Page 171 of The Puck Stops Here

‘I’m clean if that’s what you’re worried about.’

Her eyes snapped to his. ‘What?’

‘The sex, Astrid.’

She swallowed the rising sickness. ‘And me.’

She didn’t think to tell him she wasn’t on the pill. She’d deal with it. There had to be a twenty-four-hour pharmacy nearby and she sure as hell could do with the walk. If she missed the coach to the airport, all the better.

‘Good.’

Good? Nothing was good!

She picked her coat up off the floor and shrugged it on, picked up her bag and unlocked the door.

‘Astrid?’

Her heart lifted, hope soaring out of her control. ‘Yes?’

‘Was it worth it? All this betrayal and secrecy, just so you could get your own back.’

‘I told you…’

‘I know what you told me, but I don’t understand how someone like you, or at least, the person I thought you were, could get caught up in a scheme like this.’

‘I guess you had to be there to truly understand how it was between us. They’re my girls, the sisters I never had, and I love them.’

‘Sisters?You’ve known them what, two or three months?’

She held his gaze. ‘I’ve known you for a lot less and I still…’

He stiffened, his jaw clenching shut. How could she tell him now? Open up her heart in the face of his hate. But then, how could she not when this was what she’d come here to do? What Sissi had urged her to do? To take the opportunity her friend had never had and speak the truth.

She owed it to Sissi. She owed it to herself. And more than that, she owed it to the man before her.

Taking a deep breath, she wet her lips and let it go. ‘I still fell in love with you.’

He didn’t blink, he didn’t breathe, he said nothing.

And perhaps that was all she deserved for everything she’d done.

Absolutely nothing.

‘Goodbye, Blake.’

The coach, the hotel, the flight home – they all flashed before her eyes and she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t be in the same space with him and not break down.

‘Tell Preston I got caught up with a friend. I’ll find my own way back to New York.’

She walked and then she ran, desperate to be free of his world before her own came crashing in.

Stupid, stupid girl. Loving a bad boy. Letting them in.

Only Blake wasn’t a bad boy. He was good. He was kind. And she’d broken him.

She deserved to be broken in return.

Karma – it truly was a bitch.

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