Page 80 of Degrading Her

“As long as you’re happy, I don’t care,” I said.

She rubbed my back. “I am. Very happy,” she said.

Someone banged on the front door. Maisie put a hand in front of me. Wilder stepped forward.

It was Sawyer. I could feel it.

“No,” I said to both of them, wrapping the blanket around me. “Let me deal with him.”

Both of them waited behind me. I straightened my back and held my shoulders back. I could be strong. I could do this. I opened the door.

Sawyer, clad in a plain white shirt and jeans snug around his waist, stared back at me. It was so unlike him. Had he borrowed those clothes from another rancher? His eyes were bloodshot. His face blank.

Was this another game?

“What do you want?” I asked. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes never left mine, as if he was searching for the right words to say, trying to pin me in one of his traps again. But I wasn’t going to let him do that anymore. “You know what hurts the most? That you knew I didn’t believe you.And you didn’t try to convince me of the truth. Not until you shoved it in my face.”

“Why would I?” he asked. “Your whole life, you’ve never had a real worry. Unless I killed someone in front of you, you would have thought it was a joke.” He threw his hand down to the side. “We were playing a game, Fiona, a game you knew had risks.”

“Screw your game.”

“Do you know who that man was?” I crossed my arms over my chest, the blanket snug around me. Sawyer wiped his face. “That was the leader of Hatchcom Focus. Your stalker? That’s him, Fiona. And he won’t bother you anymore.”

If that was true, then they had been stalking me because of Sawyer. Using me as a pawn in a game of their own.

“That doesn’t give you an excuse,” I said.

“I will kill anyone who threatens you, Fiona. And trust me. He’s not the first I’ve come across.”

I bit my lip. How many people had he killed for me?

“You said you loved me,” I said. “But you almost let me die. I can’t love you, Sawyer. I can’t love someone who manipulates me.”

He laughed, the chuckle making me insane. “You say that like you would have loved me if I had been real with you this entire time.” He shook his head, and I knew he was right. I didn’t know if I could have accepted him that way; he was right to dismiss my statement. “I never lied to you. But you know what actually bothers you? Thatyoufailed to see who I was. There’s no one to blame for this but you.”

Tears welled in my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. I was worth those tears, but Sawyer?

He wasn’t.

I turned to my sister. “Will you take me home?”

Sawyer stepped forward. “Fiona, I?—”

Maisie blocked him from me. “Back off,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. Wilder stood behind us, another layer of protection.

Sawyer didn’t move, but glared at me. Maisie pulled me by the arm, inching me toward the parked cars. I held it in, keeping everything inside of me. Maisie had already seen me cry. I didn’t want to do that to her again.

But it hurt, and the tears rolled down my cheeks. I held my breath, trying to be quiet.

The night flickered to the sides of us as we drove by. The shadowed gates. The stalks of grass. I had always thought it was strange that Maisie had traded her partying lifestyle for a quiet life on a farm, but now it made more sense. Wilder wasn’t just a rancher, and that other side of him matched Maisie.

But what about Sawyer and me? Did I match him too, in some strange way?

Was he right? Was I mad at myself for failing to see who Sawyer was?

As we pulled into the broken gates of my apartment complex, Maisie looked up at the building.

“You want me to stay with you for a while?” she asked.

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