I opened my mouth, ready to fire back with a rebuttal I hadn’t figured out yet.
“Second,” she continued, cutting me off. “I really like her, and I want to keep her friendship. I’d hate to have to abandon you to keep her friendship.”
I sank lower in my chair and frowned, on the edge of pouting. “Yeah, well, if we’re not getting married, she doesn’t have a reason to stick around.”
“Why? Because it was all a set-up to begin with?” She spoke with aloof calm, but her words landed like an atomic bomb.
My eyes shot wide as an ice-cold wave sent an electric shock vibrating through my veins. Darkness crept around the edges of my vision, and the hallway tilted and swayed. Slowly, I lifted my gaze to hers, unable to hide the truth—my shock too raw, too explosive to mask with a lie. “How did you know?”
Her brow lifted, and that all-knowing look cut straight through me. “Because I knowyou.”
I looked away, shame curling around my shoulders, pulling them in.
She squeezed my hand, and I stole a quick glance to find a reassuring smile—so much like my mom’s that my heart clenched. Suddenly, I was ten again, caught stealing a candy bar.My parents punished me, of course, but then soothed me when tears sprang to my eyes, terrified I’d end up in jail. That same comfort now left me both aching for the past and embarrassed for feeling it again at almost forty.
“I saw your face the day you made that bargain with Felix. I saw the confidence that you’d never have to follow through—the hope that it would be too late before you got the chance. Then he got sick, and I saw the panic flare when you realized a countdown had started.” She ducked her head, trying to lock eyes with mine. “And the man who hadn’t mentioned a woman in fifteen years, all of a sudden, is on the verge of marriage, just when Felix decided to quit treatment.”
I swallowed. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
A small smile curved her lips, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Because it made Felix so happy. It gave him something else to focus on and look forward to. So, I let you continue the lie. But then, something changed. Your stoic, evasive responses softened.Yousoftened when this mystery woman, all of a sudden, had a name—when she became real. Because you liked Aspen and it wasn’t a lie anymore.”
“Of course, I liked her. Iwasgoing to marry her.” I scoffed, brushing aside the insinuation that Aspen had somehow softened me—that somehow, because of her, I embraced the bargain. “It might have been an arrangement, but I had to at least like her to tie myself to her.”
“I said youlikedher.”
I furrowed my brows, not understanding her need to repeat that part. “Yeah…”
Her face brightened, the smile reaching her eyes. “But it’s different now.”
“Yeah,” I agreed slowly. “Because she’s ending it. We set rules, and she went against them—tried to change them, and when I wouldn’t, she threw a fit about it.”
She clicked her tongue, shaking her head in exasperation. “Lucian.”
“What? I never lied,” I defended.
“Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes. “Not until the end. Then you just lied to yourself.”
“Myself?” I asked, my face pinched.
She pursed her lips and gently smacked my hand. “You may havelikedher when all this started, but I’ve seen for myself that along the way, you’ve grown to love her.”
“No.” My back went ramrod straight, every fiber bracing—inside and out—against the accusation, against that word. “I don’t.”
“As I said, I know you,” she said, her tone returning soft and comforting. “I saw it happening.”
“No. It’s impossible.” I shook my head, my body hardening to encase the growing panic brewing inside. “Like you said, you know me. You knew everything I went through. You saw what the divorce did to me and how it changed me. You knew I never wanted to fall in love again.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know you tried not to.”
“No,” I barked. “I won’t. I refuse to be that dumb, naïve twenty-year-old. I won’t do it.”
She chuckled. “Then don’t.”
My gaze snapped to hers, looking at her like she’d lost her mind. Accusing me of falling in love when I knew better was no laughing matter, and she talked about it as if it were nothing. “You make it sound so simple.”
“Because it is.” She paused and let out a resigned breath. “And it isn’t.”
“Well, it sure as shit wasn’t simple with Daria,” I grumbled.
