Jasmine
* * *
Finally, the weight is off my shoulders.
It feels as if I can breathe again for the first time in three years.
But the price is high. Sky high.
Because when I look at the man in front of me, in all his raging glory, eyes filled with a mixture of grief and despair, the same pain is pricking straight through my skin like heroine.
“You … hurt yourself because of me?” he says.
He must think I’m weak. I wouldn’t blame him.
I do too, especially now.
More tears tumble down my cheeks. “When Jill told me what happened, how she’d tried to save you from Luca’s wrath, the accident at the cliff … I thought you were gone. Forever.” I almost choke on my words, but I force myself to push through. “I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t lose …”
I can’t finish the sentence.
I just can’t.
Because he’s looking at me in a way that makes me feel exposed.
Naked.
Still, the words pour from my soul. “I couldn’t lose you.”
It’s all true, but it doesn’t make the words any less brutal.
Just like the look in his eyes.
Like it pains him to have to listen to me. And it feels like a stab to the back.
Rain pours down from the sky above, but I don’t care that I’m getting cold and wet. Maybe it’ll numb the pain.
“Jas … I’m alive,” Liam says.
His voice is too painful for me to listen to. Because this is the monster speaking, not the Liam I remember.
“Stop,” I say as he comes so close I have to physically push him away.
“I’m here,” he says, past and present mixing. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you’re not that guy,” I say, making a fist with my hand so I can keep him at arm’s length.
Because if I’ve learned anything about myself these past few days, it’s that I can’t trust myself. Or him. And I can’t do that to myself.
I can’t do it to my heart.
“Then tell me who I am,” he says, droplets of rain dripping down from his lashes. “Tell me who I am to you.”
Torment rips through me. “You’re the monster who tried to kill my sister. The man I should hate.”
He pushes closer, despite my fist boring into his hard muscles through his wet shirt. “The man you should hate,” he reiterates, looking down at me. “But you can’t make yourself hate me anymore, can you?”
I bite my lip, trying to stop myself. “Just because you took my virginity, that doesn’t make it okay. I can’t fall for someone who just wants me for my body.”