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“Why not? Has she said something to Dianna?”
“No. But from the sounds of it, you made a clean break. Why hurt her even more by stretching this out?” Tristan made a good point. There was only one problem.
Even if Shane couldn’t explain everything, he needed to at least tell her goodbye. He couldn’t leave without apologizing for how he ended things. At this point, he figured she probably wouldn’t want to see him anyway. This was a last-ditch effort. Soon he’d be gone, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t at least try to mend a few bridges before he left.
24
Eloise
Eloise climbed out of her father’s truck and slammed the door a little too hard before storming toward the house. She was an emotional wreck. This wasn’t how everything was supposed to go. When her father had relinquished his hold on their dating lives, they were all supposed to find the men who would be there for them until the end.
She’d naively thought that person was Shane.
Eloise couldn’t have been more wrong.
Shane was just as terrible as Brielle had said he was, and Eloise had been a fool for thinking otherwise. She should have never gone to that party. It was a stupid decision that had been misguided from the beginning. It was too hard seeing Shane again.
Of course she was going to run into Shane. He owned the place. She slipped down onto the porch step and buried her face in her hands.
All this rational thought did nothing to ease the pain she felt inside. She just wanted to go up to her bed, form a cocoon and wait for her feelings for Shane to be over with before she emerged again.
Headlights flashed up the hill, and she let out a sigh. Brielle had likely left early because of her. Now she was ruining the night for people she cared about.
Maybe if she could muster the energy to go inside before Brielle parked, she wouldn’t have to listen to her sister tell her that she’d dodged a bullet.
Because that was the last thing she wanted to hear in this very moment.
Her eyes narrowed and she got to her feet. That wasn’t Brielle’s truck. It was Shane’s.
Nope.
She wasn’t going to do this tonight. She’d already had to handle the party. She wasn’t about to put herself through additional torture in order to alleviate the guilt Shane was probably drowning in. Or maybe he had zero guilt, and he was just coming to tell her this was her fault.
That thought gave her a fresh surge of energy, and rather than head inside, she stormed toward his car as he put it into park. She didn’t know what she was going to say or do, but that didn’t matter. Her whole body hummed with an energy that needed to be released, and if she didn’t do it soon, she could combust.
Shane stepped out of the car and closed the door. He hovered there, not moving, and she came to a halt about six feet away from him. “Eloise, I—”
“No. I don’t want to hear it,” she rasped. “It’s my turn now. You’ve had your chance to explain.”
He closed his mouth with resignation. They were bathed in the light from the porch as the evening grew darker, but she could still see that he was hurting. She couldn’t for the life of her understand why he might be so upset other than the fact that his reputation was at stake. If she really wanted to, she could spread some nasty rumors about his heartbreaking ways.
Eloise crossed her arms tight over her chest, hating how much she wanted to throw herself into his arms and feel his warm body against hers. She still craved him—his comfort, his strength, all of him.
Hot tears threatened to escape from behind her eyes, but she refused to let them come. Shutting them tight, she gathered her thoughts. “Is it true?”
“Eloise…” his voice broke.
“Is it true?” she demanded again. “You don’t love me anymore?”
The way he set his jaw as he looked away gave her everything she needed. With that reaction alone, her heart crumbled. She’d barely been able to hold it together for the last few weeks. This was the thing that finally broke her.
Eloise’s voice filled with despair. “This was what you were hiding from me.” She scowled through her pain.
Shane opened his mouth, but she held up a hand. “It makes a lot of sense—the way you were acting. You didn’t want anyone to know of our relationship. You did everything you could think of to keep it quiet. You were just competing for my attention against Marc.”
“It’s not what you think—”
Her lips curled into a sneer. “I don’t know whether or not to hate you or him more.”
