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“I beg to differ,” he said firmly.
“You can’t love someone and hurt them like you did me. You threw me out of your life.”
His stomach clenched. He had done that. He’d unceremoniously dumped her when their week together had come to an end. The sight of her face that day, tormented and miserable, was something he would never forget. “Something I am so sorry for,” he said heavily. “Something I regret. Something I wish I could undo.” He moved closer. “But I do love you.”
Addie nodded, yet Guy could see that she was mentally pulling away. That she was pushing him from her. Sure enough, when she spoke, it was with finality.
“When I came to ask for your help, you told me that I’d killed whatever you felt for me.”
“Addie --,”
She held a hand up to stall his interruption. “And I remember thinking, at the time, what an absurd notion that was. You can’t kill love. Not our love. Not what we shared. It was too robust and strong, surely. Too special and rare.” She swallowed, her throat lined with razor blades. “But then I spent a week with you in Spain, and every single day, you did just that. You killed what I felt.” She blinked, not able to focus on his face for the tears that were clogging her eyes. “It’s done, Guy. There’s no sense rehashing any of it now.”
The last time Guy had cried he’d been eight years old and his dog had been run over before his eyes. Yet he felt an odd welling of emotion in his chest; a heaviness that wrapped around him, constricting his breathing.
“You were right the first time. You can’t kill love. Not our love.”
“For God’s sake!” She pushed at his chest, and he felt her emotions snap, like the wall of a dam breaking. “No!”
Her breath was loud and fast.
“No?” He said, lifting a hand and catching her wrist, rubbing it gently, hoping to reassure her.
“No, you don’t get to come back after this many weeks! Just because of the damned cheque! Because now you have some kind of tangible proof that I’m not after you for your money? You shouldn’t have needed proof! I loved you. I needed you.” She blinked, as if waking from a dream. “But I don’t anymore.”
“I need you,” he said softly, quietly. “I need you to watch horror movies with, to bring you peppermint tea in bed every morning for the rest of our lives, I need to run with you, to swim in pirate caves with you, to be with you, to love you, Adeline, forever.”
But he’d hurt her too badly. Adeline had locked herself away from him, and she didn’t seem to have any intention of loosening the shield she’d brought over her heart.
She pulled away from him, walking out of the kitchen, so that he had no choice but to follow. She stood at the door, at the end of the hallway, her eyes focused on the white wall straight ahead. Photo frames were propped to her left and he looked at one absent-mindedly, distracted, as he drew near to her.
It was a family photo, taken when Addie was perhaps seven or eight. Her brother looked to be a few years younger. And her parents stood, proudly, in the background, her father’s arm around her mother’s shoulders.
“The night I discovered you weren’t, in fact, Ava Peters,” he said throatily, standing in front of her, willing her eyes to meet his, “I had been about to propose.”
“What?” She blinked up at him, as though she hadn’t understood his statement. As though he’d spoken in a foreign language. “To propose to me?”
“Yes, Addie,” he laughed, though he was far from amused. “Santiago was right to wonder why we weren’t engaged. I told him the day after I met you that I wanted to marry you.” His smile was self-condemnatory.
He could see Addie rejecting the assertion. How strange that her honesty had been their battleground and now his words were being called into question.
“What is it you were so fond of saying to me?” She pretended to consider it. “Oh, yes, that’s right. It doesn’t matter! It’s all ancient history!”
“I was wrong,” he groaned. “Wrong in every single way. I was wrong not to let you explain. I was wrong not to simply help you when you came to me, seeing how terrified you were. I knew, even then, that something big had happened, and I used that to get you back into my life. Think about it, Addie. If I didn’t love you, why would I have concocted a way to spend more time with you?”
“To humiliate me,” she whispered. “To rub the fact you had moved on and I hadn’t in my face?”
“I didn’t move on,” he said.
She arched a brow, her lips curved in a sarcastic rejoinder. “You boasted about how easily you replaced me.”
“My ego lied.”
Her eyes flashed. “You expect me to believe you haven’t dated anyone since me? Slept with anyone else?”
“I swear to you, Addie. I have pined for you. I have hated you to the point of distraction, but only because I loved you so much I couldn’t believe what you’d done. What I thought you’d done,” he amended swiftly. “I was hurt, okay?” He pressed a palm to the wall beside her, bringing his body closer to hers. “I didn’t want to let you explain because I knew that I was this close to just forgetting about the past. To giving you anything you wanted. How much I love you terrified me. It still does.”
Her voice was a husk when she spoke. “I can’t do this anymore. I’d rather be alone than with someone who can hate me like you do…”
