Why he’d wrecked both of their lives.
“You can’t take some things back.” Gritted. “Once a deed is done, there is no going back. Let the past go, Delaney. Please.”
No. The past was still ripping her apart. “I want to know what happened.”
He looked down. “I still have my brother’s blood on me. I need to wash it away.” He pulled back. Put several steps between them.
He was heading for the shower. She surged forward, dodged around him, and physically put herself in the bathroom doorway. “Don’t you dare take another step until you tell me what happened eight years ago.”
He froze in front of her. Torment flashed on his face, only to be quickly masked. He was so good at doing that. Masking his emotions.
“Something happened. Something that made you leave me. That made you destroy us.”
His hand lifted. Pressed to her cheek. “Let it go, baby.”
“No.” She’d let them go years before. She hadn’t fought for him. She’d run away, and she’d wrapped herself up in pain.
His forehead lowered and pressed to hers. “Just let me be a villain in your backstory. That’s what I’ve been for years, isn’t it? Let me stay that way.”
Yes, dammit. No, no…
You were the man who made me happy. Then the man who broke my heart. Hero and villain all at the same time.
“I had a choice to make.” His voice was rougher, deeper, than it had ever been before. “I chose to walk away from you. I am the villain. See that shit.”
No, she would not. “I’m pretty sure the villain would be the man who locked me in a closet and shoved a knife in my side.”
“I’m going to kill him. I am one hundred percent certain of that fact. My very willingness to kill should tell you that I am dangerous to you.”
“Not to me. To other people, to the bad guys? Yes. But not to me.” A sharp inhale. “What do you think will happen if you tell me the truth? That I’ll forgive you for the past?” His touch was sending her system into overdrive. “Or that I won’t?”
“Can’t we just screw the past? Forget it and go forward?”
Is that what they were doing? Going forward? “You kept the engagement ring for eight years.”
His head lifted. “Yes.”
“You took it with you, wherever you went.” Had Ryan been right about that?
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His breath heaved out. “I have to wash my brother’s blood off me.”
Her shoulders sagged. He was not going to tell her. “There are no secrets that I kept from you. I told you everything about my life.” She moved out of the way. Headed for the bed even as she wrapped her arms around her waist.
“You are my life.” His words stopped her. “And I’ll be the bad guy a million times over if it means that you get to keep living and that you’re safe. I will sacrifice my own happiness again and again because that is nothing compared to the fucking darkness I’d feel if I didn’t know that you were alive somewhere in this world.”
What? She whipped around.
Too late.
The bathroom door clicked shut.
Dammit.
Nash stripped. He tossed his bloodstained clothes into the trash. Yanked on the hot water in the shower and heard the thunder as the stream poured into the massive tub.
