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Her smile makes me believe I was acting based on what Ben told me, and I wasn’t to know. Her laugh tells me I only love Mason like a brother and would never intentionally hurt him. Her words… fuck, her words make me believe that even after what I did, no matter how bad, that I still deserve her love.
And yet I lie here now in the silence as I have for the last month, with the truth lingering like a shadow that’s weighing me down. I rarely sleep anymore, and if I do, it’s from pure exhaustion. It’s eating me alive, and deep down, I know that the only thing stopping me from telling them is my own selfish needs.
Because I don’t want to lose them too.
Her.
But seeing Nina and Mase here this weekend, watching them fumble over themselves as they come back together, as they fall in love again… it makes me sick to my fucking stomach that it was all because of me.
I did that.
Me.
I can’t claim to want to protect them and then keep the truth from them at the same time.
I can’t keep this from them.
I love you, Lance.
A tear streaks my temple as I roll to my side and kiss Scarlet’s forehead. I pause, breathing her in.
“My sunshine, when all I can see is the moon and stars.”
My knee bounces as the lock on the elevator clicks from the floors below, a deep whirling sounds a moment later. I swallow the bile that rises in my throat. I have everything with me. The photos Ben had printed and the money trail to Jasmine. I knew I couldn’t tell them about Ben and Nessa Anne’s involvement and risk the truth coming out about Marcus. Ben made it impossible. But even if I could tell him, why would I? It was me who gave Ben the nod. It was me who stood in a club with Mason as his friend and let him walk into a trap I’d set.
I disgust myself.
“Lance?”
I lift my head from my hands, my heart pounding when I see Nina standing at the entry.
“Nina. Where’s Mase?”
“At the estate.” Her eyes move to the folder and USB stick on the coffee table. She frowns. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t come back with her. Fuck. “I came to see Mase.”
She nods, eyes flicking back to the file. “What’s that?”
I steeple my hands in front of my mouth as I rock on my bouncing knees. I can’t even look at her. It’s time.
“I fucked up.”
“Lance—”
“I watched it happen with Cara, and I thought you were going to do it too. I-I—”
“Lance,” she snaps, cutting off the mess of words tumbling from my mouth. She comes to sit next to me on the sofa, and I finally look across at her. “Stop.” Her eyes are locked on the file, unblinking.She knows. “You set him up, didn’t you… It was you.”
Acid burns in my throat, and I force it down as I fight to explain myself. “You’d been together a couple of months. I didn’t think he was so deep, and if I knew you were pregnant, Nina.”
Fuck, this isn’t how I planned it to go.
She turns to look at me, and my eyes blaze over her pale face. “Lance—”
“I’m so sorry, Nina,” I rush on. “I couldn’t keep it from you and Mase anymore, it’s not right. I can’t live with it.”
And it’s true. I can’t.
