Page 90 of Fall Into Me

“Cali—” Fane frowned, shaking his head at the whiplash he was no doubt feeling.

“No!” I choked, consumed by the dread of reliving that moment. Of feeling like I didn’t just betrayhim, but I betrayed myself. “You might have been able to turn away from whatever you felt for me. Turn it off and walk away, but Ilovedyou.” My voice broke. “And not in the way you love sunsets, or you love your favorite fucking movie. I.Loved. You. And when I had to deal with that alone? It was like I was drowning. I…”

I took a deep breath, I needed to calm down. When I spoke again, my voice was quiet, and my tears had stopped, and all that was left were those bloody, weeping wounds that had never healed.

“I know that’s not your problem. It’s mine. I’m not trying to say it’s your problem. But you want to know why I hate you so much?That’swhy,” I said, rushing back to the living room to grab my bag, dropping a kiss onto Jerry’s nose that he met with a cry of his own.

I needed to get out of this house that was too small for all the things that were just said within its walls. All the confessions it held.

I opened the front door, forcing myself to look back at him where he stood just behind me. “I hate you because you forced me to try to want someone else when all I haveeverwanted was you.”

I held his stare, giving him what he wanted—no walls between us.

He looked like all he wanted to do was pull me to him, to wrap me up in him and help me fix everything the way he always had been able to before. I wanted to let him. But more than that, I was desperate for the explanation he had for me—this big, imposing, fucking hauntingwhythat would make it all make sense.

The answer towhywe had ended up where we were instead of where we should have been. The truth was, I wasn’t sure I was ready for the answer.

I’d thought about what it would be since the moment I left. Built it up and broke it down from something small and insignificant to something huge and life-changing, and I didn’t know which would hurt less.

I didn’t slam the door behind me. I just closed it quietly and didn’t look back.

I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing. All I knew was that I was desperate for the first time in my life to be nowhere near Darling.

The real fucking kicker? I didn’t hate Fane Mackenzie, and I never have. I never could. As much as I tried, as I desperately wanted to. It would have made everything so much easier, but no. There was no possibility of hate in my heart for him.

It was definitely not safe for me to be driving right now. What I really wanted was to drive to my parents’ place, to run to my dad and feel him wrap me in his arms the way he used to. To hold me close and rock me from side to side. I discarded that thought immediately, knowing it would only make him worry because I couldn’t even tellhimthe truth. I’d lied to him so completely since I’d arrived back in town, and if I came clean, all he would do is overthink everything I said, everything I did, and blame himself for the decisions that I’d made.

Two years worth of worry would flood him, and I’d never survive it, having to watch his heart break again.

I grabbed my phone and dialed the only other person I could think to go to.

“Cali?” Delilah’s frown was audible and her hesitancy a palpable thing, like she thought this might have been a butt dial.

“I know we haven’t talked properly in a really long time, and I haven’t been a good friend, or even a friend at all, but I really need a drink, and I don’t want to do it alone.”

The last part came out a sob, turning into a cry of relief when she replied.

“I’ll meet you at Mags’s in ten.”

28

Fane

After

The moment I walked into the bar, Ashton waved at me like we were on opposite sides of a fun park, yelling something I couldn’t hear over the music that was playing.

I was thankful that the corner he’d taken up residence in with a couple other guys from work seemed to be protected from the way the speakers were destroying people’s eardrums.

“If I knew the way to get you to a bar was to tell you that the love of your life was guzzling down drinks like it was her divine given path in life, I would have saved myself a whole lot of trouble.”

“And you’re out, why?” I slid into the booth next to him, already wishing I could leave. After leaving my job at Heavenly Horns, the appeal of frequenting a bar just vanished from my mind. When Ash begged, I indulged him from time to time, but I was more than happy to down a few drinks at home.

“There’s a bachelorette party going on.” He gestured to the group of women standing by the bar, the one in white giving him particularly gooey eyes. When I looked back at him, he was giving her a little finger wave.

“Tell me you didn’t seduce the bride-to-be.”

“What? No! ’Course not. I went for the one in white.” He was still waving at her when I punched him in the arm, and like it was an automated reply, his fist came flying back at me, which I dodged before flicking his ear.

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