Page 66 of Waiting for You

"I assumed that," she said calmly. "I'm not angry." She walked back and sat on the edge of the mattress. "I just understand the whole dynamic now. Everything. How the two of you banter. Why you keep ending up in her orbit. All the tension makes sense." She dropped her gaze to her hands. "I believe you that nothing physical is happening behind my back. I believe you aren't lying to me. But Xavier." She raised her eyes to lock onto mine, and they were devastatingly clear. "What you're feeling for that woman is not nothing. Your suppressed feelings, your erratic actions, every subconscious choice you've made on this trip, it's showing. You aren't trying to broadcast it. But it's obvious."

"I'm sorry, Eliza," I whispered. "Sloane isn't in my heart anymore."

Eliza just looked at me.

She refused to look away. She held my gaze a long, heavy minute, her hands folded in her lap, her expression open and terrifyingly still.

"I'm not so sure about that," she said.

The new ink over my heart chose that exact second to sting, a sharp pull beneath the bandage, the truth needled in too deep to lie about now.

FIFTEEN

SLOANE

I was walking back toward my room after dinner when a hand clamped around my wrist and pulled me sharply to the side.

I whipped around, expecting Andrew, but it was Xavier.

He had me moving before my brain could process it, hauling me down a side corridor, through an unmarked utility door, into a section of the estate I'd never seen. A staff service hallway, plain and cool and dead quiet.

He finally let go of my wrist.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, his voice dangerously low.

I stood my ground. "I was heading back to my room."

"That isn't what I'm talking about." He stepped closer.

The overhead light was flat and unforgiving. There was nowhere to hide the raw expression on my face.

"Ever since we got here," he went on, his tone hardening, "you've been finding ways to be near me. Every dinner, you gravitate toward the seat next to mine. You didn't manage it at breakfast because Eliza took the spot first, but every other meal? You make damn sure you're sitting right beside me. You stretch out every conversation. You've been working the seating cards." He paused, his gaze burning into me. "You think I haven't noticed?"

My pulse raced, but I forced my hands to stay still. "I didn't realize I was doing it. It wasn't intentional."

"I find that impossible to believe."

"Xavier—"

"You can't tell me every single time was an accident," he interrupted, his voice steady. The control in his tone cut deeper than shouting would have. "You kept taking the seat meant for Eliza. You swapped the place cards. You know what you've been doing. Why? What are you trying to prove? That you aren't over me? That you want me back? What's the end game? Because I need you to be honest with me. I've spent years in agony because of you, and I have no idea what you want or what I'm supposed to do with the mixed signals you keep throwing at me."

Something jagged tore loose in me.

I'd boarded this trip with a plan I'd dressed up as moving on: bring Andrew, look radiant and unbothered, and let Xavier see every minute of it. I told myself it was about pride, about proving I'd healed. But pride was the kindest word for it. The truth was I couldn't stand for him to see me still in pieces while he stood there whole, so instead of staying at Andrew's side, I kept drifting to his.

"I haven't moved on from you," I admitted, my voice trembling.

He stared at me, his face giving up nothing.

"When I found out you were going to be at Violet's wedding," I confessed, "I let myself believe it was a chance. A sign that things could be different. I know that was delusional. I know you have Eliza."

"You don't deserve a second chance from me," he muttered, his voice cracking. "You don't even deserve my friendship. You wrecked my heart, Sloane. You decimated everything I was. And for what?" He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "I just wanted to live my life. I wanted to be with Eliza without this gnawing guilt, but you keep carving your way back into my reality, obsessing over things that don't concern you anymore. Why can't you let me have my life? Why do you insist on disrupting everything I'm trying to build?"

He shook his head, looking worn down to nothing.

"This is what you did before," he accused. "You blindsided me. You blew up the engagement, you trashed the life we mapped out, and you ended it. Now I'm trying to build a future with someone else, and you're here doing the same thing. Disrupting. Shifting the foundations of what I'm trying to construct." He searched my face with his brows pinched, his mouth a thin line of pain. "What did I ever do to you? Was I that terrible? Why do you seem to hate me so much? What did I ever do to deserve this?"

The tears came before I could stop them.