I hated myself more, yet I couldn’t stop the summing up of all my failings.
I’dhuntedher. Pushed her limits. Other facts were just as clear. Last night, I’d taken her on a date. The first of my life. And the last. I already knew I couldn’t be what Lovelyn wanted. I had nothing to offer her. I had no emotional resilience, and she was all the emotions.
Blair knew it. Even Mila had seen it from the start. The memory tore a wound into my chest. She’d told Lovelyn she didn’t know how she could put up with me. Why hadn’t I listened?
Everyone else could see what I hadn’t.
I’d fallen in love with my flower girl. I’d written it on her skin in the dead of night. But hell was I bringing her down with me.
I let the cold I was all too familiar with filter back through my veins, pushing away the warmth that had been Lovelyn’s gift.
“I told ye I couldn’t be a boyfriend. You tried to train me up, but that was always going to fail.”
“No,” she started.
“I’m not a project for you to waste time on. I can’t be a crutch to hold up your emotions. I don’t have the capacity, and ye put all that on me instead of friends who’d give a shit. I’m not what you need.”
Her mouth opened, hurt tightening her features. “I never… I mean, I didn’t try…”
It was killing me, but I had to end this before I caused her any more pain. “Whatever you think this is, it’s over. Do ye understand?”
Another tear streaked down her perfect cheek. “I know you’re hurting.”
“I’m deadly serious.”
“What happened to the man who last night held me so close it felt like we’d become one? What happened to I want it all?”
“It was just sex.”
Lovelyn’s features crumpled. The pang of her emotions rippled through me, catching my gut, slicing into my heart, but I kept my face stony.
Who was I kidding that the pocket of happiness I’d found myself in Deadwater could ever continue? Mila wanted the company to persist, and she’d hate me for voting against her as I now had to do. I’d sold my sister out for a few weeks’ grace, and I’d take what was coming to me for the act.
If I’d painted a target on myself, I alone would be at risk.
My deal had cost me my relationship with my sister.
My existence had cost me Lovelyn.
Without meeting my eye, Lovelyn gave a curt nod. “Don’t use me to punish yourself, Kane. Neither of us deserve it. Please stop this.”
I couldn’t. It was the right thing to do. “There is no ‘us’. There never was. Only a deal which is finished.”
She flinched and took a backwards step. Away from me. Out of my life. “There’s a train station in town. I’ll find my own way home. Goodbye.”
She turned and walked away.
I was doing the right thing. I was doing. The. Right. Thing.
I trailed her to the station and watched until she got on a train, her shoulders back and her head held high.
I broke the things I was close to.
I wouldn’t break her.
Yet when the engine pulled away, it was me who shattered. No one looking at me would know, but I cracked apart, pieces of me splintering into dust. An ache gripping my chest that would never ease.
I didn’t want it to.
