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He flinched. “Wasn’t ours to begin with.”
How could he say that? We’d had everything at the tip of our fingers. I’d found us an apartment—one that would’ve been completely wrong. It wasn’t like his Ma’s house. Or even like this.
Once we’d finished renovating it, it would’ve been a museum . . . just like the house I’d grown up in. Because that was all I’d ever known.
I pushed at his chest. “You stole my heart.”
“Wrong again, baby sister.” He cupped my cheek with more gentleness than a man of his size should be able to.
I fisted his shirt. “You stole my choice.”
He turned away so quickly, it was as if I’d slapped him. “I wouldn’t—”
“If you never stopped loving me like you claim, then you did. We were supposed to be partners. A team. We could’ve figured it all out together.” I shook him. “You took that choice from both of us.”
His expression was hard, unfeeling. And he was silent.
I shook harder, which didn’t move him an inch. “Do you hear me?”
And still he said nothing in return. As I stared up at him, he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. He still stirred something in my soul in a way no one else ever had. He made me happy. He made me mad. He made me safe. He made mefeel.
We stood in this tiny kitchen with the laminate peeling off the counters and the wood cabinets worn from more years of use than either of us had been alive.
Was this what he’d wanted? Did he think I wouldn’t have lived here with him? That it wasn’t good enough?
“If this is where you wanted to be, I wouldn’t have cared.” My fists ached from holding his shirt so tightly. “I’d have followed you to the ends of the Earth.”
“I know that.”
I waited for more. Waited for him to elaborate. To make his actions then and now make sense.
The wall I’d erected around me all those years ago had served me well. It had several layers. Some of the outer walls, I allowed people behind. A very few, like Lexie, made it much deeper. No one had ever broken through to the very center of me.
Except Garrett.
He bulldozed it down twice.
Once when we’d met.
And the second when he’d sent that first text after I came back to New York.
The crazy thing was that this time, I’d actually had my guard up. It was useless. A crumbled mess.
I was standing in the middle of a sea of rubble.
Just like before, I had no guarantee of what was next. I was exposed. Vulnerable.
I’m keeping her from marrying that woman beater.
That was what he’d said to Teague. And itwasthe reason we’d gotten married.
I had no right to be hurt by his explanation, especially when it was the truth. But it did.
Why am I even here?
I should’ve gone back to Teague and Pepper’s. Did I think because Cal and I had gotten married that we had an obligation to fulfill our vows? That this was real and we were supposed to fight to make this work?
Judging by my verbal diarrhea, yes, I did think that.
