Page 67 of Waiting for You

I hadn't planned to break down, but the dam gave way. I lifted a hand to my face, stunned by the heat of them on my skin.

"Nothing," I sobbed, shaking my head. "You didn't do anything wrong. You were never the villain."

His shoulders slumped a fraction. "Then why?"

He'd suffered so much. From the moment the package arrived and the note got read, through the hollow years after, I'd been so lost in my own misery that I'd forgotten his pain was just as deep.

He hadn't moved on from me either. Neither of us had.

And here I was, turning his life into a backdrop for my own performance, forgetting he was a human being who'd been bleeding the whole time.

"I'm sorry," I choked out. "I'm so sorry for all of it. The only thing I wanted… I needed you to think I was fine. I couldn't stand the thought of you moving on while I was still in pieces, so I tried to look like I'd moved on first. I know how pathetic that is. I know."

He stayed silent, his expression guarded.

"How was it so easy for you?" I asked, my voice barely there. "To move on. To get where you are now. How did you do it?"

His jaw worked, tight and silent.

"That's the consequence of your choices," he said. "You came to me. You're the one who blew up our engagement. You ended us. If you didn't actually want to break it off, if it was really the lie you're now claiming, then why'd you do it? Why did I mean so little to you that you could just toss me away?"

I was still weeping. I wanted to give him the ugly truth. I wanted to scream that my father had threatened to destroy him, to burn down everything he'd built, and I'd been a terrified twenty-one-year-old who believed every word of the ultimatum. I wanted to hand him the context.

But I couldn't bear to tell him. I couldn't bear for him to know how weak I'd been in my father's office, that I'd let Henry control my heart, that I hadn't been strong enough to protect us. I couldn't stand the thought of Xavier knowing he'd been my entire world and I'd still let my father win. That brand of shame was one I'd never said out loud, because it sounded like a pathetic excuse.

Standing there in the cold, I could hear how the story would land. I could hear myself saying my father swore he'd destroy you, and I could feel Xavier's dismissal before he even voiced it. I wasn't sure I could survive him not believing that truth.

So I kept my mouth shut.

"If you really have regret," he said, cold, "then you're going to have to live with it. That's your burden, Sloane. You built it."

"You aren't even letting me speak," I countered, wiping my eyes. "You're just barking at me and refusing to give me room to explain."

"You said everything you needed to say years ago," he dismissed, turning away. "You said it all in that note."

"You've been flirting with me too!" I shouted. "The boat, the terrace, the tattoo. You've been doing it every bit as much as I have. Why am I the only one standing here getting burned for it? Why is this suddenly only my fault?"

He went dead still, his lips pressing into a white line. He glanced away, then met my eyes with a chilling clarity.

"You're right," he admitted. "We've both been playing this game. So let's stop. Let's both end it right now." His voice was stripped of its usual composure, harder and more jagged than before.

"I want nothing to do with this anymore. I came here thinking I was mature enough to call the past buried, to screw the history and just be normal human beings, but what you want is different. You're playing a different game, Sloane. And I don't want what you're selling. I want to be free. I want to build a life, I want to be happy, and every time I get close, you're there pulling the thread loose." He stepped into my space. "I'm not going to flirt with you again. I'm not going to talk to you. I'm going to pretend you don't exist. Because honestly? That's what you deserve."

"I regret everything that happened," I whispered.

"You don't get to just wake up and decide to regret it," he argued. "You're the one who made the destruction happen."

"Then let me explain!" I begged. "You keep insisting there's nothing I can say that changes anything, but you don't know that. You haven't given me a single chance to say it."

"What do you want to explain?" he challenged. "What could you possibly say right now that overwrites the fact that you destroyed us?"

I stared at him.

My hands were balled into fists at my sides, my face still wet, the empty corridor impossibly small.

"What if I told you," I began, my voice unsteady, "that my father threatened to destroy you?"

He froze.