Page 71 of Even if You Fall

A dull laugh tumbled past my lips. “Nothing.”

“And yet, you still thought it.”

“I never said that.”

“You’re not denying it,” he tossed back just as quickly.

“You don’t understand,” I whispered.

“I don’t,” he agreed. “I have you here. I’m protecting you. I—” He drew in a sharp breath and seemed to war over what all to say before he finally finished, “And you thought I’ddrugyou.”

“I...” I hesitated, then held up the packet with a sad smile. “Look, it doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me,” he shot back.

“I don’t know what you want from me.” I told him. “I told you I’m sorry, and I am?—”

“The truth, Chloe,” he ground out. “Just give me the?—”

“It isn’t you,” I cried out. “None of this was about what I truly thought of you. It’s me. It’s that I can’t trust myself. Okay?”

His brow furrowed as his arms crossed over his chest, making him look scarily similar to Asher right then. “No,” he said with a shrug. “No, I’m not buying theit’s-not-you-it’s-meline on something like this.”

“It—” A harsh, humorless laugh bled from me as I wavered for long moments before everything came spilling out. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to not be able to trust yourself? It never made sense for Owen to want me; for him tochooseme. Iknew that. And I still let myself fall for him and his words because everythingfeltreal with him. I was sure of it. But it was all a lie, and then there’s you.”

It felt like I was dying under my embarrassment as it raced to the surface, but I’d already begun, there was no stopping now. “Even though you’ve given me every reason toknowI mean less than nothing to you, I still find myself—” A whimper of humiliation sounded in my throat as I dropped my face into my hands.

My head swam from the abrupt movement, but by the time I lowered my hands, the dizziness had mostly passed. I kept my stare on my crossed legs, unable to look up at the man in the room, when I continued. “I find myself falling into this delusional hope that you might feel even a fraction of what I’ve started feeling for you,” I confessed, then hurried to continue. “And even when you do or say something that reminds me how wrong I am, that hope sneaks back in, and it’s—it’s terrifying,” I admitted.

“It’s terrifying to know my own mind has failed me once before, and this time I’m fully aware it’s failing me again,” I said on a shamed whisper. “So, I didn’t consciously think you were drugging me. It was just one of those times when I started letting myself fall for the illusion again, only to remember why I couldn’t.”

“Because you thought I was drugging you,” Adam muttered, still not getting it. Not that I was sure I could blame him for that.

“Because I would’ve believed anything you said to me. I would’ve accepted anything you gave me,” I said, my too-tight chest pitching as I added, “Blindly. And I needed to bring myself back to reality.”

“The reality that I’d drug you.”

“That you don’t care about me,” I cried out, my stare lifting to his. “That you wouldn’t do something as sweet as make me a drink separate from what everyone else was having. That your touches and words don’t actually mean anything. That I all tooeasily fall for the lie because I’m just the naïve girl who stays at home and clings to her books...right?”

Adam’s head bobbed a few times before he gave a quick shake and roughed a tattooed hand over his face.

“Youfall for the lie?” he asked. “What do you think I’ve been trying not to do? Why do you think I’ve been begging you for the truth—for therealyou?”

My heart stalled before taking off in a furious rhythm, but I desperately tried taming the hope clinging to each beat as Adam started toward the bed, his voice low and grave when he continued.

“I keep thinkingI know where she stands, so I try—and mostly fail—to keep where I’m really at in check. But after everything you just said, let’s get everything else out right here, right now. We’re not leaving anything to question.” He stopped just beside the foot of the bed, looking at it as if there were some invisible line he needed to stay behind, then lifted his amber eyes to me.

“Despite how much I wanted to hate you—and trust me, Bubbles, I wanted to hate you—all I’ve been able to think of since this sunshine-of-a-girl dropped me to my knees, is you.” He pressed a hand to his chest that pitched with his next exhale. “I wanted to get rid of you. I wanted the threat to my friends gone. But I became surprisingly possessive whenever Rush volunteered to interview you. I was unreasonably jealous every time I found Gray trying to take you home.”

If I hadn’t been so stunned by the confession pouring from him, I was sure I would’ve laughed at the asinine assumption. As it was, my words came out dull when I said, “Hudson never tried to take me home.” When Adam gave me an incredulous look, I added, “That’s just his personality. He doesn’t actually mean anything he says to me.”

“You sure about that?” he muttered as he crossed the boundary he’d set for himself, coming closer and closer as he continued. “See, I can’t help but watch you, so I’ve seen you interact with plenty of people, and I know you don’t think all that highly of yourself. But, Chloe, you attract every guy you so much as walk past. With a brief look or a simple word, you have them eating out of the palm of your hand.”

My eyes rolled only to widen when he knelt on the bed and slipped one of those large hands around the side of my neck, his thumb absently brushing along my jaw in a move so tender that I was sure my heart was going to give out.

Right there.

Or maybe I would just wake up soon because there was no way Adam Thatcher was gently holding me while saying the things he was right then.

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