Page 49 of The Opposite Effect

“Yeah, you can. So fight me. Prove what I’m saying is wrong.”

She angrily shakes her head while striding across the room. My eyes track her as she makes her way through my residence searching for her belongings, the water dripping off her dress leaving puddles in her wake.

When she snatches her purse off the coffee table in my living room, I push off my feet and race to the door. I only just make it to the entryway before her.

When she lifts her eyes from the floor, the heaviness weighing down my chest since last night grows. Fresh tears leak from her overfilled eyes as the same broken look she was wearing last night returns full force.

She won’t fight as she believes every word I’m speaking is true.

“Look around, Princess.” I wave my hand in the air. “There’s no white horse, and I sure as hell can’t see Prince-Fucking-Charming, but you’re still breathing, you’ve got clothes on your back, food in your belly, and a roof over your head. Who gave you that, Clara?” Her face crunches as she battles to settle the heavy flow of tears streaming down her face. “You did. Not your daddy. Not Isaac. You did it. You’re not a damsel who needs saving. You andonly you crawled yourself out of the pit that was trying to swallow your life whole four months ago.”

“If I don’t need saving, then why am I here? Why are you helping me?” she stutters through a barrage of hiccups.

“Because it is what a man does for the woman he’s falling in love with,” I reply before my brain has the chance to object. “Last night scared the shit out of me. The thought of losing you…Fuck!I couldn’t handle that. I can’t handle that.” I lock my eyes with her. “Don’tevermake me handle that.”

More tears spill from her eyes. “If you knew the things I’ve done, the people I’ve hurt, you wouldn’t be saying that, Brax. You would leave me to fend for myself like every other member of my family and friends have. I’m not a nice person. I am not who you think I am.”

“I don’t care about your past, Princess. None of it matters to me?—”

“It should,” she interrupts as her glistening eyes bounce between mine. “No one should get away with what I did.”

“You don’t think you’ve already been punished? You got mugged at gunpoint in an alleyway, for fuck’s sake. I think your dues have been paid.”

“That’s nothing compared to the hurt I’ve caused people,” she replies, her voice switching from a medium volume to a faint whisper. “Not even close.”

“Then tell me what you did. Let me make my own decision.”

She balks before shaking her head.

“Then I guess I’ll keep running with my own opinion.” I move to stand in front of her. The closer I get to her, the more she retreats. Her fleeing steps only stop when her back is plastered against a wall in my apartment, and my body is splayed to her front.

“And my opinion is one hundred percent certain that I need totaste your lips again.” I lift my eyes from her thrusting chest to her face. “So unless you tell me something shocking within the next five seconds, I’m going to kiss you. And since I’m planning on kissing you until you can’t speak, you better speak now while you have the chance.”

Lifting my hands, I cup her jaw. “Five.”

I run my thumbs over her cheeks to gather her tears. “Four.”

I drop my thumb to brush the mouth I’m dying to taste again. “Three.”

I adjust the angle of my head to align our lips better. “Two.”

I tilt my head closer to hers. “One?—”

“I snuck into a taken man’s bed while he was heavily intoxicated so I could pretend we slept together,” she blubbers out, her hot breath fanning my hungry lips.

Although shocked a woman of Clara’s standards would need to stoop to those levels, it isn’t the first time I’ve heard of women running those types of tricks.

It also isn’t enough to stop me from tasting the lips I’ve been dying to become reacquainted with for the past three weeks.

“I was also the reason my brother lost the love of his life.”

I pull back and peer into her eyes. They’re shimmering with silent regret, undoubtedly proving what she’s saying is true.

“Have you tried to fix the mistakes you made?”

A big, fat tear rolls down her cheek when she shakes her head.

“Why not?”

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