Charlotte was quiet now.
“My mother,” Declan said. “She is the hit and run driver that killed your mom. She got incredibly drunk at a party on Folly and tore through a red light in her Lincoln town car. She knew she’d hit someone but she was terrified to stop. She was scared that she’d be in trouble, which would mean she’d be in the papers. Which would inevitably sully my dad’s perfect fucking reputation. And she assumed she hadn’t caused any damage. That’s how loaded she was. So she left the scene, Charlotte. She left your mother…”
“To die,” Charlotte finished. “Your mother. Left my mother. To die.”
Declan was crying now, “Yes. It was so wrong, Charlotte. It was really fucked up and I told her that and I know it’s hard for you to believe it, but she knew it was fucked. She had no idea she’d hit a woman and the woman had died until a couple days later when she saw it on the news.” Declan was clutching Charlotte now. “And as soon as she told me, I knew I had to tell you. But she begged me not to, Charlotte. She said if I told you, she’d kill herself. That she couldn’t be ruined now, that she couldn’t go to prison. That she couldn’t disappoint the DeGraff name.”
“Fuck her,” Charlotte said, pulling away. “And fuck you for not telling me, Declan. You knew I needed to know. You knew I have needed to know that my whole life. And like your mother would have served one day of jail time. Not with the kind of people you all know.”
“Charlotte, I’m telling you that I know I was wrong,” he said. “I made the wrong decision.”
Charlotte was backing away now, backing away from this man she now realized she never really knew.
“And here you go,” she cried. “Breaking my heart again. I love you so much, but I also hate you so much.” She sobbed. “I wish I’d never come to Charleston. Then and now. I wish I’d never met you, Declan DeGraff.”
And with that, she turned around, went downstairs, and walked out.
This time, Charlotte would be doing the leaving.
Chapter Fourteen
Declan was a man destroyed.
The sound of his front door slamming shut might as well have been a death knell. It was the death of him and Charlotte for good, as he always knew it would be, once she knew the truth.
The silence around him rung in his ears. He preferred to hear her screaming at him. Because he deserved it. And at least it meant she was still there.
But now she was gone. He couldn’t get her back this time.
Being with her, loving her again, just reminded him how beautiful it had all really been. Over the years he’d tried his best to diminish what they’d had together. He’d tell himself it wasn’t as intense and amazing as he remembered, that his memory was playing a trick on him. No one could exist as perfect as her.
But now he knew-it had been just as passionate and fiery as he’d recollected. Which made tonight’s ending that much harder for him to take.
Declan had never been one to have suicidal thoughts. But now he understood what true anguish felt like, and why people couldn’t live with it. There was nothing he wouldn’t have done to make this different.
But just as Charlotte wished she’d never met him, in a way he wished the same. Because, at least then, he would never know what he’d missed. He’d never have to know this kind of pain, the pain that went straight to the marrow of his bones. The kind of pain that touched every piece of his shattered heart.
********
Charlotte had struggled to walk back to her house. Her sobs and wails pierced the sky. She looked up to see a blanket of stars, and how she wished she could be among them and away from this place of constant hurt.
For just a moment, she’d made herself believe everything could be okay. His touch was just as she remembered. It brought her to her knees. His love was like nothing she’d ever experienced. She had a hard time believing anyone in the world had ever felt the kind of intense sexual chemistry she and Declan shared. His body made her feel like she was home again. She’d cried while he made love to her because she’d forgotten how much she needed it at one time, and how unbearable it had been all these years without it.
She was ruined for anyone else. And she almost hated him for that.