Page 210 of Irresistible Rogue

“So it’s all on me?”

“Youpeeled me open,” she whisper-shouted at me. “If you don’t like what you found inside… what am I supposed to do with that?”

“I like you, Jolie,” I said quickly.

What I really should’ve said was:I love you.

I realized that afterwards.

But I didn’t say that.

She swallowed and looked away, out the window, so I couldn’t see her face.

And I sat there like a fucking asshole and didn’t say another thing. I didn’t know what to say. I’d just won a fight. I should’ve been happy as fuck. Instead, it felt like everything was broken.

Like everything shattered around me when I looked up from my victory and saw her face.

I couldn’t get that look on her face out of my head.

Too soon, the limo was pulling up to the gate of my dad’s house. Jolie still wouldn’t look at me. The driver came around and opened the door for her, and she got out.

“Jolie.” I didn’t even have anything else to say. I just didn’t want her to go. Not like this.

She turned to look at me. Her eyes were wet. She looked likeshelost a fight tonight. That devastation… I’d seen guys with that look on their face, when they’d gotten themselves so pumped up for a fight they were sure they were gonna win, but then they lost.

But those men usually cried.

Jolie wasn’t crying. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “This is my fault. I should’ve known better.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve just never been good with goodbyes.” She held my gaze, and I didn’t know what to say. Inside I was fucking freaking out. I was already crashing hard from the chemical high, and nothing felt quite real. I didn’t even have the energy or the clarity of mind to argue with her or convince her of anything.

How did this happen?

Why did it feel like goodbye?

She didn’t exactly say goodbye. Or even good night. But she could’ve screamedCaliforniain my face and I wouldn’t have felt any worse about it.

“I’ll see you at the wedding, okay?” she said gently, and then she was gone.

When the door shut and I was alone, only then, I noticed the ring box she’d left on the seat for me.

* * *

It was for the best.

That was what I kept trying to tell myself the next day, when I didn’t hear from Jolie. The wedding was six days away. She said she’d see me at the wedding, and now I knew she really meant it.

I just kept trying to tell myself that it was for the best that we didn’t see each other until then. Because that was thelasttime we’d be seeing each other anyway, right?

Why get any more wrapped up in someone who was just gonna fucking leave?

She’d already told me that she had her flight booked back to California. She wasn’t wasting any time; the day after the wedding, Dad and Margot were on their honeymoon, and Jolie was finished with daughter duty. She was gone.

Back to her life.

As the day stretched out, a strange dump of post-fight depression hit me. Had me wallowing pretty damn deep, even through the post-fight care. I took a long bath loaded with Epsom salt. I got my x-rays. I ate, a lot. Met Dane for lunch and had a pizza for the first time in fucking weeks. Went to Johnny’s place to take a steam, use his sauna, float in his pool and stare at the sky.

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