Chapter One Hundred and Eighty Five
“The last time I was here, you seemed to be in such a hurry to do just that.”
“I thought I was keeping you safe; If only I knew you were like a problem magnet.”
“So let me guess, you would give me a whole crap talk about how you were willing to hurt me, humiliate me, just to ‘protect‘ me.”
That silenced him, and then his gaze found something I had left on, my engagement ring. For some reason, I felt the need to hide it.
He grasped my hand, staring at it.
“What is this?”
“What does it look like?”
“You’re engaged?” He said the words like it didn’t make sense.
“Yes, and keeping me here isn’t really helping me in any way.”
His eyes were once again those cold orbs that sent chills down my spine.
“I guess I deserve this,” he says more to himself than to me. “I should be happy you’ve moved on, but I can’t be happy for you, Riley,” he says, looking away from me as if it hurts to stare.
Bullshit. I pulled my hands away from his hold, taking some steps backwards.
“I never wanted this Thane. I loved you, and you knew that, but you used that against me; you broke me. Do you know how long I spent crying over you, waiting and hoping you showed up, but you never fucking did; you moved on and left me there.
I hated myself; I hated you for bringing out this version of myself, and yet, as much as I hated you, I still waited. Day after day, I hoped you would change your mind, but you never came, and I had to move on. You think this was easy for me? I had no one; I was in a foreign land, and I had to stare at my mother each day, knowing she was right about you and you were no good
for me.
Then, I made a choice; I wasn’t going to waste away; I wasn’t going to let you do the same thing with me your father did to my mother, and so I tried, but you never stopped haunting me; you were there in my dreams; you were always there.”
I was crying now, and I couldn’t hold it back. gods, I hated him so much. I hated him so much for what he put me through, and all through my little speech, he just stared.
“I fucked up really bad. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“The right thing for me, or for you? It has always been about you and your many problems, you were the one with the problems not me and yet you made me feel like I wasn’t good. enough, you made me question my self worth. I was so desperate for you, gods, I was willing
Chapter One Hundred and Eight The
to bring myself so low, just to be with you. Not anymore”
“Riley I was too dangerous; my actions hurt you and I knew that, but you were never going to be safe with me, and that became clear after the attack.”
“Excuses. That’s all you gave me. I believed in what we had, and I was wrong.”
“No, you weren’t. You thought I moved on? I couldn’t get you off my mind for even a fucking second. I was miserable, Riley, and yet I couldn’t go to you until I was sure I had full control, until I was sure I would never hurt you again. I was not planning on letting you go, I was going to come find you because it took only a single day to realize I could not leave without you” A part of me always knew, I knew he was trying to keep away, only so he wouldn’t hurt me, that didn’t make things any different. If he loved me, he would have found another way. I would never let myself fall one more time. I hadn’t fully recovered from the past hurt, I wasn’t going to let myself get tangled in this mess once more.
“I am not some spineless wolf, you just never did see it”
“No you
you aren’t Riley you never were. I had been a fool to think keeping you away was the solution”
“So what would you do?, make amends?”
“I made a terrible decision, but I wouldn’t cower away now, I would try to fix things”
but
“You have to understand that you cannot fix everything, some things are just too broken to be fixed. I would get married and I would be happy”
“You don’t love him, Riley, I can tell”
“Well I do not love you either”
