Page 75 of Malicious Wedding

“Fitz. Your guys.”

“Fitz knew. Most of the others don’t.”

“Oh my god.” She paces back and forth, freaking out. “You manipulated me. You used me. And I don’t even know what you were getting out of it. You made me marry you, and you trapped me, and now I can’t get away, because if I leave then you’ll hurt people I care about.”

“I’m not a monster,” I say emphatically. “I won’t hurt you, Ash.”

“But what about Iain? What about my friends?”

“I swore I’d protect you and I always will. That extends to them.” I don’t add that it’s purely because I know killing Bernie or that mouthy one, Keely, would make her depressed. She doesn’t need to hear that.

“Fuck.” She pulls at her hair. “This is too much. This is way too much.”

“I care about you more than you’ll ever know. For ten years, I sacrificed time and energy, all to make you safer and happier without ever taking a thing for myself. I did it all for you.”

“No,” she says sharply, jabbing a finger at me. “No, don’t you start doing that. You’ve been so fucking selfish, Carson. You’ve been making me look like a helpless idiot forten fucking years, and everyone in your life knows it. They all must’ve been laughing behind my back. My god, no wonder you say you’re obsessed. You really are.”

“I really am,” I admit, spreading my hands wide. “But that doesn’t make how I feel any less sincere. I’d burn the world down if it meant making you happier, you have to realize that. You’re everything to me.”

“You’re sick.” She moves toward the front hallway, heading for the door. “You’re mentally unstable.”

“I admit that my feelings for you are unusual, but if you’d let me explain—”

“I don’t want to hear any more explanations. You’ve been manipulating me for years, pushing me and pulling me, all like I’m some weird little puppet. You can tell yourself you did it to make me happy, but really, you did it to have some sick sense of ownership over me.”

I shake my head rapidly. “That’s not it at all.”

“Then why, Carson? If you really cared, why? You treated me like… like some sort of game piece. Like you could just poke me and prod me from afar, tug at my strings, maneuver me wherever you thought I needed to go. You say you did this for me, but we both know you did it for you.”

“Should I have let you get hurt?”

“That’s part of life!” She stares at me, eyes wide. “That’s what’s supposed to happen. I’m supposed to fail, learn from my failures, try to do better next time. I’m supposed to struggle. That’s what everyone does! Instead, you had me living in this weird in-between place where nothing too bad ever happened because you were busyprotectingme against my fucking will.”

My jaw tightens. My breathing quickens. I tried so hard to do the right thing. I kept my distance for ten years. I remained as distant as I could, only intervening when things looked dire. I did it all for her—and to hear all my hard work, my sacrifice, my emotions thrown back into my face—

It breaks my heart.

“You can’t really think that,” I say, my calm beginning to crack.

She must sense it, because she backs away faster.

“I would’ve been better off driving Smoke into bankruptcy than whatever this is.” She hurries to the door.

I follow, tempted to put the house into lockdown, but what will that accomplish? I’d only prove to my mother that I’m as freakish and unstable as everyone seems to think I am, and then Ash will never love me the way I love her.

“I spared you needless hurt. I made your life better. But I didn’t sanitize everything.”

“Oh, good for you,” she says, stepping out into the stoop. She looks back inside, tears streaming down her face. She rips the ring off and hurls it at me, missing by an inch. It pings down the hallway behind me. “I don’t want to hear from you ever again. Do you understand? I’m done with you, Carson. I can’t keep letting you string me along in some sick little shadow puppet show. I’m not yours, not anymore.”

“Ash,” I say, tasting bile in the back of my throat. My heart’s racing into my ears. If I lunge, I can grab her, pull her back inside. I could tie her to the bed and explain to her until she understands that I only did what I did for her, never for me. I kept my distance. I never planned on getting this close. Only the situation forced my hand, and once I was in that bar speaking to her for the first time in a decade, after all those nights dreaming about her, I couldn’t stop.

I had to have her.

Had to taste her.

This is why I didn’t let myself cross the line to begin with.

Now that I’ve started, I can’t stop.

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