest rising hard beneath my fists. “Edwina—”
“No!” I cut him off, shoving him again, rage slicing through the ache. “Don’t say my name that way. Don’t you dare fucking say it as if you love me when you’ve been lying this whole goddamn time. Tell me what I am to you, Hayden! Tell me!” My voice broke, raw and shaking, every word a blade tearing free from my throat. “What am I? Your fucktoy? A distraction until something better came along? A fucking hobby?!”
Tears blurred my vision, but I didn’t stop. “Was I ever anything to you? Do I even have a place in that heart you pretend is dead, or was I just another thing you wanted to own before you ran off again?”
His eyes burned, dark and wild, his mouth parting as if he could force words to make it right. But I didn’t let him.
“I said I loved you.” My hands trembled against him, my nails digging into his coat as sobs tore through me. “I love you. And what did you do? You ignored me. You pushed me away. You sat there with her—” My voice cracked into a broken sob, the word ripping free from my chest. “As if I was nothing. Did you enjoy it, Hayden? Was it fun for you, playing with me, making me believe it was real?”
He caught my face in his hands so suddenly I gasped, his palms rough and shaking against my wet skin. His foreheadpressed to mine, rain dripping down between us, his voice a rasping growl, fractured at the edges.
“Nothing?” he whispered, dangerous and raw. “Is that what you think you are to me? You think I could look at you, touch you, fuck—love you the way I do and call you nothing?”
“Then what am I?” I choked, shoving at him even as his hands held me still. “Tell me, Hayden. If I’m not nothing, then tell me what the hell I am!”
His breath came rough and uneven, his jaw tight as though the words were carved from pain, but then they tore out of him in a hoarse, broken whisper.
“You’re everything. Fuck, Edwina. You’re everything I shouldn’t want, everything I swore I’d stay away from, and still… you’re the only thing I can’t let go of. You’re in my blood, in my goddamn bones. And it’s killing me.”
The storm swallowed us whole then, rain crashing down, thunder rolling overhead, my tears spilling into his words as I stared at him, trembling, wrecked, not knowing if his confession would heal me or only break me more.
The rain streamed down our faces, and then suddenly he crushed his mouth to mine. The kiss was fierce, violent in its desperation, his lips stealing the breath from me, his grip unyielding as if he could force the world back together with the press of his body against mine. For one shattering moment, I kissed him back, my own desperation surrendering to his, the storm inside me collapsing into his chaos.
But then clarity struck, sharp as lightning, and the weight of reality slammed into me.
I tore my mouth from his, and the crack of my palm against his cheek split the rain. The sound echoed, brutal and sharp, my hand stinging, my chest heaving with sobs I could no longer contain.
“Don’t,” I gasped, shoving him back, my entire body trembling. “Don’t touch me. Not when your fiancée is still sitting in that café.” My voice rose, splintering, the words spilling out like shards of glass. “Don’t you dare touch me as if what we have is real, as if it means anything.”
His eyes widened, shock flashing across his face, but I didn’t stop.
“It’s over,” I spat, the words ripping through me with more pain than I thought I could bear. My throat burned, my tears mixed with rain, but I forced them out anyway, cutting myself open with each one. “Or was there ever anything to be over?”
My chest heaved, my hands shaking as fury seared through the ache. “I will not be the other woman in your fucked-up life, Hayden. I will not stand here while you chain yourself to someone else and still try to keep me. Stay the hell away from me.”
I stepped back, breath ragged, my voice breaking into something raw and feral. “Fuck you, Hayden. Fuck your lies. Leave me the fuck alone.”
The rain pounded between us, cold and merciless, the distance stretching wider with every word.
“That’s all it was,” I said, my voice barely a whisper now. “A fucking lie.”
And with that, I turned, the storm swallowing me whole as I walked away, my knees weak, my chest hollow, my heart burning to ash.
Behind me, Hayden stood frozen in the downpour, his hand still half-raised where I had struck him, his expression stunned, his body unmoving, as if the world had shifted beneath his feet and left him standing in the wreckage of everything we had just destroyed.
The apartment was quiet when I stepped inside, the soft gray light of midday spilling through the window, catching on thedroplets that still clung to my hair and clothes. I left my damp coat draped across a chair, my bag slumping to the floor beside it, and pressed my palms against the edge of the table as though the wood could anchor me.
My mind wouldn’t stop spinning. One thought told me to pack, to run, to escape before Hayden found me again, before I fell back into the same trap of wanting him no matter how deeply he broke me. Another voice whispered crueler things, that I couldn’t leave, that I would never escape him because he had already carved himself into me too deeply to ever let go.
The knock at the door came suddenly, firm and deliberate, rattling the thin silence.
My breath caught. My stomach twisted. Of course it would be him. Of course Hayden would come, relentless, unyielding, unwilling to let me go. My pulse surged with anger, with dread, with something I didn’t want to name. I stalked to the door, my voice rising before I even touched the handle. “What the fuck do you still want from me, Hayden? Haven’t you ruined me enough? Do you want me to scream it louder this time, that it’s over?”
I yanked the door open, the words already spilling out like fire—
And froze.
It wasn’t Hayden.
