Page 69 of Ruined

I kept moving, even though I didn’t have any way besides my feet to get me home.

Leo continued to follow me. I knew this not because I turned around to see, but because I could hear his footsteps approaching before he called out my name again. “Hanna.”

Right.

I was going to need to stop this before I went any farther.

Spinning around on my heels, I found myself face-to-face with Leo. “Leave me alone.”

“What did they do to you in there?” he asked. “Did Brock fuck with you? I told him he better tread lightly.”

Brock?

I tipped my head to the side as I felt my stomach drop. He was on a first-name basis with the guy. “So, I wasn’t wrong.”

“Wrong about what?”

I pressed my lips together, my emotions bubbling to the surface. “It was too good to be true,” I whispered.

Something moved through his expression, something that seemed like it was a mix of surprise and disappointment. “I don’t understand what happened in there.”

Not wanting him to see the tears roll down my cheek, I lifted my hand to the side of my face and swiped at them just as they escaped from my eyes. “But you understand what happened before they took me in there, don’t you?”

Leo jerked back at the harshness in my tone. He seemed wounded by my response, and he didn’t reply.

I didn’t allow his reaction to deter me. Instead, I figured this would likely be the first and last chance I had to tell him precisely how I felt, so I was going to take advantage of it.

“The minute you told me you were a private investigator, I should have known what was happening,” I started. “Suddenly, you, a man I’d met once before in this small town only because of a unique situation with one of my guests, were everywhere that I was. The coffee shop, the post office… you planned this whole thing. You thought I was a suspect right from the beginning. And you were cruel enough to make me believe that you were something so very different, cruel enough to take advantage of that.”

I felt the strain as my throat tightened painfully. I’d given him a part of me that I’d never be able to get back. He was the first man I thought I could be vulnerable with, and it was nothing but a lie.

“Hanna, you’ve got this all wrong,” he insisted.

“Do I? Because I find it to be awfully convenient for you to have never mentioned to me that you were investigating this case,” I fired back. “You used me, Leo. And I can’t understand what I did to you that would make you do that.”

“I did not use you, Hanna,” he asserted. “I can’t believe you would say such a thing. I didn’t say anything to you about this case, because I didn’t know you were even connected to it.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “So I’m supposed to believe that you just happened to show up at my place on the day the police barge in, so they can haul me off to the station for questioning. You weren’t supposed to come over until tonight to have dinner together. So I’m sure you’ll forgive me for being unable to ignore this awfully convenient timing.”

He sighed. “I’m not lying to you. I only learned that you were connected to every person in this case just before I came to your place. I’d like to sit down and explain everything, and I think we should talk about it. Why don’t you let me take you home?”

I shook my head. “No. No way.”

“How are you going to get there?” he asked. “Do you have another ride? Is someone coming to pick you up?”

That’s when it hit me.

He knew far more about me than he let on. Leo knew nobody was coming to pick me up, because he’d done his research. I had nobody. Of course, it wouldn’t have been that difficult to figure out anyway.

“I’ll walk,” I rasped, my throat having grown even more strained as the truth of my reality settled in.

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re miles away,” he noted.

We were.

Of course, I knew that.

But the idea of accepting anything from him when he’d been scheming this whole time put a sour taste in my mouth.

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