He flinches, yet steps closer. “I just want to explain and say sorry. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
“You mean, ditching me at the altar in front of our friends and family?”
“I… I panicked.”
“And ran out of the country like a coward.”
“I thought of our future and got overwhelmed,” he explains, inching into my personal space. “The responsibility of taking care of you scared me.”
“Taking care of me?”
“You got clingy.”
“Clingy?” I keep parroting back his words because they’re not making sense.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “After the drama with your sister and her separation, you changed. We used to have so much fun, but suddenly, you were crying and sad all the time. Complaining about how much your parents were suffocating you.”
My chest cracks wide open in a gut-wrenching pain. Each sentence is a knife digging into my weak heart inch by inch.
“When things improved a little after we became engaged, suddenly you couldn’t shut up about the wedding and having it so soon.” He tips his glasses up his nose. “You used to beambitious, but then you were all about family, family, family. It was a lot of pressure.”
“Me leaning on you during the toughest years of my life was clingy to you?” I hate the hitch in my tone. “If I can’t lean on the man I love, who else am I supposed to lean on? I can’t believe my sadness was such a burden to you.”
He shakes his head, grabbing my shoulders. “It’s what I felt back then, but I’ve realized how wrong I was. When I saw you after all these months, it hit me that I had made a terrible mistake. I’m an idiot for walking out on us.”
Trailing his hand down my arm, he intertwines his fingers through my limp hand. “Give me another chance.”
“No.” I jerk my hand from his grip. “Do you know what your little speech told me?”
“What?”
“That you never loved me, Aryan.” I laugh, the sound hollow and dry. “The only good thing you did was show me your true colors before I tied myself to you.”
His eyes sharpen. “Is it because of him?”
“Who?”
“The man I saw you with at the restaurant.” Jealousy drips from his accusatory tone. “Are you hooking up with him?”
I’m about to shout how dare he ask me that when a shadow falls over us.
Nathan’s dangerously sexy voice pierces the air.
“What if she is?”
Chapter Eight
Arya
I look behind Aryan, straight into the metallic eyes of my knight in shining armor. Dressed to kill in a black tuxedo and his hair styled back, Nathan Singhania steals the air from my lungs.
Sliding his gaze to my ex, he taunts, “Are you going to put a stop to it?”
Aryan’s face goes beet red.
He’s intimidated by Nathan.
Why wouldn’t he be?
