Page 140 of The Bad Wedding Date

“What are you doing here?” I finally asked.

“I don’t know. Hoping I could come in.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?” He leaned forward, and I could smell a hint of whiskey on his breath. It should have repulsed me. It didn’t. The scent of his aftershave soon followed, throwing me back to all the days and nights I’d laid on his chest, breathing him in. It made my head spin.

I took a step away from him, releasing the door, but Fraser stopped it from shutting on him with a firm hand, his other still resting high on the doorframe.

“You need to go,” I said, but he could see I didn’t mean a word of it. I wanted to. I wanted to spew disdain his way and tell him we’d never meant anything, and I’d got over him already, but I’d always worn my heart on my sleeve, and all the longing and adoration I felt for him flooded me… and I knew he saw every moment of it, too.

My face creased in pain.

I loved him.

One look at a man who had lied to me, betrayed my trust, and all I could think about was how much I loved him.

But love wasn’t always good for you, and I had to force it down. Smother it. Keep it silenced. I couldn’t be a fool for him again. He’d hurt me too much, and I refused to live a life in fear of him hurting me again, whether he meant to or not.

Loneliness was the only sure-fire way to protect my heart, even if that same heart longed for him desperately as I stared at him, unable to look away.

“I’m not going to come in unless you invite me, Charlotte.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“You want it to, though, don’t you? I can see it in the way you’re looking at me. I can see it because you’re wearing that same look I see every time I stare in the goddamn mirror and see my reflection.”

“Fraser, stop—”

“I can’t.” He forced out a heavy breath. “I want to, but I can’t.”

“We’re over.”

“We never even began, Charlotte. That’s the worst part about all of this. We never even started, and here we both are, fucked up from the loss of what we had.”

“I don’t feel that way—”

“Bullshit,” he whispered, no humour on his face. Only the heartbreak I felt deep inside my own chest. “Don’t demand the truth from me at every turn if you can’t give me the same thing.”

My eyes turned down, and those dreaded fucking tears rose, the lump in my throat painful.

He hurt to look at. We were two magnets, drawn to each other, and I didn’t have enough fight to hold myself back from the force of it all… did I?

“Fine, you want the truth?” I asked.

“Every word of it.”

“I loved you,” I said, finally setting those three words free.

I may as well have wielded a sword at his chest, his face pinched together, no doubt from the word loved rather than love.

“And I think you were on the way to loving me too,” I added, staring into eyes that haunted my dreams every night. “But that doesn’t mean anything now. Not after what you did. You showed me what I always thought I’d known: love is a business transaction. It can’t exist without one getting more from it than the other, and I don’t want any part of that. I can’t forgive you for what you kept from me, knowing full well how I’d react to it. You tried to hide the worst of yourself so all I could see was the best, Fraser, and that’s who I fell in love with. Not this man standing in front of me. Not the one willing to do whatever he has to do to get what he wants.”

“All I want is you,” he rasped.

“If only it were that easy.

“I didn’t hurt him. Not once,” he said, clutching at straws, his desperation palpable. I should have been flattered. Instead, that anger rose inside of me once again.

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