Her voice trails off, and she drops my gaze, turning toward the window again. I don't need her words to know where she was going. I know what she let me have. It replays in my mind like a fever dream weekly, the weight of her in my arms, the taste of her skin, the way her nails bit into my back like a prayer and a curse all at once.
"Asha—" I start, my hand reaching for her.
"Don't." She flinches away from my touch. She whirls to face me, and when her eyes come back to mine, they're blazing with fury and disappointment. "I know what I said that night. I told you not to speak, told you not to take off your mask, and you want to know why?" She advances on me now, each step deliberate and fierce. "Because I knew this would be our fate. Lies, pretending, hiding behind?—"
"Behind what?" I challenge, standing my ground even as she gets close enough that I can smell her perfume. "Say it, Asha. What are we hiding behind?"
"Behind whatever this is!" Her hand waves between us frantically. "This thing we won't name because naming it makes it real, and making it real means?—"
"Means what? That you might have to admit you feel something?" I take a step forward, and she retreats until her back hits the wall beside the window. I plant my hands on either side of her head, caging her in. "That you might have to stop punishing us both for something that happened when we were kids who didn't know how to?—"
"Behind our families!" she cuts me off, her voice sharp and desperate. "Behind generations of Fairfields and Hales who can't stand to be in the same room together."
"That's bullshit, and you know it." I lean in closer, watching her pupils dilate even as her jaw sets stubbornly. "You don't give a damn about why our families hate each other."
"Don't I?" She ducks under my arm, finally breaking free, and storms toward the center of the room. "My father has spent my entire life warning me about your family. About how the Hales are snakes who take what they want and destroy everything else." She spins to face me, arms crossed defensively over her chest. "How they're charming and persuasive right up until they're not."
I know that last part is her own addition, another tick on the list of reasons she keeps to hate me, but it doesn't hold weight.
"So that's what you think I am?" I push off the wall, my hands flexing at my sides. "Just another Hale waiting to destroy you?"
"I think…" She stops, her throat working as she swallows hard. "I think it doesn't matter what I think. This fake marriage proves it, doesn't it? We're using each other. I find a way to keep my land, and you seal the deal on your merger. It's transactional. It's exactly what our families do."
"Using each other," I repeat the words slowly, letting them hang in the air. "Is that what prom was? A transaction?"
Her face pales, but she doesn't back down. "That night was a mistake."
Her words hit hard, and I have to take a breath before I can respond. "A mistake?"
"Yes," she says, but her voice wavers, and she turns away from me, pacing toward the window. "It was...it was weak. I was weak. I let my guard down and?—"
"And what?" I close the distance between us in three strides, grabbing her wrist gently but firmly, making her face me. "Youlet yourself feel something? You let yourself want something that wasn't approved by your father or filtered through decades of family bullshit?"
"Let go." She tries to pull away, but I hold firm.
"Not until you admit the truth." I lean down, forcing her to meet my eyes. "You're not hiding behind the family feud because you believe in it. You're hiding behind it because it's easier than admitting you're scared."
"I'm not scared." But her pulse racing beneath my fingertips betrays her.
"Liar." I release her wrist and step back, running both hands through my hair in frustration. "You're terrified. You're terrified that if you let yourself care about me—and I mean really care—I might actually stay this time. And that scares you more than me leaving ever did."
Leaving, she planned for. Leaving, she expected. Staying, she doesn't know what to do with.
"You don't know what you're talking about." She wraps her arms around herself again, that defensive posture that's becoming all too familiar.
"Don't I?" I let out a harsh laugh. "You took off your mask that night. You let me see you, and then you ran. You've been running ever since, and now you're using our families as an excuse because it's convenient. Because it's safe."
"Safe?" her voice rises, anger flashing in her eyes. "There is nothing safe about any of this! Nothing safe about being in this room with you, about having to pretend to be your wife, about—" She stops abruptly, her hand coming up to cover her mouth, like she's said too much.
"About what?" I press, moving closer again. "About feeling something real for once?"
"Stop." She holds up a hand, keeping me at a distance. "Just stop. You want to know the truth? Fine. The truth is that ourfamilies hate each other for a reason, and whatever happened between us that night…" her voice cracks. "It was always going to end badly. This…"—she gestures around the room—"this fake marriage is proof of that. We can't even be real with each other. We have to hide behind contracts and clauses and business arrangements."
She's not wrong. I saw this as my opportunity to finally have her and capitalized on it. I hid behind the contract, used it as armor and invitation all at once, but only so I could have moments like this, have her alone, where she couldn't hide behind her father's opinions and a feud that has nothing to do with us.
"We don't have to." I keep my voice level, controlled, even though every instinct is telling me to close the space between us and make her listen. To make her see that the contract was never the point. She was. "We're choosing to. You're choosing to."
"I'm not choosing anything tonight except to be done with this conversation. I'm going to take a bath, and then I'm going to go to sleep in that bed alone." She pauses at the bathroom door, her hand on the frame. "I took the couch last night. It's your turn."
