She staggered back a step. How many thermophiles had she killed in that time? While Jonah played his reality show star persona, avoiding the responsibility she bore? Every justification she’d clung to, every excuse she’d made to herself and trained herself to believe—shattered.
The buzzing in her ears drowned every thought. “Edward warned me, too.” Another bitter laugh escaped her lips, sharp and grating. “He told me I couldn’t trust you. Hell, he told me about the cure, right before he died. And I wrote it off as desperation.”
Her breath hitched, cracking under the weight of heartbreak. “Was it real, Jonah? Any of it?”
“Of course it was real. How could you even say that?” His hands raked through his hair. He reached for her before rethinking the action, balling his fists at his sides.
“Then what was the plan?” The room swayed. “Let me watch you grow old and die while I carried on this miserable half-existence? Were you going to let me keep killing people for the TCA until the day I finally burned?”
“They promised they’d give you the cure. But only if I didn’t tell you.”
Her chest tightened, her anger rising. “When?” she hissed. “When I was no longer useful?”
Jonah hesitated, his mouth opening and closing before he finally said, “Two years. They said two more years of us working together, and they’d give you the cure and we could leave the TCA, start over somewhere new.”
She shook, her whole body flushed, red and trembling.
“They wouldn’t have,” she said bitterly.
Jonah frowned, confused. “Why not?”
“Because I would’ve told everyone,” she snapped, “I would’ve become the new Edward. That’s probably what he wanted—whathe was trying to tell me all along.” She shook her head. “They couldn’t let that happen. They played you, Jonah.”
He took a step forward, his hand wrapping around her wrist. “Ruby—”
She flinched, yanking her arm back.
“You’ve been manipulating me this whole time,” she rasped with a dawning realization. Did the TCA make you ask me to move in with you?” Jonah’s face went pale. She nodded. “Not because you cared about me, but because they wanted you to keep a closer eye on me. None of this was real.”
His face crumpled, desperation flaring in his eyes. “I love you,” he whispered.
“What?”
“I’m in love with you, Ruby,” Jonah pleaded. “I have been for years. I asked the TCA to pair us together. Because I couldn’t forget you. And I was terrified, but none of it mattered because I love you.”
She unraveled, but she forced the words out. “No, you don’t.”
“I do. I have since the first night at the TCA. I remember every moment with you. That night you explained your book to me—some nerdy thing—and your hair was cut short, you were in sweatpants, and a KISS shirt…” His words tumbled out, raw, filling the space between them. “And you snorted at your own joke.”
Her breath caught, her chest tightening painfully. The first person to say those words to her—really say them—and it was the bastard breaking her heart.
“Lying to me,” she whispered, “Manipulating me.”
Her anger erupted, her voice rising as she took a step toward him. “That’s not love, Jonah. That’s cowardice. You’re just a coward.”
“I know you probably can’t forgive me,” he begged. “But everything was for you, for us. I just wanted to keep you—”
“You’re right,” she interrupted with a grimace. “I can’t forgive you.”
She slammed open his door, expecting him to follow. He didn’t. She walked down his sidewalk, up his street, onto the next street, knowing each step pulled her further from the life she had yearned for, one that would never be hers.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THREE DAYS SINCEshe left Jonah.
The hotel room pressed in around her, thick with the scent of stale air and cleaning chemicals. The television flickered, casting shifting light across the walls. Grey’s Anatomy played on a low hum, dialogue bleeding together, but she wasn’t watching. The betrayal sat heavy in her lungs, thick like smoke, clinging to her skin, her hair. A familiar itch crawled up her spine, insistent, but she hadn’t given in.
Instead, she made a choice.
