Maybe if it had been a request instead of an order, I might have stayed. Maybe if he had pulled me into his arms and told me that he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant to hurt me, I could have found a way to reconcile what I know with what I want to be true. And maybe, just maybe, if my past wasn’t what it is…if I wasn’t so goddamned terrified of falling back into the trap of my childhood and the trap of my engagement, I might be willing to risk being with a man as dominant and controlling as Sebastian.
But things are what they are and if tonight has shown me nothing else, it has shown me just how ill-equipped I am to deal with a man like Sebastian. It’s not his fault. It’s not mine.
It just is.
And so I find my purse where I dropped it by the door and sling it over my shoulder. I slip on my shoes. And then I cross to Sebastian, doing my best to ignore how beautiful, how strong, how perfect he looks even in the middle of all this bleakness.
I kiss him on the forehead, on the cheek. Then I turn and walk straight out his front door without a backward glance. And pretend that my heart isn’t breaking wide open with every step that I take.