Page 99 of Crushed By Love

He shakes his head, his breath leaving in an emphatic scoff. “That’s not what happened.”

Forty-Two

My uncle saved me, that’s a fact. The man has done so much for me but that was the one thing he did to really solidify my trust in him. He truly loves me like his own. I believe that with my whole heart and it’s why I agreed to transfer colleges and live with Sybil, why I added a business degree to my studies and plan to join Laurence International. And you know what? Thank God Ethan let me go when he did. He was right, I needed to be free of the Kings. I needed a real family. As much as it sucks that he hurt me, he gave me so much more than a broken heart that day.

“I knew nothing of the charges at first,” he explains. “I only learned what was going on when the lawyers tried to set up a mediation meeting with me and Cooper. We’re the reason your case was dropped, not Gregory’s lawyers, although I’m not surprised he took credit.”

I shake my head. “You must be mistaken.”

“I’m not. The Nantucket house was put in mine and Cooper’s trust when we started working for our father. We own it. We’re the ones who get to say what happens there, which means we’re also the ones who get to say if we’re pressing charges. Conrad was trying to do it behind our backs as a fuck you to Gregory, but Coop and I dropped the charges the second we found out about them.”

I stand frozen, a million thoughts bombarding me at once.

A million feelings too.

There are moments in life that shape you as a person. The moment I realized that Ethan had betrayed me, that he had told his father and gotten me charged with trespassing, I had changed into someone different. Someone harder. I wouldn’t say I stopped believing in love, but I definitely stopped believing I could trust men like Ethan. But that was all a lie. So will this moment reshape me again? Because Ethan wasn’t the one who pressed charges; he was the one who dropped them. And he wasn’t trying to hurt me by dropping me off in Boston; he was trying to help me. He was giving me a family.

It’s all too much.

“And what about Sybil?” I squeak out.

“What about her?”

He takes another step closer and so do I. This time it’s both of us moving toward the other. Somehow during this conversation, we went from standing on opposite sides of the room to being a foot apart. The space between us pulses with energy, with memories, with confessions, with hurt, and maybe . . . maybe even with love.

Was it love? It was for me but I can’t speak for him.

“Did I help you get over her?” My voice quivers knowing the answer could hurt me. He said himself that he wasn’t over her at the beginning of that summer.

For the first time tonight, he smiles. “Yes. And faster than I wanted to admit. It wasn’t months of being around you that finally made me stop thinking of her, Arden. It was days. It was minutes. Seconds. I wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you. Do you remember? You were on the beach, it was night, and I was making out with someone else like a fucking idiot. I saw you and something inside of me knew you were mine.”

“Actually, I saw you in the pool earlier that day,” I confess. “That was the first time for me. The beach was the second.”

His eyes heat with hope and lust and maybe, maybe even love. “Such a fucking shame I didn’t see you then too because I’d die for one more memory of you.”

My heart skips over a beat. I can hardly believe what he’s saying, but why lie about something like this? What does he stand to gain from coming here? Nothing, except for getting through to me. Maybe that gravity thing works both ways. Maybe he’s drawn to me just as much as I am to him. I might be the one that steadies him right back.

“After things ended with Sybil, I thought I could get over you like I got over her, that time would erase you or that I would meet somebody new who would change everything, but it never happened.” Closer. Closer. Closer we move together. “And then I saw you and for a second I thought it was her. I was angry and confused. But then I looked again and I saw you for you. You weren’t Sybil. You were you. A girl who stood like she was unsure of herself, who didn’t know anyone on that beach. Your hair was windswept and as beautiful as that bonfire. You had this deep longing in your eyes and this raw honest innocence about you, too. You weren’t like the people I knew.” He clears his throat. “I wanted you.”

“And you got me and then you left me in Boston.”

“I know. Fuck Gregory but the rest of the Laurences are decent people. I left you there because I wanted you to be happy.”

“And I am happy,” I breathe. But I’m also missing something. He gave me something and then he took it away and I don’t know how to get it back without him.

“God, I missed you. I thought of you constantly. For two years you’ve been on my mind. I almost came to you when I found out about the lawsuit but by then you were established with the Laurences and I didn’t want to mess that up.”

“But you’re here now,” I point out.

“Because when I saw you the other night, I knew I’d made a mistake. I never should’ve let you go. I’m so fucking sorry for everything, especially letting you walk away.”

I almost want to tell him it’s okay, but I can’t.

“I’m going to be selfish now, baby. I want you back.”

It’s like all my broken pieces have a chance to come back together.

This confession is everything a girl wants to hear. I’ve missed him too. I’ve longed to rewind time and fix things between us, to take back my harsh words, to make him see that we were good together, to make him love me more than he loved Sybil. I was angry and hurt but I never stopped wanting him.

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