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“Of course she is. Why are you doing this?”
“Why am I doing this?” she echoes, but it’s not a question, it’s the warning of a person seconds away from exploding on some motherfucker who has pushed them too far.
I intervene before the eruption can occur and pour molten lava over my life. “Please do not wake her up.”
She stares at me, her pale features flushed with barely suppressed anger, but she takes a second, takes a couple of breaths, and then calms her little ass down.
Once she’s able to speak without screaming at me like I can tell she wants to, she says, “I know we talked about this and came to what felt at the time like a very mature, very reasonable agreement. I know you have not done anything technically wrong. When this all started, I wanted you to have your freedom. I wanted you to have this time in college to explore and satisfy any desire you might have to be with anyone else. I wanted you to do that now so you wouldn’t feel the need to later when we would be married and I would never be able to forgive you for it.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “I acted in the best interest of our future relationship, and it was my understanding—my expectation—that you were doing the same thing. And I think you have been. Until you met Brynn.”
I swallow, but it feels like a log of fucking dread is lodged in my throat.
“And I thought this was common sense, Killian. I thought you knew there was an unwritten rule in this agreement that you were free to fuck anyone you wanted as long as you were responsible about it. That means you do not allow what you’re doing with anyone now to threaten our future. It means you don’t fuck my friends because that would embarrass me, and it means you don’t catch serious feelings for any of the girls you fuck because you know there is no future in it. And maybe, maybe I could understand you squeezing in one last whole-ass relationship if it was junior year and you still had loads of time left to enjoy your remaining single days, but we are a month and a half away from being engaged, Killian. It’s too late in the game to do that now. The second you felt feelings coming on for that girl, you should have ended it. You should have done that to protect us,” she says, sounding legitimately hurt. “But instead, you deliberately embarrassed me in front of my friends for the benefit of some other girl, and then you took her to Paris. And it’s really hard to take that any other way than being an absolute slap in the face that I have done nothing to deserve.”
She’s teary-eyed now, her voice breaking, and to say I feel like a first-class asshole would be an understatement.
She’s right.
She’s right about all of it.
And I have been operating under that agreement and respecting even the unwritten rules since sophomore year when I signed my life away in a deal that felt at the time like the opportunity of a fucking lifetime.
She deserves an apology, and more than that, she deserves a man who wants to give it to her.
Because despite knowing I’m in the wrong here, and she has every right to be hurt, I can’t find it in me to be sorry for any of it.
I did what I did for Brynn, and if I knew Sloane would react that way, I’d do the exact same thing a second time without a moment’s hesitation.
Sloane sniffles, getting herself together since I’ve missed my opportunity to be her hero.
I imagine she hoped this would go a little differently. That I’d tell her she’s right and walk over to her, grab her by her slim shoulders and pull her into my arms for a remorseful embrace. I’d tell her I’m an asshole, and I’m sorry for hurting her, and she doesn’t have to worry; I’ll take care of this and get back on track, and nothing like this will ever happen again. If I were her hero, even a flawed one, I’d tell her it was a mistake while I’m holding her, and then I’d go kick the other girl out of my bed to make room for her in it. I’d spend the rest of the night making it up to her because she’s the woman I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with.
And I should want to do that.
And maybe I would have wanted to do that if this were about anybody else. Sloane has watched me hook up with random girls since sophomore year and never once batted an eye. If she had sooner, I would have stopped.
But we had an agreement, and I’m supposed to be free to live my life as I see fit until the end of this year.
And unfortunately for all of us, I had the shit luck of meeting Brynn Blakely on the last day of October.
Sloane clears her throat, then she says, “I’ve second guessed if it was even a good idea to begin with, honestly. My logic was sound; I’ve watched infidelity rip apart marriage after marriage in my circle and all I wanted was to not have to go through that. There’s no divorce in a marriage like ours, so I wanted a husband I would be able to trust and count on, and it’s supposed to be you. I picked you. And I want it to be you,” she says softly, with vulnerability I can tell makes her uncomfortable. “I still want it to be you. But maybe we should have ended this period of being unattached earlier. I’ve watched other girls with their boyfriends making memories in college, and I can’t help thinking maybe that should have been us. I know we’ll have spring semester, and we’ll technically be engaged, but we’ll only really be starting our relationship then. Maybe waiting was a mistake. Maybe we should have started nurturing our own bond last year, that way by now we would be established and enjoying each other…” She trails off, shaking her head. “I guess it doesn’t matter now,” she says. “What’s done is done, and all we can do is move forward. But one thing we absolutely should not be doing is nurturing attachments to other people. And one thing I am absolutely sure of is that you have to end things with Brynn now, before you get in any deeper.”
The problem is, the one thing I am absolutely sure of is that there’s no fucking way I’m going to do that, and I don’t know how to say it.
Not because I’m worried about her feelings. I’ve made it pretty fucking clear I’m not, and that’s why she’s standing in my kitchen, but this isn’t about some sorority girl’s feelings.
And Sloane Whitley is not just some sorority girl.
She’s the daughter of Roger Whitley, a prominent Blue Blood I made a deal with to marry his daughter and inherit his fucking kingdom since he no longer had a son to carry on his legacy.
Breaking it off with Sloane isn’t just fucking over a girl who has already started planning our wedding and probably drafting trendy but classic names for our future children.
It’s breaking my word to another Blue Blood.
It’s a fireable offense, and there’s only one way to get fired from this gig.
There’s no walking away from a blood oath, and when I made this one, I thought I was getting an incredible deal.
And the truth is, I was.
