His rugged face falls, like my rejection is a punch to him.
Despite the misery ripping apart my organs inside my body, I curl my fingers around the door’s edge and tell him, “Go home, Kian.”
I don’t even care how he found me or sneaked past the security guard.
“Home?” His brows draw together in despair. “My place isn’t a home without you.”
My weeping heart disintegrates into pieces.
I clutch the doorframe to hold myself up.
“Last time you accused me of leaving without giving you a chance to explain. I’m here now, Rainbow. Please tell me. What did he say to you?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I smile sadly. A hiccup is building deep within my chest. Before it bursts and I break down all over again, I say, “I have to marry him.”
“You’re. Not. Marrying. Him.”
“I’m sorry.” I move back, trying to shut the door.
Only for him to slap a palm against it and halt it from closing. Leaning into my face, he repeats my words back to me, “If I don’t get to pull away from you, neither do you.”
“Please don’t make this difficult.”
“Why did you tell me the truth if you were going to choose him in the end?” An accusation is in his voice. “Did you both plan this? Give Kian a reason to be happy for the first time in his lonely, pathetic life and then cruelly snatch it away?”
The vulnerability lacing his tone guts me alive.
I stay quiet.
He pushes inside.
I take a step back.
“You said that I’m meant to be someone’s entire world. Yet you couldn’t even be with me in the dark, Iris.”
I flinch, fighting back tears.
He keeps viciously cutting me open with each barbed blame. “Hell, you even said goodbye to me on a goddamn note. Did I mean that little to you?”
“How can you even ask me that?”
“Because you packed your bag and left me! All I have is your name carved into my chest, taunting me with a reminder of you in every breath.”
“I didn’t have a choice!” I yell. Angry and broken tears come raining down. “Idon’thave a choice.”
“You do,” he whispers, longing shining in his dark gaze. “Come back to me. I will fix the rest.”
“You can’t.”
“Give me a chance.”
“We won’t last.”
“We will.”
“You will end up hating me. Or never see me again. I’m not strong enough to handle either. So, I’m begging you. P-Please just go.”
“Never.” Bridging the distance in a flash, he yanks me into the safety of his arms. Holding me tight as I fight his grip, he demands, “Don’t let Nathan come between us. I don’t care if he scared you, just don’t let him win.”
