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“But it is,” he counters. “I want you in our lives. They want you around.”
“Chase, I can’t. There’s just too much that has happened for me to come back and work for you.”
It feels like a slap in the face for him to even think I could. It also makes me wonder if he’s here because he hasn’t been able to find someone else. Old hurt rears its head once again.
“Can you just take me back home?” I ask, standing up and starting toward his vehicle.
“I can’t do that, Madison, because you’ll just continue to ignore me.”
I turn in his direction, angry and annoyed. “You need to—”
“I love you.”
Chapter 41
Chase
My heart pounds as she glares at me, her mouth hanging open.
“That’s not funny. I knew you were a manipulative bastard, but this just takes the cake,” she growls.
I stand to step closer to her, needing her to understand, and it hurts me a little to see her take a step back.
“Of all the things you could say to convince me to come back and continue to take care of the boys.” Her chin waivers as she tilts her head back, her face angled toward the sun. “This is the meanest you’ve ever been to me, but if anything, it solidifies why I hate you so much.”
She drops her eyes back to me as she lifts her arm and swipes angrily at the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“You don’t hate me, Madison, and I’m not playing with you. I love—”
“I swear. Say it again and they’ll only ever find pieces of you,” she growls.
“I thought I loved Emily.”
“Wow,” she says, spinning around and walking toward the road.
“Would you stop?”
She’s seething, her chest rising and falling so rapidly I feel like a complete asshole for not offering her one of the bottles of water her mother provided before I left town to get her.
“I love you,” I repeat. “I’ll spend the rest of my life proving that to you, but it might be a little easier if you stop fucking running from me. I’ll do anything to get you back, Madison, and the more receptive you are to that the less likely you’ll be to actually start hating me.”
“I do hate you,” she argues.
“Those tears aren’t coming from a place of hate, and although we haven’t talked about it much, I imagine you’ve been hurt as much as I have. You’re scared, and that’s okay. I can love you through that as well.”
“We were never together,” she snaps. “I was a quick, easy piece of ass to you.”
“There has been nothing easy about my pursuit of you. If I wasn’t fighting what I felt, then I was fighting you.”
She glares at me. “I’m not a hard person to get along with, Chase Woodson. You just bring out the worst in me because I’m not charmed by that sly little grin of yours like everyone else.”
“But aren’t you?” I tease, trying to hide my grin when her eyes narrow.
“You hurt me in eighth grade, and you’re continuing to hurt me now.”
I tilt my head in confusion.
“I’ve never hurt you on purpose. Despite what you think about me, I’m not a mean man. My parents raised me better than that.”
