“Eva and I were married for less than a week.”Eva…He won’t call me Andy but uses her nickname.
“So youwerefucking married.” My tone is harsh, venomous.
“It wasn’t what you think.” He tries to grab my arm again, but I prevent it with a warning glare.
“Stay the fuck away from me, Alexander.”
His jaw clenches with frustration. “Can we talk about this like adults?”
“Oh, now you want to act like an adult?! Adults communicate. They tell each other about things, like ex-fucking-spouses.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When? There were hundreds of times where you could have.”
“I wanted to wait for the proper moment.”
“And when would that have been, Alexander?”
He passes a frustrated hand over his face, trying to find what to say to make me understand. “I didn’t tell you because it didn’t matter, Andrea. We got an annulment, so we were never legally married.”
“It still fucking matters, Lex!” I nearly shout. “It matters tome! It matters because you lied, over and over again, when you told me I was the first to matter!”
“I never lied! I meant those things, and this doesn’t negate their value.”
“Oh, but it does, Alexander. It really fucking does!”
“It wasn’t what you think,” he repeats, visibly desperate to reason with me.
“Then tell me. Help me understand what the fuck is happening.”
“We were friends, our families were close, we thought it was the right thing to do.”
“Who the fuck marries their friend like that?”
“We were… seeing each other.”
Oh, this is getting even worse. “You married a friend you were fucking? That sounds an awful lot like the average marriage.”
“It wasn’t. We were seeing each other, and we were engaged, and so we decided to get married because it was expected of us.”
“You wereengaged?!”I shout. Anger burns inside me, scorching in its intensity. My tumultuous thoughts are too loud to process, and I feel so fucking lost and hurt.
“Andrea, can we not do this now? My family is outside, and this is none of their business.”
I shove his chest with all my strength. “Stop treating me like I’m a raging bitch! You fucking lied abouteverything. How many times, Lex? How many times have you told me you’ve never felt like this?” With every lie he’s told me, I slam my hands on his chest. My voice cracks, and my eyes fill up with tears. I’m so fucking stupid for falling for his lies. “That I was the first one, the most important one, the best thing that ever happened to you? That all those meaningful things you did with me you’d never done with anyone else?”
Lex grabs my wrists, and when I try to break free from his ironclad hold, he pins me to a wall. I grunt with resentment, completely stuck between his powerful body and the hard, cold plane on my back. I want to get away from him, to get out of this room, this apartment, the whole fucking building.
“You lied to me,” I whimper, barely containing a sob.
“I didn’t. All the things I told you, about my feelings, about you, about us… it’s all true. What Eva and I had wasn’t what you think. I never loved her as I love you. I never wanted her as I want you. You’re the center of my world, Andrea.”
Despite my tears, I can read the hurt and the turmoil in his gray eyes. I want to believe him, but I’m not sure I can ever trust his word again. He was married and never told me.
As silence stretches between us, I become alarmingly aware of the situation. He’s plastering me onto a wall, one he’s fucked me against inthe past, his incredible body so close to mine I can feel every detail of it.
“You knew this wasn’t right. When your mother said it, you knew you messed up. If that woman meant nothing, why didn’t you tell me?”
