“I don’t have a fiancé anymore.”
“Really? I hope that wasn’t for my benefit.”
She folded her arms.
“Well, it was for the both of us.” I looked in her eyes, and she couldn’t meet my gaze. I said softly, “Allura, talk to me, please. Just for a little while.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mason.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m seeing someone,” she blurted.
I stepped back. “What?!”
She frowned with her whole face. “What? You think I’m not good enough for someone?”
I shook my head. “No…I…”
“What then? You think no one would want me or something? Well just because you threw me away like I was shit doesn’t mean someone else would.”
She started rambling on and on, but I didn’t hear her. All I heard was she was seeing someone else, and my world was collapsing around me.
I closed my eyes and said firmly, “Maxine, for fuck sake…”
I ran my hands through my hair to try and get a hold of my anger. To think someone was holding what was mine, touching, kissing her. Damn it.
“I need to go!” Maxine announced, and I snapped out of my misery.
I need to make her see we were meant for each other.
“Wait, please. Can you just give me twenty minutes? I have so much I want to say. Can you just give me a chance to tell you a little bit?”
Damn, I sound like a pussy. But if this is what it takes.
She turned and moved closer to the island.
“You have fifteen.”
I stared at her; hypnotized by the dismissiveness in her eyes. I tried to move closer to her, and she put her hands up, so I stopped.
“Allura, never did I imagine I would be able to get this chance with you. I never thought I would see you again. I never thought I would still feel the way that I do. I still love you.”
“Are you kidding me? You think its love you feel for me? No, I beg to differ. What you probably feel is the fact that you have been replaced by someone else. You felt upstaged by Cory the day you met him, and you feel the same way now. There’s no way you could feel anything for me.”
“And how do you figure?”
“Because if you did love me, you wouldn’t have treated me the way that you did, you wouldn’t have thrown me away. I’ve been lonely and miserable for four fucking years—unable to allow men to touch me or to get close to me. And here you were getting fucking engaged. And you stand here and tell me you love me. That’s bullshit.”
“So that’s what you think? You think it was easy from me to walk away from you back then?”
“Oh yeah, I do.”
“You have no idea.”
I ran my hands through my hair and kept them on top of my head, looking at her and trying to keep from punching the wall next to me. This is going to be one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.
“I can’t begin to tell you the shit I did in the name of revenge. I’ve done things that would give you fucking nightmares at night. I unleashed something in me that took me years to put back in its cage. I didn’t want to bring that kind of man back to you, Allura. I was void of all emotions. My heart was black as coal. Darkness consumed every part of my soul. If I would have come back to you that way, I would have ruined you.”
“You destroyed me, Mason,” she yelled.
“Allura, are you listening to what I’m saying? God, when you saw me at the beach, you were pissed at me. Hell, you probably hated my guts. But you stayed there. If I would have come back to you, the aftermath would have been much worse.” I shook my head. “I would have annihilated you, leaving nothing left. You would have tried to stay with me because you loved me. I would have fed that and used it and crumbled you. So yeah, I figured leaving you the way that I did would have broken your heart. But it wouldn’t have broken your spirit and crushed everything that’s good about you.”
“How do you know that would’ve happened?” she said softly.
“Because that’s how I felt. I didn’t believe I deserved you or your love. The things I’d done for the sake of revenge were unbelievable. I went down there with extreme prejudice and didn’t care who got in my way of finding who killed Alex. That’s why I couldn’t come back to you. And I know what you’re thinking: I should have had the balls to say that shit to your face. I couldn’t do that either, because you would have talked me into staying. You would have told me you could help me, and I knew I wouldn’t have been able to tell you no. I was trying to protect you. Yes, it was a fucked up thing to do, but I never stopped loving you.”