Page 78 of Moonlit Temptation

“Why are you trying to hurt me?” I breathed, feeling my heart deflate in my chest.

“What did you think this was, Madelayne?” he asked, frustrated. “You’re not my girlfriend. I wasn’t going to hold your hand and introduce you to my friends. I wasn’t going to kiss you under the stars while your family stood several feet away. I didn’t want you here to begin with.”

His words were cruel. Accusing. And I was left stunned by the delivery.

“What happened between leaving London and now?” I searched his face for answers, but it was still closed off. Giving nothing away.

“We were just having sex, Mady. It wasn’t going to be anything but sex.”

“You don’t mean that.” My voice was small. Unsure. “What about all the things you said about wanting to try? That you couldn’t stand not to touch me or kiss me or be with me again.”

I remembered his words from the hotel room in our last minutes together. He never said he wanted a relationship with me. Only that he couldn’t stand not kissing me, being with me.

Fucking me.

Oh, God. My lungs constricted, making it hard to breathe.

“I woke up,” he said, as if we were talking about the weather. “Pulled my head out of my ass.”

“You woke up,” I repeated. Dazed. Unable to believe what I was hearing. “What does that even mean?”

“It means London was fun, but it was a mistake.”

A mistake.

I was the mistake.

Oh, God. Everything hurt as sharp, icy pain pierced my lungs.

“You’re lying.” I studied his face, his calloused, cruel face that still gave nothing away. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?” He rubbed his jaw. “What was a future together even going to look like, Madelayne? You’re an immature nineteen-year-old with no future in front of her while I’m on my way to being the CEO to one of the largest businesses in the world.”

I’d never put much stock into other people’s opinions about my future. About what they thought of me. Not my teacher’s, not my family’s, and definitely not the people of Honeycutt, but Saint’s…

Saint’s opinion mattered more than it should.

He got me.

He saw me.

He always supported me.

Until now. When he was using it against me.

I shook my head. “You’re lying,” I repeated, refusing to believe any of this. It was a joke.

It had to be a joke.

Saint wouldn’t do this to me.

“You were right to worry in the hotel room, Madelayne. About what would happen if we got back here and I realized you weren’t worth it.”

“You didn’t answer me then.” I remembered him pulling me to his chest in a hug, silent. No words.

“Well, I came home and realized you were right. You’re not worth it. Not worth losing everything I’ve built for myself here. Not worth losing my family.”

The party downstairs stopped.

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