Page 132 of Wicked Lord

“I told you we needed to talk.” She jerked her dress back into place, the flush from our hot session already fading from her cheeks.

I zipped up my bag and stood. “So talk. What’s wrong?”

She swallowed hard, still refusing to meet my eyes while she twisted my mother’s diamond ring around her finger. She finally tore it off. “I can’t wear this.”

“Of course not.” I took it back and slipped it into my pocket. “I’ll get you a ring of your own. I’ve already been looking, and?—”

“Stop!” Lorelei’s sudden outburst had my head snapping back. “I can’t wearanyring. We can’t do this, Axel. We can’t pretend to be engaged.”

“Oh.” My shoulders drooped as a heavy breath exited my lungs.

Had Lorelei decided my spur-of-the-moment idea went too far? Had the guilt over lying to my family and our friends gotten to her?

“You want to call off the engagement already? What about Brock? He’s still gunning for you.”

According to Vaughn, a ring wouldn’t have mattered to that asshole anyway.

“I’ll handle Brock.” Her eyes hardened as icy air coiled around her like a lethal shield. “He’s not your problem. He’s mine.”

I scoffed. “You’re my girl. Your problemsaremy problems.”

Lorelei’s hand shot up as I tried to step toward her. “I’m not your girl, Axel. Not anymore.”

As her sharp words penetrated the after-sex fog clouding my mind, I blinked, trying to make sense of them. “What are you saying?”

“It’s over.”

An invisible fist crashed into my torso. I nearly lost my balance from the pain. Getting tackled by an NFL linebacker would have hurt more.

“Why? I thought everything was great.”

She angled her head to the side, barely glancing in my direction. “After you blindsided me with this engagement, I did some thinking and realized I simply got caught up in all the fake romance we concocted. None of it was real. We need to put a stop to it before too many people, like your family, get hurt.”

Blood thundered in my ears, and an ache blossomed in my chest as if someone had stabbed me with a dull blade.

Or maybe my heart was breaking.

I motioned a shaky finger between us. “We might have started out fake, but my feelings for you are more real than anything I’ve ever experienced.”

“My feelings for you wereneverreal.” A tear brimmed over, but she quickly wiped it away before it ran down her cheek. “My family needed money and—I’m sorry, Axel. I have nothing else to say.”

“If this was never real and you planned to break up with me, why would you let me have sex with you?” I jerked my hand to the spot on the wall where I’d just been inside her, making her come mere minutes ago.

She gave a casual shrug and folded her arms against her chest like a barrier. “The sex was always great with us. I figured you could have one for the road since you were so adamant.”

As callous as her words were, they didn’t match the tremors infiltrating her voice. And that wasn’t the only thing giving her away.

Lorelei’s hands shook. She refused to look me in the eye, the color had drained from her face, and she’d pulled those icy walls around her to shove me out.

“Did Brock threaten you?” My nostrils flared like a wild animal. “Is that what happened? Tell me, and I’ll take care of him once and for all.”

“No!” she hissed, her head snapping in my direction. “Leave Brock alone. Forget about me, Axel. We had fun, and you made a valiant attempt to rescue me, but I know what I need to do now. And it doesn’t involve you.”

As she spun around to leave, I snatched her wrist.

“Don’t do this, Lore.” The wordsI love youdangled on the tip of my tongue. Would she stay or throw my declaration back in my face to hurt me?

She yanked out of my hold, her bottom lip trembling. “Let me go, Axel. I don’t want to see you again. It’s over.”