Page 87 of Hero Unbound

Just another way of sayingI don’t know.

She obviously wasn’t going to answer. He hated that she was balling in on herself more with each passing minute, but goddamn it, how could there be anything at all between them when she wouldn’t even meet him halfway? She was giving him absolutely nothing here.

“What about being engaged to Gareth?” The words came out before he could stop them. He hadn’t meant to bring up this topic at all. The cheating was badenough.“Do you know what happened with that? Another point you forgot to mention.”

She shook her head. “No. No, we weren’t engaged. We lived together, but weweren’tengaged.”

So they’d gone fromI don’t knowto straight-up lies.

“I’ve seen the pictures, Eva.” He grabbed his phone and quickly looked up her social media account. He spun it around, leaning over the table so the image was right in front of her face. “Look at this. Look at that ring on your finger and that huge smile on your face.”

Whatever color was left in her face leached out. “I didn’t post that.”

What was he supposed to say to that? He threw his hands up. “It’s your social media account, right?”

She nodded.

“Why would you say you didn’t post it? Why wouldn’t you just say, ‘Yes, we were engaged, but I wanted to leave him.’ Being engaged then changing your mind isn’t a crime.” Why the hell would she lie about it?

The dogs were starting to whine, moving around in circles at her feet. “Gareth and I talked about getting married early on in our relationship—even planned to, I guess. But we never took it any further.”

He studied the photos of her with the ring. They were all just of Eva—Gareth nowhere to be seen. He’d probably been taking the pictures. The engagement shots were her peeking from behind a book or a tree, with the ring clearly visible. A few were shots of just her hand, exactly what would be expected of someone newly engaged.

The caption read,He asked for forever, and I said yes!

The engagement pictures were the most recent ones, all dated six months ago. He flipped back further on her account and saw some of her with the dogs and more landscape shots of sunsets and flowers.

Theo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was known for his calm, his control. He needed it now. “Evie, explain these pictures to me, then. If you weren’t engaged, then what is this all about?”

“I don’t know what these pictures are. I didn’t post them. I was never engaged.”

He took another deep breath. “It’s okay if you were engaged. Do you think I would be mad at you for that? Think less of you? Just tell the truth—that’s all I’m asking. Tell the truth about this, and tell the truth about cheating on the test. But tell mesomething. Give me some information so I understand. And don’t say you don’t remember.”

She rubbed her eyes with both hands. “I am telling the truth, but I just…don’t know all the details. I’m not sure. I don’t know.”

The words were broken, almost stuttered.

Full of nothing.

He could feel a bitter anger filling him at it all—that she would lie, that she wouldn’t care enough about what was between them to even attempt to explain what had happened.

He needed to get out of here before he did somethingunforgivable.

“That’s just it. Eva, you never know, and nowIdon’t know. I don’t know what’s the truth and what’s the lie. I don’t know what you haven’t been telling me. I don’t knowyou.”

He turned and walked out, but not before he heard her whispered statement.

“Neither do I.”

27

At midnight, Theo was nowhere near sleeping.

His conversation with Eva, or lack thereof, kept running through his head. He couldn’t get her face out of his mind—the devastation in her eyes—and even though he felt like he was in the right in what he’d said, he wished he’d handled it differently.

Exactly how, he wasn’t sure. And he wasn’t sure where to go or what to do from here.

The thought that this could be over gutted him. But hell if he knew how to move forward.

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