Page 99 of Resist

Hurt echoes through me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If it wasn’t for the money, then why won’t you return my calls, Vaughn? Why do you keep resisting—”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Only because you feel insulted . . . not because you want to be.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?”

He stares at me, and my God, every part of me that wants to believe this is real—that he is standing here wondering the same things I am about where our relationship stands—feels validated. So then why does it feel like we’re an ocean apart?

The only sound in the room is my phone alerting a text. And then another.

“You need to get that?” he asks with the lift of a brow.

“No,” I say as it alerts again.

“Seems to me like someone’s in high demand tonight.”

The dig is there, noted, but it has nothing on the ache in my heart.

“Go to hell, Lockhart.”

“Keep the money, Sanders,” he says, and I swear using my last name is his way of letting me know he got close to me when no one else has. It’s his way of reminding me he knows the real me I’m constantly hiding from. “Use it to try to get custody of Lucy. Use it to pay down your debt. Use it to do whatever the fuck it is you need it for . . . we’re paid in full.”

My mouth shocks open in an O as I take in what he’s saying. As I try to figure out why I don’t want to hear the next words on his lips. As I try to process the fact that he just ended whatever this is between us.

“I don’t need your charity.”

“Too bad, because I sure as hell need things from you . . . things you’re not willing to give.” His jaw muscle tics as he stares at me, eyes alive with confusion, body set with tension.

“Like sex without strings? Like having a woman you can discard on a whim and then pick back up when your current lay won’t return your calls?” Heartbreak guides my words and dims my rationality.

“And you just proved why it was crazy for me to think we would work in the first place.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you were so busy trying to justify your own reasons to yourself, you never bothered to see anything else.”

“Ryker. What—?”

“Fuck this, Vaughn.” He looks at the ceiling for a beat and blows out a breath that drips with both resignation and frustration. “I should’ve known after that first night this was a disaster in the making.”

Panic bubbles up in my throat. My hands tremble. My mind scrambling. He’s telling me what I already know . . . that this would never work between us, and yet . . .

“Then why did you pursue me? Why did you threaten? Why—”

“Because you’re fucking gorgeous! Is that what you want to hear?” his voice thunders. “Because you were a challenge. A woman who sure as hell didn’t play the part like every other woman in my life does. But Christ, Vaughn”—he walks to one side of the small bathroom and back, eyes boring into mine, frustration rolling off him and into me—“I can’t keep fighting for someone who doesn’t want to be fought for.”

“That’s not—”

“Because you were the goddamn exception.”

“Ryker.” It’s a soft plea, and I’m not even sure what I’m asking for.

“No. Don’t ‘Ryker’ me. You’re the one who ran away. You’re the one who—”