Page 89 of Feel Me

“You should have warned me, Declan,” she says. “Included me in your decision, allowed me some input, given me chance to tell you what I thought. But you didn’t. You just did what you wanted regardless of how I felt.”

“I’m sorry, and you’re right. I should have discussed it with you. But I was blind with rage over what happened to Rosana. You saw me when I found out, and what it did to me. All I cared about was seeing the man who hurt her pay.” I rub my jaw when she doesn’t say anything. Maybe she’s disappointed in me. And maybe she has a right. But right now, watching her turn her back on me, onus, she’s not alone.

“Why are you leaving?” I ask. My voice is so low, I’m not sure she hears me.

“My dad’s not doing well,” she repeats. “The doctors told me if he can’t get through this next round of chemo and dissolve what remains of the cancer, he won’t survive.”

“I’m not asking you why you’re taking a leave.” I inch as close as I can without touching her. “I’m asking you, why you’re leaving me.”

She steps away. “I can’t talk to you about this.”

“Why?” She starts to turn. I reach for her hands, holding them lightly and keeping her in place. “Mel,please. Just tell me why.”

Her eyes swim with tears. “I can’t trust you, Declan. I wanted to, and I needed to, my God, Ireallyneeded to.” She breaks down. “But you’ve proved to me too many times that I can’t.”

Her words are like slaps across my face. “Were you going to tell me about your meeting with the governor?” she asks. “You know the one, where you just happened to mention you wanted to be the next mayor? Or how about when you told her we were together, when I didn’t even know what we were myself?”

Hurt and fury burn through my veins. But it’s what she thinks that I can’t get past. “You think I used you.”

Tears drip down her face and her hands slip from my grasp. “No. I think you usedus. Meandmy father.”

What remains of my patience abandons, leaving only rage. “Youcan’tbe serious. You can’t possibly mean what you’re telling me.”

Her expression turns cold. “Come on, Declan. You accomplished everything you set out to do. You’re being sworn in as D.A., and there’s no one else big enough to challenge you for mayor, not after my fatherandthe governor backed you, as well as all her sheep you cozied up to at the ball.”

My breath is coming so fast, I don’t even know how I’m able to speak. But I do. She needs to hear what I have to say. “I earned that D.A. spot and you know it. So does your father which is why he backed me. It’s what he wanted before there waseveranything between us.”

“So this thing between us was real?”

The way she asks proves she no longer believes it. After telling her I love her, nothing she could have said would have crushed me more. “You think I dragged you to bed, told you how Ifeel, to secure this spot and get ahead?”

“What do you expect me to think?” she asks, her expression bruising like I’m the one hurting her. “The governor was thrilled to death to hear we were together, so much so that the moment you approached her at the ball and told her all about us, any reservations she had about endorsing you for mayor were pushed aside. She told me that if Dad and I both believed in you, she had to believe in you, too.”

Her chest heaves in an out, her emotions barely under control. But I’m so pissed, sofuckingdumbfounded, I can barely move.

“Did you have fun parading me in front of all those reporters, pretending like we’ve been together forever?” she asks. “Acting as if you never pushed me away and broke my heart?”

“You’re the one who walked away from me, that night, in my apartment.Youleftme.”

“Afteryoutold me you didn’t believe in love.” She cries into her hands, but then shoves them away. “Did you honestly expect me to stick around after that? How could I have hope for us, when you didn’t have any at all?”

“You need to stop,” I bite out. “You need to stop this shit right now.”

She points at me. “But then suddenly you were there again, right? Conveniently in time for the governor’s ball, practically telling me you couldn’t live without me?”

“Because I can’t!” I close the remaining distance between us. “Yet you’re standing here— accusing me of things that aren’t real— telling me you’re leaving and not coming back.”

A row of people hurry past us, but I barely notice them, my attention fixed on Melissa as she continues to cry. Her tears, her pain, I can’t fucking take it. As livid as I am, her misery is my undoing, forcing my own hurt to the surface. “You have to believe me,” I tell her. “You have to trust me.” My hands clasp her arms, my voice barely audible. “When I say I love you, I’ve never meant anything more.”

Agony marches across her features. “Declan, I can’t believe in you anymore.”

I freeze in place, bowled over by her admission. She whirls away, a sob breaking through her throat. She disappears around the corner, I start to race after her, but Wren’s voice halts me in place.

“Declan,Declan!”

My head whips back to where she’s standing in the hall leading to the maternity ward. I rush forward only to have the chief cut in front of her. “We got him, Declan.”

I barely hear him, watching as Curran steps out of Tess’s room and speaks to a few cops in uniform. “What?”

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