“You followed me,” I whisper, because the truth has been clawing at me since the second his car rolled up beside me.
Evan’s jaw flexes. “I found you.”
“No. You tracked me.”
He makes a sound like he’s tired. Like I’m exhausting.
“I had to,” he says. “Do you know how long it took? You disappeared. You think you can just vanish and people don’t look for answers?”
My stomach twists. “Why were you taking pictures?”
That finally cracks him.
His calm fractures at the edges, and heat comes through.
“Because you lied,” he snaps. “Because you were going to make me the bad guy. Because you were going to spin some story about how I’m controlling or insensitive or?—”
“I wasn’t!” I protest. “I was trying to leave quietly!”
He laughs again, harsh. “Quietly? You ran out of a Christmas wedding in a gown my mother watched you pick out.”
My chest tightens so hard it hurts. “Don’t bring your mother into this.”
Evan’s eyes flash. “You don’t get to set boundaries now.”
The words slam into me.
Because he’s right about one thing: I haven’t set boundaries with him. Or with my father. Not until the wedding. Not until Buckhorn. Not until my body finally screamed loud enough that I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
I force air into my lungs. “I didn’t cheat on you.”
Evan’s grip tightens on the wheel. “Oh?”
His tone turns sweet.
Poison sweet.
“Because the pictures say something else.”
Ice floods my veins.
Evan’s eyes flick to me with satisfaction, and that makes my skin crawl.
“Your cowboy,” he says, as if the word is dirty. “Your little nostalgic fling. You really went for it, didn’t you? Nothing says ‘emotionally unstable’ like running from a wedding and then sleeping with the first person who made you feel special.”
My breath stutters.
The barn wall. The heat. Dallas’s mouth on mine. The way I had felt safe and wanted and alive.
Shame crashes over it, hot and suffocating, not because I regret Dallas, but because Evan is dragging it into the light like a trophy he stole.
“You don’t get to talk about that,” I whisper.
Evan’s laugh is sharp. “I do when you made it my problem.”
My vision blurs. Tears spill before I can stop them, and I hate that my body always does this, betrays me. Gives men like him a visible sign they’ve landed a hit.
He glances at me, and his mouth twists. “Damn. Here we go.”
