Page 58 of Cruel Lies

"I’ll be okay in a minute," I whispered, hoping I was actuallytalking and not just thinking it. "Panic attacks. I get them all the time."

I actuallydidhave them all the time. They were in no way related to him, me, or the situation, but I could see Nash spiraling right alongside me. I could feel it in the way his hands shook as he clutched me tighter. I could feel it in the way he shivered against me.

Four, five, six. Nash’s wavering breath. The beat of my heart. The repetitive sound of the refrigerator in the other room cycling on and off.

"Nash, I’m okay, really?—"

"No, you’re fucking not. You shouldn't be here, shouldn’t be turned on by anything I just said to you." Clearly, he was sobering up some because his thoughts had turned self-inflictive. He blamed himself, and I didn’t have the ability to tell him this wasn’t anything to do with him. That Iwantedall those things he talked about.

I couldn’t think straight enough to do more than reassure him between waves of paralyzing fear and irrational anxiety.

I could feel the situation turning into a runaway train laden with dynamite, but I was powerless to stop it.

And then, like a weight had been lifted from my chest, it was over. I got control of myself, stopped shaking, and I sucked in a desperate breath.

"Fuck."

"What the fuck, Harper?" Nash stood up, pacing back and forth like a caged lion. "Look what being near me does to you!"

"Nash, it’s not you, fuck—they’re panic attacks. I get them every once in a while." I reached out to put a hand on his arm, but he shook me off, snarling like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Except Nash had never made light of or tried to hide who he really was. I’d just refused to see it.

And he refused to believe someone could love him despite it.

"No, Harper. I can’t be trusted with you! One day, I’ll snap onyou, and then what will I do?" He grabbed my upper arms, pinning me in place as he stared down at me. "What will you do when I finally lose control and hurt you?"

"You won’t," I said confidently, the words an echo of the words I had spoken to Rowan on that bridge seven years ago as hedidhurt me. "Nashville Blackwood, I trust you."

His eyes fell to the floor, and he scoffed, locks of brown curls hiding his face. "You shouldn’t."

I felt like fighting him, the adrenaline and anger chasing away the last of my panic attack. It was like I only had so much capacity for mental payload, and when something more important came across my mind, it shoved everything else away.

My hands settled on my hips. "And why the fuck not?" I leaned down, forcing him to look at me. "You would never hurt me."

"But I fucking would,"he whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear him. "You don’t get it, Harper."

"Then make me understand."

His hands tightened around my biceps, and he shook me gently, trying to rattle some sense into me. "Don’t you get it? When you showed up, and you laughed at me, I came so close to hurting you, to snapping it’s not even funny."

"But you didn’t?—"

"Not because I didn’t want to. I wanted to hurt you, Harper." He shook me harder, his face pale and eyes sad. "I wanted tohurtyou."

It was starting to sink in. The look in his eyes when Angel had jumped in and stepped in front of me an inch, telling Nash about his fly being open. The way he wouldn’t meet my eyes after that, how he looked defeated, angry, almost.

He wasn’t lying.

But he was drunk,my addled, lovestruck mind offered as an excuse. Anything to deny what was staring me in the face.

Nash was dangerous. And here he was, admitting that to me,telling me I should be scared of him, and here I was making a whole list of excuses for him in my head to justify still jumping his fucking bones.

What the hell was wrong with me?

Who had I become?

I tried to reach him one last time. "Nash, that’s not?—"

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