Out of nowhere, something on the top of the stack catches my eye. Something with the coffee shop name on it. I stop fidgeting with the papers and pick up the piece. Ezra suddenly freezes. With his eyes glued to the paper in my hands, he rises to his feet.
His stare has changed its tune. It’s not angry anymore, just scorching.
My eyes roam over the printed lines dismissively at first. But I keep reading. The more I read, the colder my heart becomes. The stiffer my fingers turn.
“What’s this?” I ask, lifting my eyes to him.
His annoyingly thick neck moves with a rough swallow. “The insurance papers.”
“About the fire at your building?” I ask, hoping I just saw something else. Some other building he owns. Some other fire he had.
“Yes.” His voice is void of any emotions.
“But—” I look down at the paper and read it again. “But it says it wasn’t my fault. That it was faulty wiring in the wall and not even connected to the oven.”
A short nod of confirmation is all I get. No explanation.
“So it’s not my fault,” I repeat with a weak voice. “I was never going to go to jail for arson.”
Another short nod.
I finally catch his gaze and hold it. “When did you get this report?”
He’s holding my stare with an equally hurt one of his own.What is he hurt about?
“When, Ezra?” I repeat in a slightly raised voice.
A swallow. “Before I left for the trip.”
I look down at the paper in my hands like it’s going to give me an explanation why he lied to me.
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” I recall our conversation when he pretty much blackmailed me into marrying him. Yes, the final decision of marrying him happened because of the promises he made, but him threatening me with jail was why I even considered his idea in the first place.
“You kept secrets too,” he says stubbornly. His jaw moves from side to side.
“There’s nothing to tell.” I feel myself getting angry. “We could have avoided all of this.” I wave my hand between him and myself. “Why did you tell me you’d send me to jail?”
His lips are tightly pressed together. Not a sound escaping. And it makes me mad.
“Why, Ezra?” I walk to him and stop half a foot away from him.
He’s still quiet. I edge closer. Nothing. I grab the front of his crisp, white shirt and pull him to me. He lets me. If he didn’t want me to, I wouldn’t be able to move him even a bit.
“Why?” I hiss, rising on my tippytoes.
I see his self-control spinning. His nostrils flare, and his gaze dips to my mouth and then back to my eyes. His palm covers my hand in a firm grip. Not painful but controlling.
“Because I wanted you for myself,” he spits out the truth I’d been dreaming to hear before. But now it just sounds hollow. “I wanted to have youfor myself. I couldn’t bear the idea of someone else doing to you the things I did to you on the island.” His voice drops lower. “I couldn’t even imagineyou throwing the damn stick at someone else and laughing with someone else. I’d be the only one to catch the fuckin’ stick. I didn’t want to come back to a woman I’d hate forever. Because the woman I came to want didn’t want me back. So I forced you to want me.” His voice turns softer as his eyes dart between mine. “And you wanted me. For some time.”
“Why did you lie to me? You could have told me you liked me. That’s what normal people do, you know. That’s what I would do.”
“Yeah?” His tone takes the wrong turn again. “That’s what you would do?” His voice becomes even more menacing. Barely contained. “How about telling me how you spend your evenings with Jeff? How about that?”
I blink. And blink. Then blink some more, hoping he’s joking. But he’s not—there’s absolutely no sign of humor on his serious, hurt face. Then I throw my head back and start laughing.
My reaction is clearly not what he expected because his face turns confused as his grip on my hand loosens.
“You stupid, stupid man,” I say when I stop laughing. “And here I thought we might have something real. But if a slight misunderstanding makes you run and hide instead of coming to me to ask, then nothing was real. Nothing. Grown people talk, Ezra.” I step away from him. “If they value a person, they talk to them. They make it work. And you,” I look him up and down, “have done everything but talk.”
