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“That Magdalen wouldn’t dare touch her if you weren’t constantly distracting her and drawing her attention from me,” Apollo said.
I thought that was rich. Apollo acting like he’d seen anything between me and Valen before now? Before he’d basically been told outright? I called heavy bullshit on that.
“No,” Valen said sarcastically. “The Magdalen had no reason to think your relationship was anything but solid, especially not with your cock buried in her last night while Harlow–”
“Excuse me?” I spat, my head trying to wrap itself around all that.
Both boys froze and I knew that wasn’t supposed to have slipped out. Whatever Valen and I had done or been, he’d kept Apollo’s infidelities from me. And this time, they were actual infidelities. We’d been exclusive. We’d made promises. His ring was on my fucking finger after all!
Suddenly, all the push pull that I’d been feeling for the past five months felt like nothing.
All the guilt I’d felt over wanting Valen just melted.
I had a sudden blanket of clarity descend over me, accompanied by a chill of freedom.
Every tie I thought I had to Apollo. Everything I thought I owed him for all the reasons I thought I owed them, real and imagined. The unspoken promises I’d made to Frenella to save him from himself. The guilt for coming between these two friends. It all just…disappeared.
Apollo hadn’t seen the real me. He hadn’t let me shed my princess façade and look forward to a future where we were the only ones who could make living someone else’s life bearable. He’d just made me exchange one façade – one set of masks – for another. Not intentionally, at least. He had that going for him. But I’d been so intent on making things work, keeping the Apollo I used to know, that I’d been whoever and whatever I needed to do that. I hadn’t been myself, not fully.
Not the way Valen let me be, a small voice said inside, and I threw it away from me in disgust.
No, Apollo had talked about monogamy and marriage, and still been off wetting his dick in any idiot who’d spread her legs for him. And, this time, I was well aware I was one of those idiots.
I didn’t like that.
I wouldn’t have that.
“Harlow…” Apollo said carefully. The way you’d talk to an injured wild animal.
I shook my head, and I strode over to him. I pushed Valen out of my way, and poked Apollo in the chest as hard as I could. “Be very careful,” I spat, “about what you say next, Apollo Callahan. Be really sure about what you say next,” I warned him.
He actually had the fucking audacity to look to Valen for help. Unsurprisingly, none was coming. God might have called for aid, but the Wolf wasn’t answering. Not this time.
“Enough, Apollo. We’re done.” I pushed him away from me and held my hands up in defeat. “Enough is enough.”
“Why was it okay before and it’s not okay now?” he asked me.
I gawped at him like the idiot he was.Seriously?“Because you lied to me. You told me it was only me. And I was stupid enough to believe you. Before, we’d never made promises to each other, it had all been our fathers. But then you made a promise, and you broke that trust. I knew I was making the wrong choice when I said yes. I knew it. We weren’t ready. I know now we’ll never be ready. But I let fear guide me, not love.”
“Fear?” Apollo breathed, like it had been the worst thing I could have said to him.
“Fear of our fathers’ retribution if they ever found out that I’d choose someone else if I could. Because you’d be blamed just as much as me. They’d blame you for being stupid enough to lose me, and I’d be blamed for being unfaithful. But no more. You were never worth me, Apollo Callahan.” I looked at Valen and felt my heart hitch. “I’m not sure you were either. Which sucks because I think I’m in love with you anyway.”
Apollo scoffed, obviously looking to gain back some of his composure. “You hate Valk.”
I looked very pointedly at Apollo and reminded him, “I hate you, but that doesn’t stop me loving you.”
Apollo’s eyes softened. “Then let’s give it another go. I’ll be better. I’ll do better.”
I shook my head. “I do love you, but I’m not in love with you and I never have been. I know now I never will.” I pulled the crown ring off my finger and threw it on the carpet at Apollo’s feet. “You can keep that ridiculously overpriced bauble,” I told him.
“What about your engagement ring?” he asked, obviously confused.
I glared at him. “Unlike this,” I waggled the fingers of my left hand in the air, the ring facing him, “that actually means something. Meant something,” I corrected.
“Harlow...” he started, but I shook my head, not letting the pleading in his voice make a dent on my heart.
“Besides, I’ll need it to keep up the charade,” I said icily.
