His mouth parted slightly as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to either. Heavy emotions unraveled dangerously inside me, and I scrambled to get them under control before I did something stupid.
I wanted to reach across the table and take his hand. I wanted to comfort him and tell him that I’d never stopped loving him—that loving him was the easiest thing I’d ever done and losing him was the hardest. I wanted to confess that the biggest lie of my life was how hard I worked every day to pretend like all those things weren’t true.
But I couldn’t.
So I remained still, letting the silence build uncomfortably between us. It lingered all the way back to his house as I dropped him off. He barely said a word when he got out or while I put my equipment back in the truck. I couldn’t blame him.
I carried the soul-crushing weight of it home with me, taking winding roads all over the place just to avoid stopping. I knew the moment I stopped, it’d hit me, and I wasn’t sure I’d survive it.
Unfortunately, none of that mattered as my phone lit up on the dashboard with a single text message from Harley.
HARLEY: For what it’s worth… I never said it back then, but I never stopped loving you either.
There it was… the bomb to detonate everything between us.
Because for one: Harley loved me.
And two: he knew I still loved him.
CHAPTER 56
harley
Ihad never told Maverick that I loved him. That single fact weighed heavily on me as I watched his truck drive away. Try as I might, I couldn’t get it out of my head.
“I never wanted you, and I never will.”
The words that had haunted me for six years were a lie. A fucking lie. What was I supposed to do with that? I’d built my survival over the past six years around those words until they were practically carved into my bones. If he never wanted me,then moving on made sense. If he never loved me, then I could write everything off as a big mistake.
But if he loved me?
And if he loved me and still walked away like it meant nothing?
Then what the hell did that make me? Make us?
Whatever it was, it made me brash because I grabbed my phone and sent him the kind of text I had no business sending. My thumb hovered over the send button for a full thirty seconds, my heart thundering in my chest, before I hit it.
For what it’s worth… I never said it back then, but I never stopped loving you either.
I sat at the island in the kitchen, just staring at the message as I waited for some kind of reply. Minutes passed without a response. I wasn’t sure what I expected. An immediate response was unlikely. Maverick and I were in uncharted waters, fighting history and too many feelings. Did I really think he would text me back so readily after what he’d said?
Was I really thinking at all?
“Fuck,” I let out as I dropped my phone and ran my hands over my face.
What the hell was I doing?Flirting with something I shouldn’t want and couldn’t have was dangerous. Especially considering that I was technically married.
The word felt foreign every time I applied it to myself.
Married.
What I had… it wasn’t a real marriage. It was so cold and clinical. A calculated decision based on benefits. It was a prison—one I’d undoubtedly built for myself. I didn’t love Vivienne. Hell, I didn’t even like her. I didn’t want this life with her, but Iunderstood the point of our relationship logically. Every part of it was carefully debated and decided on like a business merger.
And that was before a baby was factored into the situation. A baby that was just another clinical decision I borderline resented. Even though it was the next logical step in our growth, I wasn’t sure I wanted kids.
Or maybe I had just convinced myself that it made sense.
I didn’t even know anymore.
