“That’s bullshit,” he snapped, his features darkening in anger. “We’ve been building something here. Something good. Our own place, our own family. You can’t deny that.”
She shook her head once more. Desperately needing space, she backpedaled, then caught herself midstep. She was through running. Through letting others dictate her life, her truth.
“What we’ve ‘been building’ was founded on blackmail, lies and mistrust. It’ll never be ‘something good.’”
Raising her head, she committed every one of his features to memory. Though she might wish she could evict him from her heart, she never would.
That didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. She had to. For her peace. For her sanity. For her future.
“I love you, Darius,” she admitted quietly.
His body stiffened, and lightning flashed in his eyes, brightening them so the gold almost eclipsed the dark brown. “Isobel,” he rumbled.
“No.” She slammed a hand up, though he hadn’t moved toward her. “Let me finish. I didn’t think I would ever be able to open my heart to another man. But you did the impossible. You made me trust again. Love again. Made me believe in second chances. And I thank you for that. And I might hate you for that,” she whispered. “Because you showed me what happily-ever-after could be, then snatched it from me.”
“Isobel,” Darius rasped again, erasing the distance between them and cradling her cheek.
And for a moment, she cupped her hand over his, pressing his palm to her face and savoring his touch. But then she dragged his hand away from her.
“Do you love me?” she asked, staring into his eyes. Glimpsing the surprise flicker and then the shadows gather in them.
Darius stepped backward, a dark frown creasing his brow. But he said nothing. And it was all the answer she needed.
“You awakened something in me,” she said softly. “Something I wish would fall back asleep, because now that it’s alive, I hurt. I...hope. The Isobel from two years ago would believe she could change you, make you accept her. Fight for her, if she just loved you hard enough. That Isobel would be happy with the parts of yourself you were willing to give her. But I’m not that woman anymore. I deserve to be a man’s number one and to be loved and cherished and valued and protected. I deserve a man who will love me beyond reason, and though I’m not perfect, he will love me perfectly.”
“What you want, I...” he trailed off.
The raw scrape of his voice and the sorrow in his gaze should’ve been a balm to her battered soul, but it did nothing.
“I’m not telling you this to emotionally blackmail you, Darius. I’m admitting this forme, not you. So when I walk out of here, I won’t have regrets.”
“Walk out of here?” he repeated on a low growl. His arms lifted again, but once more he dropped them, his fingers curling into fists. “We had an agreement. A contract. You can’t just break it.”
“We’ve been breaking the contract from the beginning. Becoming lovers. The DNA test. Falling in love with you.” The contract was supposed to have been a defense against that. A reminder of who she was marrying and why. But it hadn’t shielded her heart, just as Darius hadn’t protected her and Aiden. “Do what you feel you need to do regarding the consequences. But I won’t remain in this home, in this...arrangement knowing I can’t trust you. That I will continue to pay the price for Gage’s lies and the Wellses’ grudges. I refuse to be someone’s emotional and mental punching bag again. And every time you side with Gage’s memory and his family, you deliver another blow. No, Aiden and I will be leaving today. But I won’t keep him from you. He loves you, and I know you feel the same. We’ll set up a schedule after we’re settled...”
Her arms tingled with the need to throw themselves around him. Her throat ached with the longing to ask him to say something, to beg her not to go. To declare his love and loyalty.
But nothing came from him.
She straightened her shoulders and inhaled past the pain. Then she turned, exited the room and climbed the stairs. Once she entered her bedroom and shut the door, her back hit the wall and she slowly slid to the floor. The tears she’d been reining in fell unchecked down her cheeks. How long she sat there, quietly sobbing and hugging herself, she didn’t know. But during that time, her resolve to do right by Aiden, and by herself, firmed until it resembled a thick, impenetrable wall.
She might be losing Darius, losing the future she’d so foolishly allowed herself to imagine for her and Aiden, but she was gaining more.
Her self-respect.
Her dignity.
Her.
And it was more than enough.
Fifteen
Darius stared down into the squat glass tumbler and the amber-colored bourbon filling it.
At what point would the alcohol send him tumbling into oblivion, where the memories from Thanksgiving couldn’t follow? He’d been seeking the answer to this for four days now. But while he’d been fucked up, that sweet abyss of forgetfulness had eluded him. No matter how many bottles he’d gone through, he could still see Isobel’s beautiful face etched with pain and fierce determination as she confessed she loved him—and then left him. Could still hear the catch in her voice as she accused him of betraying her trust. Could still hear the sound of the front door closing behind her and Aiden that afternoon.
Closing his eyes, he raised the glass to his lips and gulped a mouthful of the expensive but completely useless liquid. But he was desperate to not just escape the mental torture of his last, devastating conversation with Isobel, but the terrible, deafening silence of his house. It’d chased him into his study, where he’d shut himself away. But there was no refuge from the emptiness, from thenothingthat pervaded his home.
