“I love you, Soph,” Jonathan continued, cutting me off. “You’re my best friend. We were always meant to be together.”
I straightened my shoulders, ignoring these stupid tears that refused to stop falling. “Friends don’t lie,” I croaked. “Friends don’t leave each other hanging. And if you really loved me, you wouldn’t have left me like that.”
“I had no other choice,” he said, reaching out to caress my wet cheek. “But now we can be together.”
“You have no right to touch her.” Kian grabbed his arm, twisting it, and barked, “Don’t ever fucking touch her.”
Jonathan swallowed hard, his expression pained.
“You don’t know what we have,” he murmured, looking at me pleadingly. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Whatever we might’ve had, Jonathan,” I said weakly, “you destroyed it.”
“Don’t do this, Soph. I know you’re hurt, but I’ll make it up to you. You and this old fucker on the beach… that’s just sex. What we have is real.”
I reeled with realization just as Kian gritted, “It was you watching us that day. I should fucking kill you for that. Maybe you’re just as twisted as your ex.”
“Don’t… k-kill him,” I managed to get out.
I couldn’t breathe. My heart tore in half, crumbling right inside my chest, but I knew it was over. Jonathan knew it too.
He’d left me on the road for strangers to find me. He didn’t care enough to protect me. Even worse, he didn’t protect Sienna. He wasn’t there for me. He hadn’t cared about me at all over the last nine months.
“Take me back,” Jonathan said softly. “I’ll make it up to you for the rest of our lives. I’ll make everything right, I promise.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t take you back if you crawled on your hands and knees over broken glass.”
Jonathan was my past. My future was right here next to me.
I turned to Kian and said quietly, “Can we go home now?”
A long moment passed while Kian studied my face. “Home.”
Kian and I walked out onto the deck and didn’t look back.
Chapter 42
Kian
Sophie lay on the couch of my yacht, her eyes closed and her porcelain skin wet.
She was hurting, and for that alone, I wanted to murder Jonathan. The fucker who had left her to deal with his psycho ex-wife alone. Coward.
I fisted my hands, the urge to go back and find Jonathan was overwhelming. But she asked me not to, and I would never go back on my word. Although, deep down, I worried about her reasons. Did she still love him?
What she and I had together was too strong, too wild, but was it love? I knew it was from my end, but did she love me? Could she ever trust a man after how badly Jonathan had failed her?
Somehow I would make Jonathan pay for what he’d done to her. I wouldn’t kill him, but I’d slowly dismantle him and everything he owned, and before I was done with him, he’d wish he died right alongside his crazy ex-wife.
“I’m okay,” she muttered, curling in closer to my side.
“No, you’re not.” My adrenaline was still peaking from the attack. “I’m here for you. You know that, right?”
She offered me a weak smile. “I do.”
“Did Jacqueline hurt you?”
“Not unless you count her screeching, nerve-grating voice.” I sighed. “But no, she didn’t really hurt me. You showed up right in time.”
