“How?”
He clutched the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. “I told you before that you wouldn’t get sweet or caring from me. I told you not to lie to me or to try and touch me. Yet, you did all of those fucking things. You dragged more emotion out of me in a few days than anyone’s been able to do in years and I fucking hate you for it. Not only did you force me to come back and listen to more of your lies, you think after everything you’ve done that I’ll just let you go?” He shook his head, chuckling sadly. “That’s not how sins work, sweetheart. They demand payment. Same fucking payment that I paid.”
He sped past street signs, driving like a reckless idiot.
“And vengeance? What of that?”
His head swiveled, green eyes latching onto mine before returning to the road. “You don’t know a fucking thing about vengeance. Don’t spin another tale. I’m done with your bullshit.”
“You’re right. I don’t know about revenge. I have no enemies—that I can remember. But I do know what they say about it. That carrying out harm to others not only hurts your intended victims, but yourself, too. You end up being hurt. Forgiveness—”
“Forgiveness?” he yelled, punching the steering wheel and making the horn blare. “You dare talk to me about forgiveness? You have no right—none—to try and preach how I should live my life. You don’t know a damn thing of what they did to me. To her. To my fucking future. They ruined me!”
The twisted agony in his tone turned my heart into a mangled, useless thing. I wanted to take his pain and cure him. I wanted him to let it go so it didn’t fester and kill him. The more time I spent with him, the more I wondered what happened to the simple, kind boy from my past.
“You don’t look ruined. Want to know what I see when I look at you?”
“No. Shut up.”
“I see a man who’s so intelligent I can imagine it’s exhausting living inside your brain. You’re wealthy, respected by both peers and government and media. You have it all.”
A vein throbbed dangerously in his neck as he shook his head, laughing under his breath. It sounded manic—like the tip of a volcano that was about to explode from the depths and rain molten lava. “Have it all?” I have it all?” He hunched over the wheel. “You have it wrong, Sarah. I have nothing. Fucking nothing because they took it all.”
“I know you’re hurting. And I won’t try and understand what you’re dealing with, but you can’t live your life blocked from feeling. You’ll snap.”
He’s already done that.
I feared for his sanity. I hadn’t meant to push him. But this would be my last opportunity. My farewell attempt to make him crack and listen.
He laughed coldly. “Snap? Sweetheart, I snapped years ago and don’t need any woman trying to make me fucking soft. I’m done and I’m gonna make sure I never have to lay eyes on you or hear your lies ever again.”
My shoulders slumped as standoffish silence filled the car. How could I make him see? He meant to sell me—get rid of me. What sort of man did that?
A broken one.
I just wanted to be freed. I would leave—I would give him my word he would never see me again. He didn’t need to ruin my life just like his was. “For a genius, you don’t seem to understand,” I whispered.
He gritted his jaw, refusing to reply.
My mind raced with ways to get him to pay attention—something had to trigger inside him. I just had to keep pushing. “What happened in the changing room that day? Explain to me the connection. That kiss, Killian… It was more than two strangers lusting after each other. It had layers… history.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened, the vein in his neck still throbbing crazily. “You’re only making this worse.”
“For you or for me? Tell me what you felt. Tell me what you were thinking when you kissed me.”
He growled under his breath. “What happened is none of your—”
“Goddamn business,” I finished for him. Throwing my hands up, I snarled, “I already know, genius. It’s because of her. Me! You’re so damn in love with a dead girl that you can’t—just for a single moment—allow yourself to enjoy another woman. Even if that other woman is her!”
He attacked the steering wheel. Whirling it to the right, he shot from traffic and slammed to a stop in a turning lane. Spinning in his seat, he brought the wrath of hell upon me. His arm shot forward, smacking my thigh so hard my muscle smarted through the bronze dress. My skin pricked with heat from the reprimand—of being hit like a disobedient child.
“You aren’t her. Why the fuck won’t you get that?”
“I agree I can’t remember the right name, but explain the rest. Please, I’m begging you—explain the rest, so it makes sense, because right now the only conclusion I can see is that I’m the girl you think you killed.”
His face went white. Holding up a shaking finger, he hissed, “You mention her again or speak to me like that and we’ll have a serious fucking problem.”
Tears burned my eyes; my lip wobbled. “What happened to you?”
What happened to the genius boy who stole my heart and gave me his? What happened to us?
“Life happened, sweetheart. Just like it’s happening to you.”
I couldn’t stop shaking. “You need to let someone in. You have to stop hurting!”