Say You're Mine(51)

“There’s really not much to explain.” He flexed his jaw. “Did you lie to me?”

She flinched. “Y-Yes. But—”

“No. No buts. You fucking lied.”

“Please, I—” She grabbed his arm. He shook her off. She paled even more and tears spilled out onto her cheeks, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t. “Steven.”

She’d said his name a million times, in lots of different ways. But she’d never said it like this, with pain laced through it. It did things to him. Bad things. When she was in pain, he made it better. Hugged her. Soothed her. But this time, she was in pain because of him, and he was in pain, too.

And he wasn’t sure what to do about that.

“You know how much I hate liars,” he ground his teeth together, “and you lied to me anyway. Didn’t take a chance, out of the million chances you’ve had, to come clean.”

“It wasn’t a lie.” She shook her head, her cheeks wet. “Not really. Brian did break in, and I was scared…at first.”

He growled under his breath. Just moments before, he’d been buried inside of her and had been so sure he was on top of the world. And now…this. “If it wasn’t a lie, and it wasn’t a big deal, why not tell me? Why hide it and pretend like Holt never asked you to keep an eye on me, or pretend like you were scared at all? Why not just tell me the truth all along?”

She stared at him, opening her mouth and closing it.

No sound came out.

He laughed. “Yeah. Exactly. It was a lie, and you kept it to yourself, knowing how I would feel afterward. That was your choice. And it doesn’t even matter that it’s a small lie. What matters is that you knew it would upset me, and you did it anyway. And that’s what I can’t forgive.”

He clenched his jaw, all the other times a lie had hurt him coming back to haunt him, but one in particular wouldn’t shut up. The time he’d lost all his men. After that, he swore to never let a lie go unquestioned again. To never forgive. Never forget. And he couldn’t change that for Lauren. He’d lost too much. Seen too much.

A lie was a lie, no matter how big or small.

She shook her head. “No. Don’t say that. I was worried about you, and did what I had to do to keep you with me. Is that so bad?”

“Since you lied about it?” He dragged his hand through his hair. “Yes. It’s that bad. You lied to me. You know how important honesty is to me, but you smiled and lied more. This whole thing was a way to keep me by your side, and nothing more.”

“No. It was real.” Her lower lip trembled, and she bit down on it. “It was all real.”

“The funny thing about lies? They break trust.” He let out a short laugh. “I don’t fucking believe you anymore.”

“What was I supposed to say?” she cried. “That I was worried you might be drinking yourself into a grave? That I asked you to stay with me because you might hurt yourself? That I couldn’t bear the thought of you doing anything to harm yourself, so I did the one thing guaranteed to make you hate me? That it was worth the risk?”

He staggered back. “I would never do anything like that. If you think I would, you don’t know me at all. You never did.”

She lowered her lashes, tears streaming down her ghostly pale cheeks. “I was worried about you. I…I love you. And I—”

“Don’t.” The word came out strained. Weak. And that pissed him off. “Don’t even think about using that against me. Not now.” That came out a hell of a lot stronger.

Good. He needed strength to do what came next.

She bit down on her lower lip even harder to stop it from trembling. It didn’t work. “If you don’t believe anything else, you have to believe that, at least. Hate me. Love me. Do what you want, but I love you. And I won’t stop.”

Something pierced through him. It seemed so real, so there, that he actually glanced down to see what it was. There was, of course, nothing there. What he felt was the loss of what might have been. The loss of her. “We’re done.”

“No. No, no, no.” She doubled over and pressed a hand to her heart. Did she feel the same penetrating pain he did? “Don’t say that.”

He swallowed hard. She was looking at him like he ripped her heart out and stomped on it. And maybe he did. But that was only fair. She’d done it to him, too. She’d taken the one person in this world he trusted—the one person who he thought he could count on to be real with him—and ripped her out of his arms.

There was no coming back from that.

She was no better than the superior officer who lied to him.