Page 158 of Loving the Liar

“I was.” And then it kicks in. His true reasoning. “Just like I was protecting you from Harvey James when I stopped you from going to Juilliard. From your mother’s desperate attempts to marry you into the Circle when I had you initiate. From Megan when I wasn’t telling you about my deal with her. From Maria Delgado when she tried to take away what you worked so hard for. From Reeves, from the stupid jobs who used you for your reputation.”

He shakes his head, catching his breath, and it barely gives me enough time to process his point of view.

“Was there a part of selfishness in those acts? Of course. I’m human. My heart beats in unison with yours, and I can’t help that. God, Ella…” He stands up, goes to walk away, then sits back down as if calming himself. “You said you didn’t want me even if I was your last option on earth. Do you have any idea what kind of damage that did? I had to make myself that last option and show you you’d choose me. I had to have you.”

“But you did all of this while lying to me,” I rasp. “You pretended to my face that you cared, that you loved me. You begged me for a second chance while scheming behind my back.”

He’s panting, his eyes searching mine when he says, “I couldn’t leave that second chance to fate. That would be insane.”

And I can see he truly believes that.

“What is insane, Christopher, is that when all of this didn’t work, you pinned a fucking murder on me.”

“I offered you to be my Hera. Why couldn’t you just take that?”

“Because it was forced.”

“Well, look at us now! You gave me no choice. I’m in love, for fuck’s sake. Can’t anyone fucking see that?”

The cursing is the only thing I need to know he’s about to lose all the patience he has left. So I stop trying to speak louder than him, and I keep my voice level when I say the last thing I have to say.

“Chris,” I murmur, holding back a groan. He’s infuriatingly delusional. “How do you expect me to be happy when you are forcing my hand? When you murdered your previous fiancée?”

His gaze darkens so quickly I pull back on instinct, and when his hand comes for my hair, he pushes his whiskey off the table by accident.

“Hate me for anything you want,” he growls. “But if you think I have an ounce of pity for Megan, you’re going to have to think again. You know nothing of what happened between her and me. But I can tell you if you want.”

“You’re hurting me,” I seethe through gritted teeth.

“You refuse to listen when I don’t handle you in a manner that feels familiar to you.”

“Fuck you!” I don’t know how I dare be offended by the truth.

“What do you want to know about what she did to me, huh? What will make you understand that she had it coming? You know she hurt my dad. You know she blackmailed me into staying with her. She hurt you, too. But you don’t even care about yourself, only I do. You care about me, though, right? You’ve always had this strange empathy for me. So here’s what you want to hear.”

He pulls me closer, looking right into my eyes. He knows me too well.

“She hit me, slapped me, threw every single fucking glass in this house at my face. She threw her phone at me that day you saw a bruise.” Something breaks in his eyes. And I break harder. “I lied to you, Ella. We did have sex before I came back to Stoneview. It was blackmail, but hey, who cares as long as she’d get what she wanted? And the first week I came back, we had sex once too.”

I try to move away, out of his grip, but shock renders me helpless. He pulls back, and this time he can’t look into my eyes. So he presses his lips against my ear instead.

“She drugged me, she didn’t put on a condom on me, and she fucked me while I wasn’t really there. When I finally remembered the next day, I had to shove the morning-after pill down her throat to make sure there was no risk of her bearing my child. And who knows how many times I didn’t remember.”

He nibbles my ear, sending goosebumps scattering along my arms. “Heard enough?”

“That’s rape,” I say on an exhale. And the worst thing is that I know this isn’t all of it.

He finally lets go, caressing the side of my head he just hurt. I blink away the tears from the hair pull and the broken part of him I felt talking to me.

He ignores the truth I just told him. He called it sex, but it wasn’t sex. It was rape.

“You’re done with your dinner, aren’t you?” he asks with a tenderness that had disappeared when he talked about Megan.

I nod. I can see it right here and now. He will never mention this again.

“Good. I’m going to take you upstairs now. And I’m going to fuck you until you remember I have your best interests in mind.”

Chapter Forty-One

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