“Did I do something wrong?” she asked. “Because I’m sorry?—”
“No.” His soft voice sharpened to diamond, then faded to a hush. “Don’t apologize. You did nothing wrong. It just…doesn’t work.”
But it was working fine.Betterthan fine. The last night they were together, he’d stroked her hair and told her she belonged in his arms.
What happened?
“It doesn’t…work?” she repeated, the questioning lilt so pathetic, she fought the urge to shove him out of the way so she could flee the humiliation.
He ran a hand through his gold hair, and she hated him in that moment. Hated that the ruffled strands made him more handsome. Hated that he looked so good while stomping all over her heart.
“Anna,” he said, his tone now chiding. “I’m not…the one you…” He expelled a long breath. “You should have known better than to fall in love with me.”
“I’m not in love with you,” she said at once, the words too loud, too harried. His lips pressed together and he nodded again, thoughdisbelief coated his body language like water drips from melting ice.
Why did she say that? Because of course he could feel it. Her denial was only an embarrassment, a useless attempt to save face in front of this man she wanted too desperately.
The cracks had almost spread throughout now, their painful, deliberate course hinting at the inevitable collapse.
“You are though,” he said, peeking up at her, Luster sparking in the green of his eyes. “Just a little bit.”
She swallowed down the pain.
“It’s barely anything,” he said. “Just a whisper. You’ve felt stronger things. Better things.” The falsehoods did little to convince her, but maybe he was trying to convince himself.
She sucked in a shaky breath. “You don’t get to tell me how to interpret my own feelings.”
“I’m not. But it’s true. We’re nothing. We were just fucking, and now we’re not. Easy. You don’t have to hurt over this.”
She didn’t have to hurt.
Did he really say that? As if she had a choice?
The pain turned barbaric, her own magic transmuting a simple breakup into physical torture. Anna glanced at the door again, aching to be free of him even though she knew it wouldn’t rid her of the pain.
Still, a self-destructive part of her had to know. “Can I ask why?”
He hesitated, his finger toying with the edge of his book. Without looking at her, he spoke, his words carrying the unmistakable cloak of ice. “We don’t make sense, you and me. Remember?”
Agony carved deep into vital tissue.
That was it? That was the only explanation she’d get?
We don’t make sense.
What hadhappenedto this man?
He looked like himself. He used the same voice, wore the same face, yet he’d transformed into someone else entirely. She might have argued, fought even, but he’d caught her at such a low point.
While tears gathered, her headache returned full force, and she worried if she waited any longer, she wouldn’t make it back to her own room. Remaining in this suite wasn’t an option any longer—sleeping between one man aiming to break her and another who wished to fix it all if only he could touch her skin to do it.
A longing to rip this magic from her body bloomed as the savage, shattered emotion clawed through everything. She had no name for it. It was nothing but pain, leaving a mushroom cloud where her sanity had been.
We were just fucking.
How could he say that? She’d given himso much, not just her body. Mustering every scrap of bravery inside, she forced her gaze to meet his.
Unfeeling smirk. Dead green eyes. Emotions so deep beneath the ice, they might as well not exist.
