Instead, I pulled her closer.
“Maybe if you ask me to forgive you for all the shit you said about me the other night,” I said, “I’ll consider being cordial for the rest of our time here.”
“Which part of what I said was untrue?”
“That you regret fucking me, for one.”
“I do.” Her lip quivered. “Especially since you slept with someone else right after.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You also said you hadn’t had sex in a while as well, and that was a lie too.”
“You’re slipping into another psychotic state.” I pulled her closer. “The only person I’ve fucked since being here, and all this year, is you. And I know damn sure you don’t regret it because you begged me to make you come again and again…”
“I was pretending.”
“You were pretending to take my dick down your throat, too?”
Her cheeks reddened, but the wrath in her irises remained.
“I didn’t tell one lie at that dinner,” she said. “Sorry that the truth hurts.”
“I don’t appreciate you telling everyone what I really do for a living.”
“Then maybe you should get a new job,” she said.
“I have goals I need to reach, Katie. Surely you know what that means.”
“You surpassed your second and third goal years ago.” Her voice was terse. “But you can’t bear to let go because you’re scared to realize that you might not be good at anything else except hurting people.”
“So, the wedding you had planned in your head with Brad years ago—the one you put so much time and effort into—all for him to make you waste your time in an on-and-off-again relationship…”
I paused as her chest heaved up and down.
“You’re telling me that you would’ve preferred he go along with the wedding just to make you happy for a day? When you damn well know it would’ve ended in divorce later?”
“I would prefer it if you finally—just finally—stopped acting like you’re doing anyone a favor by ‘handling’ things.” Her voice cracked. “And I would also like it if you never spoke to me again.”
“Say it like you mean it, and I will.”
“I don’t want you to ever speak to me again, Asher Brooks,” she enunciated every syllable.
“I regret ever crossing paths with you on the first day we met, and I can assure you after this wedding is over, that this will be the last time because unlike you, I am capable of seeing when I need to move on and pursue something else…”
I let go of her, and she didn’t linger for another second.
She stormed off, and I watched her walk away.
Twenty-Nine
PRESENT DAY
KATIE
Irefused to ever admit this to anyone—especially because it would mean Asher was right, but I definitely sucked at taking off my rose-tinted glasses.
Because if I kept those on, any potential red flags weren’t red at all.
