Page 50 of Stealing Chances

Horror rushed through me and gripped my chest when he reached for my engagement ring. “What are you doing?” I asked, then choked over my pleas when he began removing it. “What are—no. Chase!”

I tried clenching my hand into a fist, but he gently unfurled my fingers to continue sliding the ring off my finger.

“Stop!” I begged, the word thick with emotion and fear and grief.

“Listening to your story...maybe you’re right,” he said calmly as he placed my hand over his chest again and pressed his forehead harder to mine when hushed sobs racked my body. “Maybe everything I remember is our life twisted around.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked through the tears straining my words.

“If that’s true, who knows what I did to you? Because it’d be like you said: You would be the one at risk of being hurt when my memories come back,” he said as if it was as simple as that.

“But we don’t know that,” I tried vainly, my heart twisting and shattering under the weight of what was happening. Under the roller coaster of this fucking day. “Don’t do this. Please—”

“For all we know, I don’t deserve to have you wearing this,” he said as he pulled me closer to him. Trying to comfort me while I was falling apart. “But as it stands, I don’t know you, Scarlet. As it stands, my mind is on you and my heart is fucking wrecked because of something everyone is saying didn’t happen. Until I figure my shit out, you don’t deserve to have to deal with that pain.”

I pressed against his chest, my head shaking as that fear gripped my lungs in an iron vice. “What are you saying? What does this mean?”

“I mean, I want to be honest with you,” he said without reservations. “I want to tell you what’s happening and what I remember, even if it hurts you. I want to figure out the truth for myself, and I know I would’ve left my entire life in sketches, but I haven’t seen my books.”

“They’re here,” I said confidently, ready to look for them if it would mean he wouldn’t do what he was. But Chase seemed to sense my thoughts and gripped my waist tenderly, keeping me in place on the island.

“Then I need to look through them,” he said adamantly. “And if these memories really are twisted versions of our life, then I did something to you. Or something happened. And I have a feeling there’s someone who knows, and I’ve been subconsciously avoiding him because I knew he’d have the truth.”

I was so wrapped up in my emotional spiral that it took far too long to understand who he was talking about. “Brian?”

“I tell him everything,” Chase said with a subtle nod.

“Why—” A hiccupped sob broke free. “We need to call off the wedding, I know that. I did that. But we don’t have to end because you’re struggling with your memories.”

Half of his face scrunched up in unease.

“Chase, somewhere in there, you’re still my fiancé.”

He lifted his other hand to curl his fingers around the back of my head. Holding me there for long seconds before he shook his head. “I’m not that guy,” he whispered, forcing a sob from me. “Next time you’re wearing this ring, if you ever wear it again, it’s because I gave it to you.”

“You already did.”

He pressed his lips to mine, silencing my claims before he repeated, “It’s becauseIgave it to you.”

My face crumpled at the realization that Chase was prepared to never get his memories back.

“Until then, I want to get to know you,” he went on. “I want you with me while I figure things out, but I won’t blame you for sayingno. I won’t stop you from leaving if I hurt you too much to stay.” His hand fell to where mine still rested against his chest and pressed harder against the fierce pounding there. “All I think about,” he muttered before releasing me and walking away.

Leaving me alone.

Leaving me a trembling, crying mess.

Leaving me broken in a whole new way when I finally understood what Chase had been doing all along—what he’d been saying. What he’d done for me.

He hadn’t taken my ring to hurt me. He hadn’t taken it to leaveme.

He’d ensured I wouldn’t be trapped again. He’d given me the freedom to escape the pain our situation had already caused and would inevitably continue inflicting.

As if I would ever choose a life without him.

Scarlet hadn’t brought up the conversation in the kitchen or the fact that I’d been unable to stop myself from kissing her. She’d just walked into the guestroom a while after I’d left her and flung my sling at me, playfully glaring before she’d turned right back around and called out,“Help me look for your books.”

I had.

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