Page 165 of The Trouble With Bad Boys

I hear his footsteps as he walks down the hall toward my room. They stop just outside my door, and then a second later, he tries to turn the handle.

He really does think he has some right to be here. He needs to see he’s mistaken.

“Tia, please come out. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

The hint of sadness in his voice makes my willpower falter ever so slightly, but then I remember the reason he said he needed to leave me. “Just go. I want you to leave me be.”

“I can’t.”

My stomach twists into a tight knot when I hear that. He said that the night he came to see me after that terrible week I spent out at his house. He said he couldn’t get me out of his mind then. Now what’s his reason why he has to come here and bother me?

“Why? Did your girlfriend leave you?”

I don’t care that my voice sounds like I’m gloating. I hope she did leave him. Maybe he finally understands what it felt like when he broke up with me.

“No.”

“Then go back to her and leave me alone,” I say through the door, not caring that I may be hurting his feelings.

He ripped my heart out when he left me. Turnabout’s fair play.

“Let me in, Tia.”

The way he always sounds like he’s in the right and I must listen to him still comes through loud and clear in every word he says. The difference now is I’m not the same girl he left behind in a pool of her own tears. That Tia is long gone.

“No. I spent all those months trying to get over you. I finally did, so I won’t let you do this to me again.”

He’s quiet after my defiant little speech, and I begin to wonder if he’s thinking about leaving. He should. It would be better for both of us.

I listen for the sound of his footsteps to let me know he’s walking away, but I hear nothing. That means I’m still in danger of letting him back in. I have to remember that.

“Do what to you again?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know his own crimes when it comes to me.

As much as I want to stay angry, that question makes my chest hurt. My answer comes out in quiet voice as I try not to cry.

“Break my heart.”

He sighs against the door before saying, “I never wanted to do that.”

“Well, you did,” I say as I will those damn tears of mine to go the hell away. “Just go. Let me live my life. I was finally happy. After months of feeling like I’d never smile again, I’m okay now. If you ever cared for me, you’ll leave and never come back, Jaxon.”

“Tia, I’m here because I care for you. You have to let me in.”

I notice he doesn’t use the past tense and instead says care, like it’s something he still feels. No! I can’t let myself get sucked into dissecting his words and wondering what they mean. He told me loud and clear that he didn’t want to see me anymore that night in my old apartment. Nothing’s changed.

He’s still the same bad man he always was.

“Go away, Jaxon. I moved on. I found someone who cares about me. I hope you can find the same.”

Every word of that is a lie. I’ve never been able to move on. Oh, I thought I did, but as soon as I saw him standing in front of me tonight, that became a lie I’d told myself during all those months alone. None of the men I’ve dated could make me forget Jaxon. Even the thought of him happy with someone makes my heart hurt to this moment.

“Who? Who is he?” he asks, and I hear real sadness in his voice.

Why?

Even more importantly, who does he think he is asking me that?

I throw the door open and stare at him in disbelief. “I can’t believe you have the nerve to ask me that.”

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