The crowd moves off. In the next moment, the music stops and the lights come on. My staff starts corralling people off the dance floor and away from the bar.
Without a word, Melanie starts walking away from me.
“Wait.” My stride carries me in front of her. “Please . . . wait. Hear me out.”
Her stormy blue-gray eyes seem huge, brimming with hurt and unspilled tears. “What more do I need to hear, Jared? Are you going to try to tell me that getting revenge on Daniel for his father’s sins isn’t the entire reason we’re together?”
“It’s not.”
She scoffs, scathing me with her doubt. “You wanted to hurt him. You wanted to take something away from him as payback for what his father took from you.”
“Yes, I did.” I shake my head, unable to justify any of those motivations when she’s looking at me with such raw despair. “I wanted him to feel what it was like to lose everything that mattered to him. Including you. Especially you.”
“So, you used me. Just like he said.” Her mouth twists with pain. “Why else would you have ever wanted to paint me?”
“No. Jesus, no.” I want to touch her, but I know there’s no soothing I can offer her now. Only the truth. “You’re all I thought about after I saw you here with your friends that night. Not because of Hathaway. Because I’d never seen a woman I craved more than you.”
“Did you know Daniel and I were in a relationship?”
I nod soberly. “I also knew he wasn’t who he pretended to be. The private investigator I hired had already given me his full report. The night of the poker game, I realized you didn’t know what Hathaway was keeping from you. Not the gambling problem or the debts he’d racked up in Vegas, and certainly not the truth about who he really was.”
“You could’ve told me.”
“I should have. I should’ve explained everything to you that first day you came to my house without him, because by then I no longer wanted you to be part of this. I would have released you from our agreement. There was a part of me that hoped you’d tell me to go to hell and never come back, but you were stronger than that. You weren’t going to break. That only made me want to know you more. It only made me crave you more.”
Instead of softening some of the woundedness I see in her, my confession seems to build a wall inside her. “You had so many chances to tell me everything, but you didn’t, Jared.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Her answering laugh is a choked, bitter sound. “What do you think you’re doing now? You lied to me. You used me. You’re breaking my heart.”
“Nothing between us is a lie. Nothing. Daniel Hathaway may have been the start of this fucked-up situation, but he’s got nothing to do with us, Melanie. He’s got nothing to do with how I feel about you. I care about you, more than anyone I’ve ever known in my life. Melanie . . . I love you.”
“Don’t say that.” She closes her eyes for a moment, exhaling a shaky breath. “Don’t you dare say that now.”
“It’s the truth.”
“How do you expect me to believe that when everything we’ve shared has been built on your lies? How do you expect me to ever trust you again?”
“You can start by giving me a chance,” I suggest solemnly. “I know I don’t deserve it—”
“No, you don’t.” She takes a step away from me, folding her arms in front of her like a shield. “I can’t give you another chance to break my heart, Jared. I don’t want to hear any more. I don’t want to be here. I’m going home.”
“I’ll take you.”
“No.” The word is crisp and final, as sharp as a slap. I feel it inside me, the sting of her disappointment in me flaying me alive. “You made me think you cared about me. You let me tell you things I never told anyone but my most trusted friends. Just like with your paintings, you peeled me open to my soul, Jared. And now there’s nothing left.”
“Melanie.” I hold my hand out to her. There’s a tremor shaking my fingers, but I don’t give a damn. I thought she’d already seen me at my weakest the day she learned about my disease. I was wrong. I’ve never felt more useless or broken. “Please, come home with me. Let me try to make this right between us.”
She glances down, mutely shaking her head. When she looks up at me again, I know I’ve lost the battle. Even worse, I’ve lost her.
“I’m leaving,” she says softly. “Don’t come near me again, Jared. I don’t ever want to see you.”
She pivots away from me and starts walking into the departing crowd, a red dress in a sea of black. I drift after her, hanging back several paces only to avoid the urge I have to physically keep her with me.
As soon as she’s out of the club, I see her hand go up to hail an idling taxi at the curb.
She gets in, then the car speeds away.
