“That’s not what I meant,” he warns, his eyes narrowing to slits.
I shake my head, not allowing him out of this one so easily. “Just say it, Hayden. I know it’s me. I’m unlovable or unspecial…or something that makes you not want to jump in with me. Your first impression of me should have been a warning sign that I really was nothing more than a simple distraction. I mean look, you loved Reyna so easily. You told me you fell in love with her and that was after you told me you two knew nothing about each other! How do you think that makes me feel after we’ve shared so much?”
“I had years with Reyna, Vi,” he snaps, raking his hands through his hair in the dim lighting. “Years of time for me to build her up to be more than she ever was.”
“Stop. This is rubbish. You loved her. You said she broke your heart when you said those words to her. I’ve never said those words to any man, Hayden. Only you! Now my heart is broken more than I ever thought possible,” my voice rises with a maniacal giggle. “And, Christ, I’m such a loser thinking I had found someone who could actually love me back.”
“I was lying, Vi!” he shouts, rattling the bottles around us and leaning down to capture my gaze with his. “I was lying to myself most of all. I’ve been lying to myself since the moment I first laid eyes on you at the White Swan.”
He grips my face firmly in his hands and every part of his body trembles with fear as he utters, “Vi, just as you’ve always feared you’re unlovable, I fear that I can’t love you. I am fucking terrified when I look into your eyes and tell you things because I feel like I am being understood. Possibly for the first time in my entire life. But if I can’t love you the way you deserve, what could that do to you? I’m trying to protect you! Don’t you see that? My past…Christ! I just wish my past wouldn’t—”
“Oh, stop wishing away your past, Hayden!” I snap, pulling my face from his grasp. “Start wishing to make the most of your future for a change. You don’t get it. I would have given myself to you. Completely. I would have been yours and let you shove and manhandle any bloke who came within miles of me. Because by you doing that, it meant that you’d be mine as well.” I reach up and brush back a piece of his hair that’s sticking up. The sensation is a punishing stroke on my broken heart.
“Vi, just listen.” He closes his eyes at my betraying caress. “You are in my heart. You’re like a thread tied around it. It hurts and it’s uncomfortable, but it’s embedded so deep that it’s a part of me now. I can see a life with you. A forever life. A place I will want to be sad, angry, happy, delirious. These past few years have been riddled with lows for me. But the past six weeks…all of my highs…have included you.”
“Hayden, stop.” Tears fall down my cheeks as my fa?ade of dismissiveness begins cracking.
“Love me still. Please,” he begs, his hands trembling against my cheeks.
I shake my head, refusing to accept the pain on his face. The pain that he caused me now reflecting back. “I can’t, Hayden. It’s too late,” my voice cracks. I turn to hide my tears and, without warning, he moves into me and yanks my face to his.
Pain…
Lust…
Punishment…
And Love…
All of it overcomes me as the familiar stroke of his lips on mine crushes every remaining shred of strength I still had. My hands bite into his biceps as his tongue enters my mouth, demanding its welcome. Demanding its acceptance. Demanding what else, I’m not entirely sure.
He presses me up against the bottles and grabs the back of my thigh, pulling it up to his hip. Closing the distance between us, he touches himself against my warm centre as his tongue tangles with mine. The ache I feel to connect with him, to reach down and pull him inside of me and hold him there, brings tears to my eyes as the absolute truth of the moment cascades over me:
This kiss is ruining me forever.
I won’t live through this.
Because the idea of ever kissing another man—a man who’s not him—is a death sentence for my fragile heart.
Tears invade our mouths. Hayden breaks away from me, panting heavily against my face. The tortured look in his glossy gaze is pleading. “This isn’t fucking over, Vi.” His voice stutters with uncertainty, recognising what I’ve always known to be true. “You’re mine.” He pushes himself off the wall and storms out of the alcove.
And possibly out of my heart for good.
LAST 11:11
“Stop wishing away your past, Hayden. Start wishing to make the most of your future.”
Her words are like a strike to my heart as I glance down at my watch to see 11:11 approaching. “Fuck,” I mumble, cupping my head in my hands at the head table.