Page 68 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

This was what I wanted. What I needed. A place where I could disappear and cut myself off from ever feeling pain again. But there is no hiding anymore. No amount of ink or hostility is going to keep the real world from infiltrating my life now.

It’s too fucking late to pretend it hasn’t already.

Finally, I face her again, knowing what looking at her soft face and tears is going to do to me. “I’m angry at myself for caring and wanting something I can’t and shouldn’t have.”

Her lip trembles as she watches me slowly advance. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” I stalk toward her slowly, giving her every chance to tell me to stop or to back away, but she doesn’t move until my chest brushes against hers. I tilt her chin up to look at me, making her tears roll back along her temples. “The last week since you got here has been fucking torture for me because I fought so fucking hard for so fucking long not to want anything or anyone in my life, and you were forced into it against my will. I want to hate you. I want to look at you and see nothing but that world I tried to leave behind and resent you as much as I’ve resented all those people. It would make things so much easier. But…”

“But what?” She asks the question so softly I barely hear it, but it’s an invitation to say the words she knows are coming as much as I do.

She wants to hear them.

Sheneedsto.

As much as I need to say them.

“But I can’t.”

No matter how hard I try, I canneverhate Lyla.

I can never resent her.

I can never blame her for becoming tangled in this same stupid scheme I have gotten myself involved with.

I can never intentionally hurt her, even if it makes it easier for me.

God, it would be so much easier to hate this woman.

But my heart thunders against my ribcage with something other than hate—a need, a desperation to taste her again the way I did the day of our wedding.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I lower my head and crash my lips against hers, wrapping my arm around her waist and dragging her up against me more firmly, so she can feel my cock hardening against her, the way my body craves as badly as my soul does.

I’ve already said far more than I should, and I sure as hell shouldn’t be doing this. But I can’t stand to see this woman cry, can’t bear for her to think that she’s done anything wrong or that she’s the problem.

I’mthe fucking problem.

I always have been.

I’m not strong enough.

I wasn’t strong enough to end what was happening back then, and I’m not strong enough in this moment, either.

ChapterTen

SILAS

My lips move against hers greedily after wanting to do it for so damn long, and initially, Lyla freezes, like she can’t believe I’ve actually kissed her. But just like the other day at our sham wedding, after a moment of shock, she melts into me, her mouth as eager as my own.

The world disappears as I come back to life again, as I allow myself to forget all the reasons this is a horrible idea and simply feel the way she gives herself over to me. The way I give myself to her. How easy and natural it is.

How right.

Lyla drops her bags so she can loop her arms around my neck, and the sound of glass shattering finally breaks through the fog enveloping my brain and brings me back to my senses.

“Fuck.”

I jerk back from her and focus on the bag on the gravel, where a red liquid oozes out across the uneven stones. The scent of tomatoes and basil hits me, replacing her light, citrusy one that had filled my lungs, and I drag my eyes up to meet Lyla’s wide, unfocused ones.

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