Page 184 of On a Fault Line

“It wasn’t Collins’s fault.”

“Not his fault?” he snaps. “How is this not his fault for fucking with my baby sister?”

“I consented.” My words come out rushed—frantic—and when I don’t think he believes me, I add, “I promise.”

I did consent!

I consented to everything…

But why do I owe anyone an explanation or a play-by-play of those intimate details?

I don’t.

“I consented, Nic,” I reiterate. “Listen to me.Please.”

His body whips around, and it’s now that I realize just how angry he is with all of this. He wasn’t supposed to find out—at least not like this. We were almost done with the contract, and Collins promised he would handle the rest.

But how can things be made right when a trust so loyal has been broken?

“I didn’t want to sneak around,” I say, wiping the flow of tears streaming from my eyes. “I’m sorry for hiding it.”

“You’re sorry forhidingit?”

“Yes!”

Nic rubs at the back of his neck. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Listen to me,” I scream. I don’t even recognize my own frantic voice. “I’m sorry for going behind your back, but I didn’t know any other way.”

“How about being sorry for ruining your life again?”

“Ruining my life? You’re being heartless!”

“I’m being honest,” he counters.

“Collins helped give me my zest for being in this life back. Don’t you see it? I’m happy. I’m fucking happy again. The old me who was buried underneath trauma and the pain of my past has resurrected from the ash as someone who knows her worth. And it was Collins who helped me see it.”

Every time I say Collins’s name, he flinches as if I’m burning him with a hot iron.

Nic looks around the room, and for a second I think he’s going to go on a rampage, tearing apart the life I built here between these walls.

It’s a life I’m not ready to let go. I won’t let go…

His eyes scan over the four-poster bed. They land on the sheets and pillows. He looks at the nightstand and the charging cable plugged into my phone.

Nothing seems out of the norm, but Nic can’t help but look at everything here with disgust and contempt. “I can’t fucking be in this place without wanting to rip everything apart and burn it to the ground.”

“What? Why do you care so much?”

“Because a man who should have known better used you for his sick fantasies.”

“I love him,” I blurt out. I’m not thinking straight but of that I am certain.

“Love?” Nic scoffs. “You’re fucking joking.”

“I love Collins Stone.”

Just don’t tell him yet.I want to make it special… I haven’t officially expressed that sentiment to him.

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