Page 64 of Feels Like the First Time

“Out,” he commanded.

They scattered.

Zoe wasn’t as easily intimidated, though. She held tight to the fury, needing it to keep the pain at bay. She slammed her arms across her chest, cocked one hip to the side and glared.

“Who the hell do you think you are, dragging me around like that?” she challenged, anger over the spectacle battling with humiliation over his high-handed arrogance.

“You were using me,” he accused as soon as he’d slammed the door shut. “Did you know all along? Was this just some game to you?”

“Using you?” She shook her head, trying to make sense of his accusation. “How the hell was I using you?”

“You knew I was under the mask before you slept with me,” he accused, his face twisted in anger. “Did you know I was Gandalf, too? Is that why you agreed to our night together?”

Zoe stepped back. Her legs hit the desk, the tiny room closed in, trapping her. Her head spun. Everything went blurry as the words hit her like a bomb. “You’re Gandalf?”

He’d lied to her. She’d asked him. Twice, she’d asked. And he’d lied. Just like he’d lied last night. Zoe reached blindly behind her, finding a chair and falling into it. She could barely wrap her mind around the facts slapping her in the face. Facts she should have known deep down. Facts she’d obviously ignored in some idiotic need to believe him.

Zoe gasped, pain cutting deep gouges in her heart. Her breath shuddered as she tried to gather her thoughts, grabbing on to anger in self-defense.

“You lied to me,” she accused. “If hiding behind a mask wasn’t enough, you lied on top of it. I knew it was crazy to get involved with you. But I thought it was because it’d ruin our friendship. Instead I find out we don’t even have a friendship.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Is it? You lied to me, Dexter. You hid your identity, you lied about your job.” Her voice broke, but she couldn’t stop the words from pouring out in a pained whisper. “You humiliated me.”

She wanted to yell at him for breaking her heart. For making her believe she could count on him, that she could trust him. But Zoe couldn’t even put that betrayal into words. The pain, the misery poured from her heart like blood, seeping all around her as that little voice in her head taunted, I told you so.

“I humiliated you?” he asked in an ironic tone. “You used me, Zoe. I thought you accepted me. Just me, for myself. But like all those assholes out there, you wanted something from me and didn’t hesitate to justify your actions to get it.”

She just stared. She had wanted his friendship. His body. And stupid her, his love. But he was wrong. She hadn’t used him. Not the way he meant. And if he believed she had, that she was no better than those parasites who’d always made him feel like a walking wallet, then that proved he didn’t care for her. It proved he didn’t even know her.

Zoe stepped toward the door.

“What are you doing?”

“Leaving,” she told him.

“Without resolving this?” he asked with a stunned shake of his head. “Just like you walk away from anything that forces you to stand up and defend your actions? Is anything worth fighting for, Zoe? Or will you always run away?”

The truth hurt. But no more than his betrayal. So she lifted her chin, gave him her patented glare of disdain and latched on to her only weapon. Brad’s pathetic lie.

“Relationship?” she taunted. “That’d be this little thing between us that consists of lies, a mask and that ugly moniker you slapped on me ten years ago?”

Zoe’s heart stopped at the look of guilt on his suddenly white face. Oh, God. She’d just said that to get out of the room. But he’d really had something to do with it?

“Just like your actual identity, you didn’t think I’d ever find out about that lie either, did you?” she asked. Suddenly, the fight drained from her, leaving a pained, empty shell. One that was in imminent danger of collapsing.

Needing privacy before it happened, Zoe stepped away from Dex. Blindly, she found the door handle and wrenched it open. Ignoring the crowd, she headed for the elevators.

“Where are you going?” he demanded, catching up to her.

“I’m done,” she said, pressing the up button.

“Well, I’m not,” he said, grabbing her arm.

Zoe shook his hand off. “No touching. I don’t want you near me,” she demanded. She couldn’t take not knowing she’d never feel his hands on her again. “If I’m done, we’re done.”

“Just like you to walk away,” he muttered.

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