Broken:Flirt New Adult Romance(31)

There are things I need to tell her. Steps I need to take, admissions I  need to make. Stories to tell, ghosts to expunge, and all that. I'm  ready.

My smile slips as my eyes catch on her laptop. Thanks to the headphones,  she doesn't seem to realize I'm behind her. If she knew, she'd make  every effort to hide what's up on her screen.

All the euphoria running through my veins turns to ice water immediately  as I register the headline of the story she's reading. It's old news,  but achingly familiar. My heart feels lodged in my throat.

Olivia senses me then, spinning around with a gasp, even as she  frantically slams the laptop shut. Her face crumples when she realizes  she's too late.

I take a step backward, unable to stop the images conjured up by the  words in that painfully understated headline: "Weston-Area Soldier Lone  Survivor in Afghanistan Torture Tragedy."

"Paul." She reaches out a hand, her expression a combination of regret and horror.

"I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you everything." My voice is raspy.

Her face crumples. "I know. I just-"

"You just what?" I sneer. "Wanted to know exactly who you let cuddle up  against you last night? Wanted to know who-no, what-you almost fucked?"

"Stop." Her voice is firm, and her hand drops. "I just thought . . . You never want to talk about it, and-"

"You never asked!" I explode. "Nobody ever asks! Sure, you tiptoe around  it. ‘Wanna talk about the dreams, Paul? Anything you wanna discuss?'  Everyone asks, from concerned nurse to poor victim, but nobody ever  looks me in the eye over dinner and asks me, person to person, ‘What  happened over there?' You think I want to carry it around by myself? I  don't. I want to tell someone. I wanted to tell you. But not when you  were looking at me like a damaged child."         

     



 

Her eyes fill with tears.

"It was mine to tell, Olivia. My story."

"Then tell me."

I jab my finger in the direction of the laptop. "No. You'll have to satisfy yourself with that watered-down half-truth."

"Paul."

This time when she moves closer, both hands are outstretched, as though to pull me to her.

Damn it, I'm tempted to let her hold me, even after she belittled  everything that I've gone through, all of the progress we've made by  fucking Googling me.

My hands find her shoulders before she can touch me, and my fingers  tighten briefly in the urge to pull her closer, before I very  deliberately, almost roughly set her back. I don't hurt her. I'd never  hurt her, not physically, but the pain on her face tells me that my  rejection hits something deeper.

Good.

"If it were up to me, you'd be on the first flight home to New York," I say.

She gives me an incredulous look. "Oh, come on. Because I was reading a  news article on you? News flash-I could have done that at any time."

"Yeah, but you didn't!" I hate the savage pain in my voice. "You waited  until now, waited until I trusted you, to go behind my back. Waited  until I wanted you."

It's hypocritical, of course. I read her text message. But somehow me  reading one tiny text message from a guy she's never even mentioned  doesn't feel as huge as what she's done. We're both guilty of snooping,  true. But she knew this was something I wasn't ready to share. She  didn't give me the chance.

"I didn't know that! You're being melodramatic and ridiculous, Paul."

I shake my head. "You want to know the real reason you're still here?  The real reason that I didn't throw you out on your tight ass the second  you walked through the door, like I did the rest of them?"

Nervousness flits across her face. "Because we connected?"

I make a harsh buzzing noise. "Nope. See, Olivia, I have to tolerate you for three months or my dad throws me out."

Her jaw slackens a little, telling me she definitely didn't know about my father's ultimatum.

"Yeah," I said, feeling a little victorious at the pain on her face.  "The cozy afternoons by the fire? All those painful, vapid dinners while  I listened to you ramble about your childhood? Those were all carefully  manufactured to make sure you stuck around long enough for me to get my  inheritance."

Her lips press together. "Stop."

I don't stop. I go in for the kill, moving closer and bending my knees  just a little, so I'm in her face, eye to eye. "Oh, and about last  night's kiss? And that kiss by the fire? And every other time I've  tolerated your girlish, boring touch?"

