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“Can’t you understand why I keep saying no?” she asked, the words hitching on a sob she tried to hide. Hurt I hadn’t seen before passed her eyes. Fuck. And I’d caused that. “The thing is, years ago, if you’d come back, I probably would have jumped into your arms and said yes to just about anything you asked. But it’s been so long. Too much has happened.”
Not for me. I’d been in emotional stasis. From what I knew, she hadn’t moved forward, either.
“Too much of what?” I demanded.
She let go of my shirt with one hand and pounded the side of her little fist into my pec. Tears filled her eye, illuminating her pain in a way that twisted my guts. Her strikes weren’t enough to hurt me, but stabbing pain pierced my heart.
“You can’t just come back here and act like you didn’t do a burnout on my heart then leave skid marks on my back when you sped away to pursue your blaze of glory,” she sobbed, her voice cracking. “You don’t get to act like nothing happened. Like you can just… Like you can just come back as if it was no big deal, as if I’ve just been pathetically waiting for you while you’ve been racing after bigger and better things than me.” She swallowed and gasped. “Like you didn’t leaveeverythingbehind,” she finished on an anguished whisper.
I stiffened. “That’s not how it was.”
“Well, it’s sure how it looked to me and everyone else in Cherish Cove. And they probably think I’m a sucker because I’m giving in to my body’s feelings for you. But my head knows. My heart knows.” She looked up at me, tears shimmering in her eyes as bright as diamond-hard spear tips to eviscerate me. “I know.” Her fist pounded in the middle of her chest now. “I know. I know what it’s like to love you and not be enough.”
“Bristol…” I pleaded. God, I couldn’t let her feel this way. I couldn’t bear that I’d done this to her. Me…the selfish asshole. Even if I’d thought I was right. Her words rang true, accusing me, but I couldn’t stop my feelings for her, my need. She belonged to me,withme, and I couldn’t veer away now that I’d set my course. I couldn’t.
“Don’t,” she pleaded.
I cupped her face. “You werealwaysenough. Don’t ever think—”
She ripped away from me. “Don’t!”
“Baby… Please… I still love you.”
Everything in me stilled at my confession. Except my stupid heart. That idiot raced like a stock car without restrictor plates. And like a punch-drunk fool, it was sailing right toward a wall but couldn’t stop.
Bristol shook her head wildly. “No! No, you don’t get to come back and…just…say things like that.”
“I love you,” I repeated, emphatic and undeterred.
Taking a fortifying breath, she shook her head again and reeled back a few steps out of my reach.
What the fuck had just happened? I’d been cruising along on the straightway then crashed straight into a curve that shouldn’t even be there.
“Well, that’s just too bad,” she spat, unmoved by my declaration. No, that wasn’t true. She was moved, alright. She was pissed.
Bristol huffed, and I knew she was frustrated. With herself? With me? Both?
“I shouldn’t have agreed to this stupid dance anyway. I shouldn’t have agreed to come here.”
“Yes, you should have.” Rapidly closing the space between us, I grasped her upper arms and made her look at me when she tried to stalk away. We were making a scene, but I couldn’t give a fuck. “You love me, too,” I growled. “Admit it.”
She shook her head. “I hate you.”
Hated me?
Taking advantage of the way she’d stunned me, Bristol yanked away and half-ran from the dance floor. She grabbed her coat then headed for the door, while it was all I could do to propel my stunned body into motion. She might as well have slammed me with a taser, straight to the heart. It clutched, paused, before galloping double time.
She hated me?
Not bloody likely.
Fifteen
Bristol
Guilt and regret.
More guilt.
