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“I’m sorry,” he said, more plea than apology. “I can stop this from running with a phone call. All you have to do is quit.”
For a long moment, I searched him for the man I thought I knew, but I only found a stranger. “I’ve been wondering all this time if I still knew you, if you knew me, and I’d convinced myself we did.” I stood and held up the paper. “You’ve always loved proving me wrong.”
“Poppy, please—”
“No. I owe you nothing. You want me to hand this town over to you because you think your stupid fucking smear campaign will hurt me. And it does, but not for what you said. It’s because you said it.” A dry, humorless laugh climbed up my throat. “I knew what I was signing up for when we started this again. But by the look on your face, you forgot.”
“I did,” he said, eyes tight, lips a line as he tried to tamp down his emotions. “Because I love you.”
My heart took a swan dive off a thousand-foot cliff and smashed in the same moment I slapped him.
“Don’t you dare.” The words trembled. My lungs trembled. My stinging hand trembled too as I jabbed a finger in his direction. “If you loved me, this never would have happened.” I threw the paper at him, and it came apart, flapping to the ground like a dead bird. “The worst part isn’t even that you lived up to my worst expectations. It’s that I fucking love you too. I love you almost as much as I hate you.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks, hot and heavy as I backed away from him. He looked as broken as I felt, standing as if to follow me.
“Don’t.” I ordered, and he stopped.
“Poppy…” Two choked syllables that shredded me to ribbons.
“Don’t follow me, Duke. Don’t find me. Don’t talk to me or think about me or consider that I’d ever in a million years forgive you for fucking me and fucking me over in the same breath. That you’d bring my family into this—Mama, of all people—it’s lower than I thought you’d ever go, which is saying something.” The pain in my chest deepened with every step I took as I backed away. “You can’t have the town. You can’t have the race. And you can’t have me ever again.”
I turned on my heel and stormed off, unable to look at his self-inflicted pain and feel my own. My face bent as the thin hold I had on myself slipped away. When I was far enough that he couldn’t see me in the dark, I ducked behind the trunk of a huge pine and leaned against it to stop my knees from buckling. A sob left me before I could catch it, and I hinged at the waist, clapping one hand over my mouth and the other on my stomach to try to keep everything in its place for a moment. To give me the space to cry for all I’d lost.
I should’ve seen it coming.
I was going to tell him I loved him and wanted to be with him, and instead, he’d betrayed me.
Again.
And I only had myself to blame.
22
COULD HAVE GUESSED
DUKE
I found myself in a self-imposed circle of hell.
I’d spent the rest of that night in the clearing, stretched out on a blanket, listening to the gentle rush of water into the pool. It was a clear, moonless night, the stars blazing in its absence, casting the world in a deep, dense darkness that I felt in my marrow.
Coming back had been a mistake. Maybe the biggest mistake of my life.
The damage was done, that much I knew, and so I decided I wouldn’t stop the article. I figured since I’d fucked it up with me and Poppy again, there was no point in holding back. Might as well lean in and retain the rest of my life, at least.
Today, I was far less sure of myself.
The article broke, and I’d spent the morning making my way around town, shaking hands in the hopes that they’d vote for me tomorrow. But it was a mixed bag. Some treated me like the second coming of Christ. Some just glared. And some straight up told me what they thought of me and exactly where I could shove the election.
I deserved every unkind word.
On the outside, I was calm, composed, taking my lumps with rhinoceros skin. On the inside, I was a wretch, despairing and despondent. I hated every second I defended the article, hated every word out of my mouth. Hated my cool exterior and fought the urge to burn it all down. But I didn’t trust myself to decide anything or to know what was best. The line between right and wrong, what I wanted and what I had to do, had been wiped away so completely, I had no idea where it’d ever been.
