Page 523 of His Virgin Romance Series
“Let’s not get into it, Seth, okay?” Brie said, turning towards the door. “I just came up here to tell you that you don’t need to continue with the pretense. Let’s just put this whole thing behind us and get on with our jobs.”
“No,” I said firmly, darting in front of Brie and blocking her path. “Not until you hear me out.”
“Why are you interested in explaining things now?”
“Because you’ve got it wrong,” I said.
“Oh, really? What have I got wrong?”
“I let you believe that I had cheated on you because I loved you,” I said, wondering if that even made sense. “Not because I didn’t.”
She frowned at me. “You just heard yourself, right?”
“Brie,” I said, frustrated that I couldn’t seem to get my point across. “I’m an asshole, okay? I’m not good with women, and I’m terrible at relationships. I’ve been through more girls than I can count and in every single story, I don’t come off well. Ask my ex-girlfriends, and I’m sure they’ll be delighted to tell you.”
“What’s your point?” Brie demanded.
“My point is that I would have done to you what I did to them,” I said. “I would have neglected you into leaving me. Hell, I was neglecting you for the past few months before you left. I would have ended up screwing this up at some point in the future. Then you would have left me and… It would have been harder to get over, for both of us.”
Brie frowned, in confusion. “Are you serious?” she asked. “That’s the reason you let me believe you were cheating on me?”
“I’ve never felt guilty about how things ended with my previous girlfriends,” I admitted. “And, that’s because I didn’t love any of them. Our connections were based on sex and that fizzled out eventually.
“But with you and me… It was different. You were the only woman I dreamed about that I felt I could never get. Then things happened between us and I was so weak that I let it happen. And it was better than I could have imagined.
“But then work caught up with me, and I realized I was falling back into the old patterns. Work was becoming my focus and I realized that at some point, I would repeat all the mistakes I’d made in the past. But this time, I respected you, I loved you and I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting you… So I thought it would be easier to let you make your assumptions to save you a whole lot of pain later on down the line.”
Brie stared at me, and all I wanted to do was grab her and kiss her. Looking into her eyes, I realized something. I realized how stupid I had been and how ridiculous my reasoning had been. Emma was right. I was a coward. And I had been too foolish to see that I had the ability to change my life, I had the power to control my future and I had the ability to make the right choices. Instead of trusting myself, I had pushed Brie away because I hadn’t been confident in my own feelings.
“Brie,” I said, taking a step towards her.
She backed away from me as though my very proximity was hurting her. “No,” she said. “Don’t.”
“I don’t deserve you Brie,” I said softly.
When Brie looked at me I could see the hurt radiating from her forget-me-not blue eyes. “You’re right,” she said. “You don’t.”
