Page 2 of Reclaim Me

“I won’t let you?” Disbelief paints my tone in dark, broad strokes. It has no place here because we both know what he’s saying is true.

“Yes, Rae, you. You’re the only person who still looks at me and sees…” he trails off, but I don’t need the words for my brain to conjure the image he’s alluding to. An image of a broken man splayed on the ground with the tools of his destruction scattered around his prone form. He’s not that person anymore. The time we’ve spent figuring out how our lives fit together for our daughter’s sake has shown me as much, but I still see it in the back of my mind. Still hold it up as a reminder of how bad things can get. Still use it as a barrier between us in moments like this.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could see something else, anything else,” I lie, exchanging his piercing gaze for the floorboards.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do, Hunter. Of course, I do.” My voice trembles around the falsities. I’ve never had to double down on the lie before. Usually, he goes along with it, but I guess today he’s tired of my little charade. Maybe he knows today is different. Maybe he feels the walls closing in, the clock running out.

“No, Rae, you don’t. Because holding on to that version of me is the only thing keeping you from me and the only thing keeping you with him.”

“That’s not true,” I shake my head for emphasis even though his words follow the same thread of logic as my thoughts. “Aaron and I are good together. You and I are a train wreck.”

“Do you love him?” The question is wrapped around a broken growl that causes his top lip to curl. It’s a sound that can only come from a wounded animal preparing to lash out in a final attempt to save their life.

I run a shaking hand over my messy hair as my stomach turns into knots. “Hunter.”

“Say it, Rae, look me in the eyes and tell me that you love him, that you love him more than you’ve ever loved me.”

He waits patiently for me to respond to his cruel request, and I hate him more with every silent second that passes. Why can’t he just let this go? Why can’t he just accept that the way I feel about Aaron doesn’t matter because we don’t work outside of the context of sated sighs and gut-wrenching moans. When a full minute goes by without me caving to his demand, he closes the space between us and cups my chin with gentle fingers. Slowly, he tips my head back, forcing me to meet his eye.

One dark slash of a brow raises. “Tell me you love him, Rae.”

He’s so close now, angling me to persuade me with proximity, and I don’t back away. I stand firmly on the line between common sense and the bone-deep yearning for this man. For his hands on my hips and the warmth that spreads through my chest because of it. For his breath on my face as he lowers his forehead to mine and pulls in lungfuls of air just because it smells like me.

I close my eyes, staving off the unshed tears burning the backs of my eyes. “I need to tell you something,” I whisper, scared to speak any louder because our connection is already tenuous and the words that are going to come out of my mouth next are going to destroy us both.

Hunter sighs, allowing me to shift gears. “I’m listening.”

It’s stupid, but I hold him tighter when I should be letting him go, when I know he’ll probably let me go when he hears what I came here to say.

“Aaron asked me to marry him.”

I open my eyes and find myself face to face with his devastation, and it destroys me. I feel like I should apologize, like I’ve broken some sacred vow, etched in stone and sealed with blood, that our souls have only just decided to acknowledge.

“Hunter, say something,” I plead, wondering why I want his words when I already know they’ll just make me feel worse. More guilty. More conflicted. More wrong.

His lips part, and my heart starts to pound, anticipating his wrath, his fire, his hurt, but he’s remarkably calm as he takes my left hand in his right and runs his thumb across each of my ring-less digits.

“You didn’t say yes.”

I pull my hand back, tucking it behind my back. “I did. I took the ring off before I came in here because I didn’t want you to see it.”

Hunter studies me with dark eyes that see too much. “When did he ask you?”

“Tonight. At dinner.”

He checks his watch, arching a brow when it reveals that it’s not even ten yet. “You’ve been engaged for all of five minutes, and instead of spending the night celebrating with your fiance, you came here to me.”

Something about his calm tone and even calmer demeanor makes me feel like I’ve been stripped down, lain bare, like the whole of every complication I’ve allowed to exist around the mess that is my life has suddenly been made simple.

“I—” My plan is to defend myself, to explain to him that I rushed over here because I wanted to be the person to tell him, that I didn’t want Riley to call and let it slip, but once again, the big, elaborate speech deserts me, leaving me with a stupid response. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

But it does. Doesn’t it? Just like my inability to say I love the man I’ve spent the last seven years of my life with means something. Just like the ease with which I say I love you to Hunter means something.

Hunter scoffs. “Of course, it means something, Sunshine. It means you said yes, but you didn’t mean it. It means there’s still time.”

“Time for what?” I ask, thrown off kilter when he takes a sudden step back and turns back toward his desk. I watch him pull open the top drawer on the right-hand side and pluck something out. It’s not until he’s walking towards me again that I realize what it is.

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