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Emma blinked fast. That was so much information but she could only focus on one thing.
“You looked in my account.”
First, she felt flattered. He was trying to protect her. Trying to make sure someone followed up on her complaint. Ensuring that she was safe. That felt good.
At the same time, however, she didn’t like being in the dark and she felt duped. He’d taken pains to make sure she knew nothing about him, when he knew...everything...down to her billing address and credit card number. “I thought you said knowing things about me would make the sex dull.”
Xavier had the decency to look guilty. He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, Em. I shouldn’t have done that, and I know it. I just... I wanted to make sure you were safe and...”
“And you wanted to find out where I lived. Were you just going to pop by sometime? Here I was not even knowing your name, and you knew everything about me!” The unfairness of it stung. Also, the mistrust. Did he not trust her to know even the littlest thing about him? Yet, he’d gone and found out everything about her. Without her knowing about it.
Xavier shifted uncertainly on one foot. “Wait,” he said, reaching out for her, but she dodged his advance.
“I think you should go home, Xavier,” she said, moving away from him. Emma decided she’d go back to Sarah, back to Casey and his friend. Casey might be bland, but he didn’t sneak around and find out where she lived behind her back, all while telling her information killed a relationship.
“Emma, please. Let me explain.”
“Explain what?” Emma whirled, feeling anger build up in her. “How you lied to me? How you misled me?”
“Let’s talk about this.”
Emma just felt hurt, betrayed and angry. She didn’t want to talk about it. She wanted to go home. “I thought you were honest with me. I thought that’s what you said, that strangers could be honest. Be authentic with one another. But you weren’t that. You weren’t that at all.”
That was what hurt the most. Not that he’d snooped, but that he’d kept secrets.
“Emma, if I’d told you the first date that I owned Nost, we wouldn’t have gotten this far,” he said.
“How do you know that?” Emma fired back. “I was honest with you, but you lied to me.”
“I just didn’t tell you the whole truth,” Xavier said, trying to defend himself, raising his voice higher.
“Same thing,” she said. “You know what I think? I think this is all about power for you. You want to be the one with all of it. This isn’t about love or heartbreak or anything else, it’s about you calling all the shots. But that’s not how real love works.” Emma felt the truth of the words as she said them, understanding for the first time that she’d truly been a pawn in his game. “You told me information would kill the passion in a relationship. Well? You know what, you’re right. Knowing this about you. It does kill it.”
“Emma!” Xavier exclaimed, pain on his face as if she’d hit him. She felt a flicker of guilt then, but she couldn’t let it in. She knew she was right.
“You wanted no strings, right? Well, you got your wish,” she said. “There’s nothing holding us together.” Then she left him.
* * *
Xavier watched her go, feeling his gut wrench with guilt and loss. Even worse, he found that she marched right back to her friends, including the decent-looking, but decidedly unremarkable guy who offered her a beer. He felt jealousy well in him, and felt a strong desire to go over there and tell the man to get lost. Who was that? Some other guy on Nost, no doubt. The idea of her with another man made his blood boil. But what claim do I have on her? Everything she told me is true. I lied. I betrayed her trust.
I was just trying to protect her.
Or was he just trying to keep the balance in the relationship unequal? Was he trying to be the one with all the information? Did he like keeping her in the dark? She accused him of just wanting to keep all the power, and maybe she’d been right. Sure, Sasha had hurt him, more than hurt him, nearly killed him with heartbreak, and maybe he thought the way he’d never let that happen again was just to be sure that he held all the cards. She’d seen right through him, and it scared him to his core.
That was why he’d not revealed who he was at the start. That was why he’d kept all his cards close to his vest.
Yet, the attraction between them was real. Even now, he wanted to sweep Emma off her feet and kiss the life out of her. Even angry, he’d never seen a woman look so beautiful. Her blue eyes flashed fire when they glanced at him, and he wanted to do whatever it took to earn her forgiveness. Did trying to save her from a sexual predator count at all? Would it have been better if he’d just let her take her chances?
