Her eyes flashed. “That is all you need to know.”
“No,” I said, my jaw tightening. “That is the bullshit answer you give when you want me to stop asking.”
“That doesn’t make it untrue.”
I watched her for a moment, letting the silence work between us. “You were comfortable with him,” I said. “He touched you without thinking twice, and you let him. That is not nothing, Edwina.”
Her eyes sharpened. “And you forced me into your car this morning,” she said, anger cutting through her voice now. “So if we’re discussing boundaries, you are the last man who gets to define them.”
Her answer hit exactly where she wanted it to, and for a moment, the room seemed to hold its breath. Then my mouth curved, though there was nothing amused in it.
“There’s my girl.”
Her face hardened. “Do not call me that.”
Chapter Eleven
Edwina
Ididnotwantto break in front of him. I had already given him more of myself than I meant to tonight, every reaction, every crack in the version of me I had fought so hard to become.
“If you got the answers you wanted,” I said, forcing the words out, “then I’m leaving.”
Hayden’s gaze stayed on mine. “Not yet.”
My fingers curled at my sides. “What else could you possibly want from me?”
His expression changed, the anger in it sharpening into something colder. “Tell me who Helena is.”
Everything inside me stopped. For a second, I could not breathe. I could not move. Even the room seemed to disappear around that name, leaving only Hayden standing in front of me and the truth I had spent years keeping away from him.
“No one,” I said.
The lie came out too quickly.
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t do that.”
“She’s no one,” I repeated, but my voice broke on the last word, and I hated myself for it.
Hayden took one step toward me. “Edwina.”
“Don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t say my name like that.”
I turned my face away, but it was too late. The tears came before I could stop them, slipping down my cheeks with all the things I had refused to feel for years. I tried to swallow it back, to pull myself together before he saw too much, but Hayden always noticed what I wanted hidden.
For a moment, he said nothing.Then he came closer His fingers brushed my cheek, wiping away a tear with a care that hurt more than cruelty would have. My breath caught, and my whole body tightened at the touch, the familiarity of it cutting through me before I could stop it.
“I don’t need this,” I whispered, though the words came out weaker than I wanted.
His fingers stayed near my face. He brushed away another tear before it could fall, and I hated the way my body softened at the touch, how easily some part of me leaned toward what I had spent years learning to live without.
I did not want this. I did not want him. Most of all, I did not want my heart answering him as if it had never learned how to survive his absence.
I forced myself to stay still, to hold on to every reason I should step back, but he did not give me the distance I needed. His other hand rose, and then my face was between his palms, held without force, yet with enough certainty that looking away felt impossible. My breath faltered. Against my better judgment, I lifted my gaze to his.
For a moment, the anger between us fell quiet. The distance I had fought to keep, the years I had used as a shield, all of it thinned under the simple truth that I knew this man. I knew the shape of his face, the depth of his eyes, the silence he carried before it turned into words.
I had missed those eyes.
