AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Thinking about the past and the future I imagined we’d have, I closed my eyes, waiting the unknown and the inevitable to be spoken. He felt my hesitancy to expose my truths. They seared into his skin with each passing second.
Although we weren’t even touching, I knew he could still feel me all over. It was calming and disturbing in ways I never expected for both of us.
“You know that’s what I wanted, right? What I’ve always wanted since I was a teenager. To marry you. To have your babies. To have a family and grow old with you. I never had that, and I thought you’d be the man to give it to me.”
He didn’t falter. “I can give you that now.”
I grimaced with big, huge, ugly tears falling down the sides of my face. I was hanging on by a very thin thread.
“It’s so easy for you. You know that, don’t you? I mean you know everything about me. Did your PI tell you how much I cry at night? Feeling lonely? Scared? Broken?”
“For fuck’s sake, Paige. What was I supposed to do? It was you or my brother.”
My body trembled as I spun to stare profoundly into his eyes. His willpower matched mine.
No more hiding.
From him.
From me.
From us.
“Why did you pursue me if you were just going to hurt me? When you knew my life had done that already? All I had was your family, Adrian, and you just ripped it away. For what? To claim my virginity?”
“You know that’s not true.”
“I don’t know anything. I didn’t know you at all.”
“You’re the only person who’s ever known me, Paige.”
It physically pained me to be standing there with him, telling him everything I never wanted him to know. More tears slid down my cheeks and I wore them like they were a shield of armor, proudly showcasing the damage he caused a decade ago.
It was still there.
The pain.
The memories.
That naive girl.
When he stepped toward me, I begged in a pleading tone, “Please don’t,” halting his descent.
“Paige, I just want to hold you.”
“You don’t get to fuck me over and then hold me and tell me you didn’t. Because I’m not telling you this for your comfort, Adrian. I’m doing this for some closure. You need to move on with your life. For the last ten years, I’ve tried really hard to move on with mine. With men who were nothing like you.”
He winced, hanging on by the same thread I was.
“I can’t do this with you again. I won’t. I barely survived my tainted love for you the first time. I refuse to allow you to use me.”
“Paige.” He wavered for a second. “I have no one to blame but myself for what happened between us. I spent years fighting the connection I had with you. You were my brother’s best friend. I knew better, but I couldn’t for the life of me continue to keep you at arm’s length. I’ve wanted you for as long as I can remember. It’s always been you, Cherry. I met you first, but he got you instead. For the first time in my life, I let him have something that was supposed to be mine.”
Several tears cascaded down my face and onto the floor between us. I was downing in my agony.
“I lost you too, Paige. I lost Cade. From his respect to his admiration, to his fucking friendship. He hates me. I can see it anytime he looks at me. It doesn’t matter how many years pass us by, he despises the fact he lost you because of me. I’ve lived with that guilt for the last ten years. I can’t do it anymore. I won’t lose you again. Do you understand me? I fucking refuse.”
I shook my head. “You can’t lose something that was never yours to begin with.”
