Page 144 of Threaded Lies

And now I’m desperate.

The voices on the other side fall silent.

“Who is it?” someone calls out.

“I need to speak to Rowan, please,” I say through the locked door.

“She’s busy.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“She’s not going to talk to you,” the person says sternly.

“Either she talks to me or I make a scene and object at the wedding.”

Silence.

Then hushed voices. Several It’s fine voiced by Rowan, before the door is opened and a litany of people file out—bridesmaids, I presume—none of whom meet my eyes as they do so.

Except for Sloane. She shoots daggers my way.

It’s only when the parade ends and I step inside that I’m met with Rowan standing in the middle of the room. She has a white robe on, her hair and makeup are done.

She’s fucking breathtaking.

It takes everything I have not to pick her up and haul her out of here. To make whatever promises she needs to be made so that I can claim her as mine.

But I can’t.

Won’t.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she says quietly. “Go away.”

“No. Absolutely not. We need to talk.”

“Why? So you can lie to me some more? So you can use me some more? Build me up to fuck me and my family and everything over some more?”

I take a step toward her and she takes a step back. And this isn’t some game she’s playing; there is real, true trepidation in her expression.

“We … I just need…” Get the fucking words out, Holden. “I can’t change who I am.”

“I didn’t want you to. I loved you because of who you were. But I won’t accept the lies and I can’t be with someone I can’t trust.”

“Isn’t that why we’re where we are? Because I didn’t lie to you? Because I told you I couldn’t promise what you’d asked?”

“Are you from Fairmont, Holden?”

Of all the things I expected her to ask or say, that was not it. “What?”

“Guess who I met last week. Penelope Piccadilly.” It feels like someone has punched me in the gut. What? “Funny how those pesky exes come back at the most inopportune time.”

What the fuck is she talking about?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice sounds like gravel over sandpaper when I speak.

“Sure you do, but like all your other lies, you don’t know how to cover this one up, do you?”

“Rowan—”