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I ran to the passenger seat and opened the door. “Melanie, please talk to me. Five minutes. That’s all I ask.”
She shook her head, cupping her face in her hands before she let out a heavy sigh and got out of the car.
“Melanie, what are you doing?” Ledford cried out.
“Please, wait in the car. This won’t take long,” she uttered, and I took a deep breath.
I waited for Ledford to get inside before I set my gaze on Melanie, but she still refused to look at me. Her eyes were swollen, eyelashes wet and heavy with tears. Her body was quivering, and her breath ragged. It was breaking my heart. “Melanie, I love you. You have to believe me,” I pleaded. “Everything we’ve had was true. I wasn’t pretending my love for you. If I could go back in time—”
“But you can’t,” she cut me off, her voice cold and stern. “That’s the thing, Shane. You can’t!” She started crying, punching my chest with her fists, and I let her. “I hate you! God, I hate you so much! I trusted you. I told you everything I went through, and even that didn’t stop you from playing your role! You’re sick!”
“Melanie, you know that’s not true.” I gently grabbed her wrists in my hands, pressing them to my chest. I watched the woman, who I swore to protect, break down. I clenched my jaw, fighting back the tears in my eyes as she desperately cried. I knew I was the reason for it, and I couldn't stand that thought. Her pain was tearing me down. “I’ve regretted agreeing to my father’s fucked-up plan every fucking day since I met you. And I hate myself for it. I’m fucked up. I know that. But I was raised that way. My father was fueling me with goddamn revenge as if it was the purpose of my life. Until I met you.” My voice was breaking. I held her hands in mine and, for the first time in twenty years, cried. Last time I shed a tear, I was five and at my mother's funeral. “You freed me from this, Melanie. You freed me from the heavy chains keeping me in the past. And I love you. I so fucking love you, Melanie. You’re my life. I’m lost without you.”
“I don’t believe you,” Melanie sobbed, struggling to catch a breath. Fuck, I wanted to take the pain away from her. I just didn’t know how. I felt so fucking helpless. I broke the woman I loved the most.
“You have to believe me,” I whispered, grabbing her chin in my fingers and tilting her head back so our eyes locked. “Ever since I laid eyes on you, I knew I couldn’t hurt you. And you kept proving me right every single day. Everything I’ve done after was to protect you.”
Melanie pulled back, taking a deep breath as she wiped her tears. Her eyes turned black with lethal hatred. “If you wanted to protect me, you should’ve stayed away from me.”
“Melanie, please… give me a chance to prove that I love you.” My voice cracked.
“No, Shane. What we had was lust, not love.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true. We’ve mistaken lust for love.”
“No, Melanie. Only love can be this strong. And only love can hurt so damn much that I’m suffocating.”
“Well then… Love is lethal,” Melanie whispered, staring numbly into my eyes. I didn’t understand her words, but I felt cold shivers washing over me. I felt fear. “Because whatever this was… I overdosed, and it killed me.”
I shook my head, her words cut deep like a knife, tearing my heart apart. “Don’t say such things.”
Melanie looked at me with contempt, her eyes glistened with tears. “Stay the hell away from me,” she shrieked before she turned on her heels and got back in the car.
Ledford instantly drove away, and I felt like I was drowning. Suffocating. I stood alone on an empty street, surrounded only by the darkness of the night, immersing in the excruciating pain and questioning every decision I’d ever made that led me to this point. Did I regret anything? Hell yes. Would I change anything? No. If I hadn’t agreed to my father’s twisted plan, I would never have met Melanie. I knew my father would proceed with his plan anyway, with or without me, but I... I would never have experienced this kind of wild passion and raw desire. I would never have savored the sweet taste of pure love.
Melanie Rose Atwood was the only woman that could change me. The only woman I was willing to change for. I knew this wasn’t the end of our story. It couldn’t have been.
~••~
I lost count of the whiskeys I’d had. I felt like a miserable shit drowning my sorrows in alcohol. I sat on the floor, resting against the couch in my living room with the lights switched off, my head cupped in my hands. Darkness. That was all I knew. It was so easy to indulge in it again. But without Melanie in my life, I didn’t see the light anymore. I couldn’t get the images of her crying her eyes out, because of me, out of my head. It was breaking me if it was even possible to be more broken than I already was.
I heard the sound of the door opening and then closing. Then footsteps and the sound of someone turning on the lights. I didn’t see who it was, not that I cared. I knew it wasn’t Melanie. I would sense her presence and recognize her scent.
“Jeez, bro,” Ander’s voice rumbled in my ears. “You look like shit.”
“And that’s how I feel,” I rasped. “What are you doing here?”
“Father sent me,” he stated dryly. I heard the sound of liquid being poured, and I figured he was getting himself a drink.
“And what does he want again? Whose life does he want to ruin now?” I wasn’t sure if I was more resentful or sarcastic, and the alcohol numbed the pain.
“He couldn’t reach you. Couldn’t reach Callan.”
“Callan,” I scoffed.
Anders continued his speech. He’d never miss a chance to play on my nerves. Not even after he fucked my girlfriend in the past. It still wasn’t enough for him. “Call Father. He’s shitting his pants that you got killed or something. He’s always exaggerating when it’s about his firstborn.”
