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“It’s not what I think? Yeah, you said that already.” He lifts his head, drawing up to his full height to glare down at me. “You can hardly blame me for not believing you this time, Summer. Fool me once…” he trails off, shrugging.
My eyes fill with tears, knowing that I’ve lost him entirely. His respect. His trust. His love. Nothing I can say will change how he feels, and I feel a fool for havinghopedotherwise.
Hadn’t I told myself back in Cambridge that hope is the most dangerous thing either of us could possess?
You pure-bred idiot, Summer.
“So he’s the pimp around here, is he?”
“What?” My voice is high-pitched with utter disbelief.
“Burton. He’s your pimp, or is he your lover? Perhaps he’s both—”
My hand flies out of its own volition, connecting with his left cheek with a harshthwack. Cade’s head snaps to the side from the force behind the blow, and when he twists about to face me once more, his eyes are dark and thunderous.
Still, I don’t back down.
“Howdareyou speak to me like that, Caden North! Who do you think you are? You havenoclue what I have done to survive. You couldn’t possibly know how—”
His hand flies from the wall to grip my throat, cutting me off and pinning me in place.
“HowcouldI fucking know, Summer? Youleftme. You left when I needed you the most, and you only came back because you had no alternative. You kept our son from me forfifteen years, for fuck’s sake!”
His eyes hold mine as he exhales his next words. “Youbrokeme.”
Pain flashes across his face as he stops, clearing his throat. “You brokeus.”
His nostrils flare, and I can feel tears crest my bottom lashes to track slowly down my flushed cheeks. “I had no choice, Cade.”
“And then, you runagainimmediately after I’d explicitly asked you not to.” His voice hitches, and he blows out a frustrated breath. “Not onlyfrom me, but into the arms of another man. Or othermen, judging by where we fucking are right now!”
My throat is dry, my face is wet, and my heart bleeds out behind my breastbone.
So much hurt. So much pain.
I was young, too trusting, and scared out of my head. How can I make him see that I’d never wanted this for us?
I don’t realise I’ve spoken aloud until Cade increases the pressure around my throat as he whispers. “But you did it all the same.”
He clenches his jaw so hard I can hear his teeth grind together. Rage fills his every pore; I can feel it with every part of me, and not for the first time, I regret everything that happened that day in the meadow.
The day that shattered so many lives.
“I need to hate you right now for what you’ve done. For all the lies you’ve told, for the life that you kept from me. For showing me what we could have, only to run at the first opportunity.”
My tears fall more rapidly, and I try to suck in enough air to expand my lungs. Cade lets his hand drop from the wall at the side of my head, and when his other hand falls from its place around my throat, I greedily inhale as he watches me intently.
Without warning, he closes the gap, slamming his lips to mine. Taking my mouth with a bruising passion edged with unrestrained ferocity.
His assault slams my head back against the wall, and I cry out in pain against his mouth, only for him to plunge his tongue past my lips to spar with mine in nothing less than savage desperation.
Tears form behind my closed lids as I take what he offers me. Pleasure masked as pain. Or is it pain masked as pleasure? I don’t know.
And I don’t care. He needs this.
So, I kiss him back with everything I have inside of me as I realise it’s not only Cade who needs this.
Ineed this.