She turns her head away, but I place the tip of my finger against her  chin and force her to look at me. "Those weren't about us. I had to make  sure you felt wanted to keep my dad from cutting me off."

Her eyes go dark and furious as she meets my gaze, and this time it's  her turn to push back at me. "Poor, poor Paul! You mean your father  actually expects you to be a contributing member of society instead of a  sulking coward? I had no idea you were being so victimized!"

I feel rage roll over me. She doesn't know anything. She doesn't know  about Lily's leukemia, or the fact that only I know that Alex's death  wasn't mercifully fast, or that the only way Amanda can afford to pay  rent and the costs of Lily's treatment is because I've sold out and  taken my dad's money.

"Get out," I snarl.

She gives me a condescending look. "You sure you want to do that? It  hasn't even been two months. You kick me out now, you'll actually have  to make a living on your own like the rest of us."

I bark out a laugh. "Like the rest of us? Exactly which of your  possessions did you pay for yourself? Hmm? Which of those didn't come  from Daddy? We both know this is a token job. I don't know how much my  father is paying you, but I do know you're not doing it for the money.  I'd wager you haven't even deposited a single paycheck."

Her eyes flash guiltily, and I don't know if I'm relieved she's not  doing it for the money or furious because it means she's doing it for  some other nefarious reason that I can't yet figure out.

We stand there for several seconds, glaring. Two spoiled, damaged disasters.

"I'll pack my stuff," she says finally, starting to move around me.

I grab her elbow as she passes. We turn our heads toward each other just  slightly, each breathing hard, neither meeting the other's eyes.  "Stay," I say gruffly. "We've used each other for this long. Might as  well see it through."         

     



 

"I'm not going to stick around because you want to mooch off your father."

"Fine. Then stick around for whatever selfish reason you came here for.  See it through. Finish using me like I'm using you. Then we can walk  away unscathed."

Green eyes meet mine, and I see what's plainly written there. Bullshit.

She's right. It's gone on far too long for either of us to walk away unscathed, but I'm beyond caring at this point.

If my initial goal was to get Olivia Middleton to stick around, my new goal is far darker.

I'm going to break her the way she's breaking me.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Olivia


Okay, so I'm just going to come right out and say it: Paul overreacted.

Yes, I overstepped a little by Googling him. Do I regret it? Most definitely.

But he's acting like I went snooping through his drawers in the middle  of the night. This isn't Paul's diary we're talking about. Like he'd  even keep a diary. (Although he should. Maybe then he'd work through  some of his issues and wouldn't always act like his python cane is all  the way up his ass.)

That news story I read? Public information. It's not like I even had to  dig-it took about twelve seconds on Google. The thing that's really  pissing me off is that if I had half a brain, I would have looked all of  this up before arriving in Maine, before even agreeing to the job.

Maybe if I had, I would have known that Paul Langdon was worryingly  close to my own age. I would have seen that senior-year portrait from  his high school yearbook and known that once upon a time he was almost  painfully handsome.

Of course, none of that would have prepared me for the fact that the  twenty-four-year-old Paul is even more alluring to me. No amount of  generic news articles would have prepared me for my fierce and automatic  reaction to him.

But I would have known that his injuries weren't just the result of a  horrible IED incident or a wretched ambush. If I'd done my research, I'd  have known what he really went through.

Torture.

I wish I'd known.

No, I wish he'd told me. Of course, I hadn't given him a chance to do  that, now had I? Okay, so maybe he's right to be pissed at me. I just  can't figure out how we went from cuddling and sleeping together to  wanting to kill each other in the kitchen over something so unimportant  in the grand scheme of things. We can work through it.

Only he isn't talking to me.

I toss the blob of bread dough onto the counter and brace my palms  against the granite as I try to catch my breath and get control of my  thoughts. Flour is everywhere, and I don't care.