“I’m not worried at all… unless it affectsourarrangement. I won’t tolerate you being angry at me for something I didn’t do.”
“Oh, believe me, you’ve done plenty to deserve my anger. There are times when looking at you pisses me off.”
I recoiled a little. Things hadn’t been great this week, but he’d never been this vicious. “Fuck you!”
He stepped so close our chests brushed. That familiar crackle of connection raced over my skin as my breath caught, and I ached to pull him closer and lose myself to him.
This was not the time for my body to desire him, especially when he was looking at me with such contempt and being such a dick. I did my best to squash that desire.
“Do you want to, Ellery?”
“Do I want to what?”
“Fuck me.”
“No! Not when you’re like this.”
“I bet if I slid my hand inside your pants, I’d discover you’re already wet for me and that another lie just tumbled from your lips.”
Without thinking, I planted my hands against his chest and shoved him. Normally, he was like trying to move a mountain, but I was so incensed that I pushed him away from me a little.
“No!” I shouted. “You don’t get to treat me like that! I was wrong to keep things from you, and I should have told you about your father sooner. I know I deceived you and lied to you, but that was the past, and you know everything now…everything!
“I’ve bared my soul to you and told you things that Scarlet, my best friend since birth, doesn’t know about me! You know my deepest secrets. You know the things that could get me locked away, killed, raped, bred, and tortured. I have given itallto you; I’ve apologized and promised there wouldn’t be any more secrets and lies between us. I meant it!
“So you don’t get to stand here and tell me I’m lying because I’mnot. I’ll never deny that I dream of you, think of you, love you, and desire you, but I donotwant you when you’re like this! You don’t get to treat me badly because something, or someone else, pissed you off. That’s not the way this is going to work, so you canfuckoff, Ryker!”
To my surprise, his face softened at my words. A stunned look came into his eyes as I stood with my shoulders heaving.
I resisted punching him in his too-handsome, recently shaved face.Who did he shave for?
I hated myself as soon as the question entered my mind, and I hated him for it. I was wrong for keeping things from him, but I wouldn’t be his punching bag.
“Ellery—”
I lifted my finger and pointed it at him. “I swear, if you accuse me of lying to you or keeping secrets from you again, I’ll leave. I don’t care what it means for Tempest and everyone else; I won’t allow you to abuse me in such a way. I was wrong before, but I don’t deserve for you to treat me like shit because of it. I beat myself up enough about everything; I can’t, andwon’t, take it from you too.”
CHAPTERFIFTY-SEVEN
Ellery
He tooka deep breath before grasping my finger. I yanked it away from him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
My eyebrows shot up. Did he really say he was sorry? I was sure that word didn’t spill from his mouth often.
“It won’t happen again,” he continued.
I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond; I hadn’t expected it. “Good.”
Without another word, I brushed past him and continued toward the river. I didn’t look back; I was curious about what had happened since the last time we met, but I wouldn’t ask again.
I’d kept my secrets, and he could have his.
I was almost to the river when Ryker caught up to me. He didn’t explain why he was so grumpy, and I didn’t expect him to. I suspected it was his father, as he could ruin a sunny day full of rainbows, and Ryker hated him more than I did.
Before I ended things with him and all my secrets came out, he probably would have told me, and he never would have been mad at me because of it, but our relationship wasn’t the same. It never would be again.
