Page 9 of Fight for Me
“Well, I’m sure we could arrange that,” he says from behind me.
No, no, no this isn’t happening.
I get to my feet, needing the height even though he towers over me. He has always been so tall and strong. It was what I loved. I was precious to him, and he always did what he could to make sure I knew it.
“It wasn’t an offer.”
He grins. “I know. I’m just trying to make light of it. Can we talk?”
All the bravado I had about being honest is gone. “I can’t. I have to get to work.”
“Just a few minutes, Syd. I know I don’t deserve it, but I’d like to talk. We have a lot of time coming up that we’ll have to be around each other, and I’d like us to be civil.”
Like that’s ever going to happen.
“I don’t know that we’ll manage that.”
“Maybe not, but we can at least try.”
I release a heavy sigh. “Maybe.”
“I really did miss you,” he says, and a part of my cold heart thaws. “I know you’re worth everything, and …”
“And you let me go.”
His eyes close and then he clenches his fist. “It wasn’t what you thought.”
“It was exactly what I thought. You were done with me, and you threw me away! Just like my father did! You were exactly like him, Declan!”
“No! It was nothing like your father!” I see the devastation in his eyes and turn away.
It is the same thing. When he was through with me, he tossed me aside. “You say that, but you did exactly what you promised not to. You left without ever coming back.”
“I needed to!”
“Why? Why did you need to?”
I find myself inching closer to him as my anger grows.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
God, that’s where he’s wrong. “It matters to me. Do you understand I’ve spent years trying to understand it? There are no answers. No clues as to why. Just one day, you show up and decide we’re over.”
He shakes his head, seeming to grapple with whatever is on his mind. “I did what I had to.”
“What you had to? What the hell does that mean?” I yell and shove at his chest, but he steps with me, as though we’re two magnets being pulled.
Declan’s hand grips my wrist, thumb stroking tenderly over my rapid pulse. His voice is soft, but there’s a strain in the syllables as his eyes bore into mine. “I couldn’t hurt you again. I couldn’t … I had to stay away. But now ... now, I can’t.”
“Now you have to,” I remind him.
“Tell me you don’t feel this, Bean.”
I close my eyes, knowing that I can’t see him when I lie. “I feel nothing.”
“Do you know what I feel?”
I still won’t look at him, but I’m not resisting as much as I should considering I still haven’t pulled my arm back.
