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The chief apologized for interrupting and left, pulling the door shut behind him. The silence was deafening.
“There was no deer, was there, Alex?” Her voice was soft and eerily calm.
“Now, Mia—”
“Was there?”
It was no use lying, the truth had already come out. Alex hung his head. Things were about to get even messier.
“No.”
“So you didn’t need to stay here all weekend, waiting for the rental place to open. In fact, you didn’t rent a car at all, did you? Did you?”
God, he felt like such a schmuck. “No, but Del—”
“Don’t bring my sister into this. She’s not the one sitting in my living room, revealing all the lies they’ve told me.” She shook her head. “I sure hope you enjoyed yourself these last few weeks, buddy, because the fun is over.”
Over? Oh no. God, no.“Mia, wait. I can explain.”
“Yes, you’ve done a lot of that today.” She tipped her head to one side. “Question is, how can I possibly believe anything you say anymore?”
Panic wove like ice through his veins. Tom had been right all along. But surely he could still find a way to make this right.
“Mia, please. Just hear me out. This whole thing started because—”
“Stop, Alex. Just stop.” Her voice broke and lower lip quivered. She turned from him, her voice barely above a whisper. “I need you to go.”
“I was going to tell you,” he said, the confession sounding weak even to his own ears.
“Now you don’t have to.” She hugged herself tighter. “In fact, you don’t ever have to tell me anything again.”
“What? Mia, please.”
She shook her head, still refusing to meet his gaze. He’d thought their shouting match in college had been difficult, but this? This was so much worse.
“Just go.” Her voice wavered.
It would kill him to see her cry, so Alex turned to go. He felt like everything was happening in slow motion, the idea that he’d blown it—again—almost surreal. This couldn’t be happening. They’d grown so close to one another; surely she didn’t want to throw it all away. He kept waiting for Mia to have a change of heart and call out for him to stop, for him to come back inside so they could work things out.
But she didn’t.
And the sob he heard as he closed the door behind him haunted Alex the entire way home.
Chapter Eighteen
Mia did whatshe always did when her life imploded—she went to her closet and cried. Why? Why had she let herself get caught up in such a fairy-tale-like romance? She should have known better. Should have never given love another chance.
When would she finally get through her thick head that there wasn’t a real Prince Charming in her future?
What hurt the most was, after learning of Alex’s multiple careful omissions, she wasn’t sure if anything he’d ever told her was even true. The thought nauseated her, and threw Mia right back into the fire she’d crawled out of three years ago. At least there was no other woman this time—a fact she’d learned only after coming clean about her peeking at his phone.
Alex had been right on that one item: She’d jumped unfairly to conclusions about who Jennifer might be to him. Clearly, her scars from the divorce weren’t fully healed. Now she had a whole new set to add to the collection. Who knew how long it might take for this batch to heal?
Because losing Alex, again, sure hurt like hell.
The bright side to their breakup—and calling it a bright side was a serious stretch—was that she’d had three years of practice under her belt for hiding her hurt. Which meant by the time Brooklyn arrived home from the movies, Mia’s eyes were no longer red and her sniffles were long gone. She made up an excuse as to why Alex wasn’t joining them for dinner, and then spent the rest of the evening up in her craft room, doing her best to forget he was even alive.
Which, of course, was impossible to do, sitting in the room where it had all begun.
