Page 125 of Worth Every Moment
“You said you needed three months. You put this end date in. I agreed.”
“You didn’t tell mewhy!” She barrels towards me, her arms flapping like wings. I easily grip her wrists, holding her still. Her jaw is tight as she stares at me. “Why didn’t you tell me? You had months to mention it. But you didn’t. You just let the clock tick down, and you didn’t explain.” Every word sounds like a cry for help. She tears her hands from my grip and I let them go.
“You never asked. Not once did you ask what would happen after our time was up.”
Helpless puffs of air slip out of her mouth. “Don’t try and escape this on a fucking technicality. Never in a million years did I consider that you might be getting engaged to someone else when this arrangement was over. That never crossed my mind.I don’t see how it could have. How could I have asked about something so unexpected?”
I rub a hand over my eyes, trying to stem the panic that’s crawling up my throat and spreading beneath my skin. “God, I wish you had. I longed for you to ask. Do you think I wasn’t desperate for you to say, ‘Hey, Seb. I like you. I like being with you. You mean something to me too. I’d like this to last longer than three months’. But did you say it? Did you say any of that? Not once. Not once did you suggest you might want this to be more than it was. Before the last few days, you never came close to saying any of that.”
“I did ask.I did. Back when this began, I asked if we’d still be friends when it was over, because your friendship was, and always has been, important to me.” She presses her hands together in what looks like a desperate prayer. “And you said yes. You promised meyes. And the whole time you knew it was going to end this way.” Through gritted teeth she lets out a scream. “And when I asked today—today—you said I was insane to think this would ever end. You lied. You fucking lied to me.” Her hand finds its way into her hair and she tightens her grip on the roots. “You looked me in the eye and told me you loved me. And I believed you because I didn’t think you could possibly still intend for this to end on schedule… not after…”
Her voice breaks, taking with it my heart, shattering it into pieces. “I’m sorry. I should never have slept with you.”
Her chest shudders with shaking breaths, tears falling as she raises her red-rimmed eyes to me. “Please don’t say that. I don’t want this to be something we regret. Don’t make me hate you any more than I already do.”
All I want is to hold her. I want to be the one to comfort her, to ask her what bastard piece of shit would do this to her.Who the fuck would treat her this badly?
Me. I would.
“I never knew if you cared,” I say. “Not really. Not the way I did.”
She screws up her face like I’ve struck a blow. “It was implicit. You knew. You didn’t need me to say anything. Youknew. You always know everything. I said I was yours.All of me. Don’t pretend you didn’t fucking know.”
“Know what?”
Her nostrils flare on every breath. “Don’t make me say it. Not now.”
The warm breeze tugs at her dress and teases loose strands of her hair as we stare at one another, each a mirror of the other’s agony.
“I didn’tknow. I hoped.” I close my eyes as pain like I’ve never known tears through my chest. “I still hope.”
The silence is heavy with those three unspoken words. I wish she’d say them. Admit that she loves me too. I don’t know why I’d wish such a fate on her, to love a man like me when I’m abandoning her, but part of my soul aches to hear her say it. To know I’m not the only one losing my mind.Losing more than my mind…
“Is it your father?” she says. “Are you doing this for him?”
I’m doing it for you.“I have no choice.” It comes out low and hopeless.
“You always have a choice,” she pleads. “What does he have on you? What shit does he have on you that you would agree to this?”
Tension crushes my heart in a painful squeeze. “Erica—”
“If you don’t want to marry her, say no. Don’t let him do this to you. Don’t let him control your life. Be a man. Choose me.” She thumps her chest. “Choose me,” she says, quieter this time, voice breaking through the tears. “I chose you. My mother hates us together, and I. Chose. You. I—”
“No, you didn’t.”
She tilts back, blinking at me. “What?”
“You didn’t choose me. You never chose me. You choseyou. Your career. The next move. I was a means to an end. I was a piece in your game. I’m always a piece in someone’s fucking game. We were never the same… never on equal footing in this relationship, fake or otherwise. I would choose you every day, and I’ll still choose you, even when I have someone else’s ring on my finger and another woman in my bed. I chooseyou. Every fucking time. I’ll fall asleep thinking of you, and wake up thinking of you. I’ll dream of you at night. You will fucking haunt me because I choose you in every single way I can. I have no choice but to choose you. You don’t feel like that. I know you don’t. Because I was never good enough for you before, and I’m not now either.”
She covers her mouth with wavering fingers, bending nearly double and letting out a pained groan that sounds like she’s suffered a fatal blow. She breathes shaking breaths into her cupped hand, and when she straightens her eyes are shimmering and wet. “That’s not true.”
“Lefroy.” I say her name gently, but there’s a reprimand in the sound.Don’t treat me like a fool. “This arrangement wasn’t aboutmycareer. My reputation. My fucking PR. It was yours. It was always about that for you. But for me, it was only ever about one thing, and that was you. Being withyou. It’s always been about you.”
For a second, she looks like she could break, but she wipes it away with bitterness, and I see the transformation in slow motion as she turns the Ice Queen on me, forcing the words out when she speaks. “Well, congratulations.” Tears hang on her lower lashes. “You finally fucked Erica Lefroy. You destroyed her. Many times.”
“It was never like that. You know it wasn’t. Not with you.” My hair flops over my forehead and I rake it back. “I wanted to bewith you. I always wanted to be with you. And I was going to take whatever chance I had, real or otherwise. Three months or forever. Would you have agreed to it in the first place if I’d told you the truth? If I’d said, right from the start, that I had to get married to someone else?”
“I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near me. I wouldn’t have let myself…” She fades off, shaking her head like she’s denying whatever might have followed. “I gave you my virginity.” She chokes on the words, but repeats them, even though it clearly pains her. “Myvirginity. I gave you so much. And you took it. You took it knowing…” She sucks in a shuddering breath and closes her eyes, composing herself before she adds, “Knowing we had no future.”
