Page 44 of Resurrection

“I should have been given the choice.”

He shakes his head. “No. I’m glad I wasn’t given a choice either. Without even thinking too hard, I can come up with at least five instances where you might have died because of my foolishness.”

Part of me doesn’t care. A life with him, however short, would have been better than the one I’ve led so far. “I had seven miscarriages and then I found out he’d been cheating on me the whole time. Got one of his side pieces pregnant and paid for her abortion.” The words leave my mouth almost before I can consider them. I can’t look at Finn—don’t want to witness whatever emotion crosses his face. Pity, probably. Maybe anger because I let Eric humiliate me.

His burger rattles his plate when he throws it. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

I don’t respond and instead continue eating my salad. He was right. I created a false narrative to tell people, strangers, friends, business acquaintances, to protect myself. “Since we’re giving each other the truth, that’s mine. I wanted it. I wanted that future so badly. But I just couldn’t get that version of my life to stick. It wasn’t supposed to be mine.”

Tension radiates off Finn from across the table. He takes a long drink from his beer and avoids eye contact. His silence speaks volumes.

“Sometimes,” I say, “no matter how much you want something, it just isn’t meant to be. And now, well, now it’s too late.”

Chapter Seventeen

Finn

Rage courses through me, an old friend. Last time I felt this surge, I shot an FBI agent. I’d love to shoot someone again.

Eric.

I take another bite of my burger and chew without saying a word to her. She’s eating her salad in silence, an air of grief around her causing a corresponding ache in my chest. I hate that fucking pressure bearing on me. I do pretty much everything in my power to never experience regret and longing. Since she rescued me, they’re constant fucking companions. Whenever they rear their heads, I tell myself,that’s the stab woundorthat goddamned gunshot just reopened.

I’ve never been a fixer. Lorcan is, Carys is, but me? I’m usually the guy creating the chaos. My mind churns with ways to fix this feeling in me, in her. The best I can come up with involves going upstairs and using our bodies to forget, to remember, to fucking drown in each other. There’s only one other solution which would satisfy me. Catch a plane to Chicago and take care of Eric. FBI watchlist be damned.

When I look over, she tucks the stray strand of blond hair that’s popped out of her bun behind her ear again. In a sense, I get why she clung to him. She’s never been good at giving up on people. I didn’t think she could find a guy worse than me. I should have known better. She’s an overachiever.

I place my plate to the side. Even with a healthy dollop of mayonnaise, the French fries taste like cardboard. “Why are you still letting him touch you, Carys? Why are you allowing him to lay a single whoring hand on you?”

She sets her fork aside. “Because nothing matters anymore. The sex is good—who cares if he’s giving it out to everyone else as well? All men are Charles or Eric or—”

“Me.”

When she insinuated the comparison earlier, I didn’t feel like setting her straight.

She shrugs but doesn’t meet my gaze.

“The least you can do is look at me when you’re making shitty accusations.”

Carys crosses her arms. “Am I wrong? Let’s not bullshit each other.”

She was so guarded when we were younger. Everything between us had to be a secret, and I went along with it because from the moment she let me slide into her, I was a goner. Hell, I was probably gone long before that. I kept tabs on her throughout my teenage years, jerked off so many times with her name on my lips I sometimes wondered if I’d call outCarysat the wrong time, with the wrong person.

Once we were together, she could have asked me for anything, and I would have done it. But she never did. I thought I was temporary—the frog she kissed before she found her prince.

Being around her, hearing her side, the reality my twenty-some-odd self couldn’t see is staring me down, impossible toignore. My anger subsides as I catalog her face, save the tiniest details for later. This was never just lust between us.

Maybe I should tell her the truth—that I never slept with another woman in the three years we were together. Never even considered it once I had her. Or I let her continue to think the worst of me.

“Yeah,” I say. “You’ve got me pegged.”

Honesty does nothing but give her false hope. Whether I loved her then or I love her now isn’t the point. I’m not good for her; she’d never survive me. I don’t save people or fix them. I ruin them. Maybe I am like Eric, like Charles, but not in the manner she thinks.

Carys shakes her head and purses her lips. “Acting offended, just to admit I’m right.” When the waiter approaches, she piles her cutlery on the plate and lets him take it. “I don’t know why everything has to be a battle with you.”

I chuckle and lean across the table toward her. “You want me to be easy?”

“Do you have any idea what easy looks like?” Carys raises an eyebrow as she pays the bill.

---