“You’re lying.” The harsh lines of his face convicted her further. “If that was true, you wouldn’t have played so hard to get.”
She couldn’t fault his logic. Except he was drawing the wrong conclusion. “The truth is I didn’t believe I was enough to change your mind about happily ever after.”
“Enough?” he spat. “Enough what?”
“Pretty enough, good enough, thin enough. Take your pick,” she whispered.
He laughed again and the sound skated down her spine. “I get it now. You said you don’t trust easily, but in reality, you don’t trust at all. You didn’t ever intend to give me a real chance, did you? That’s the game you wanted to beat me at. Get me to confess my feelings and then take my legs out from under me. Good job.”
“I did want to give you a chance. You said we wouldn’t work.”
He threw his hands up. “This is why I don’t do relationships. This conversation is like a vicious circle. With teeth.”
She cursed as she realized her mistake. Misdirection was his forte and he was such a master, she’d almost missed it. He had developed feelings for her and they scared him. That’s what all this was. Smoke and mirrors to deflect from what was going on back stage.
This was the part where she needed to tread carefully.
“Last night,” she whispered. “Before you kissed me. You said you meant it. What did you mean?”
The raw vulnerability in his expression took her breath. And when her lungs finally filled, they ached with the effort.
“I meant I was falling in love with you.” His expression darkened as her heart tripped dangerously. “I—forget it. It’s too late to have that conversation now.”
Dax was falling in love with her? The revelation pinged through her mind, through her heart—painfully—because he’d finally laid it all out there while also telling her to forget it. As if she could.
She’d done it. She’d reversed his stance on love and happily ever after. Shannon Elise Arundel was that good. Her match program was foolproof. The algorithm had matched them because she had a unique ability to understand him, to see the real him, just as he did her.
Why hadn’t she realized it sooner?
“It’s not too late.” She crawled to her knees, begging him without words for something she had no idea how to express. “Let’s figure this out.”
“I don’t want to figure it out!” He huffed out a frustrated breath. “Elise, I thought I was broken. That the reason you couldn’t find my soul mate was because there was something wrong with me. I felt guilty for wanting you when your soul mate was supposed to be someone else, someone better. Instead, you were lying all along. You never trusted me.”
In one shot, he’d blown all the smoke away and told her the absolute unvarnished truth. While she’d been pushing him away, he’d filed the rejection under it’s not her, it’s me.
Speechless, she stared at the pain-carved lines in his beautiful face. “I didn’t know that’s how you’d take it when I told you I was your match. There’s nothing wrong with you. This is all about me and my issues.”
“I get that you have a problem believing I think you’re beautiful.” He snorted. “You want to find true love but you won’t let anyone in long enough to trust that they love you. That’s why you’ve never had a connection with anyone.”
“I’ve been holding out for someone to love me. The real me, underneath.”
I’ve been holding out for you.
He swept her with an angry look. “Yet you’re completely hung up on whether you’re beautiful enough. If someone loves you solely for what you look like, that’s not true love. Neither is it love to refuse to trust. You have a lot of nerve preaching to me about something you know nothing about.”
“You’re right.” Head bowed, she admitted the absolute, unvarnished truth in kind. “I didn’t fully trust you. I don’t know how.”
“I bought into what you were selling.” His bleak voice scored her heart. “Hook, line and sinker. I wanted something more than sex. Understanding. Support. A connection.”
Everything she’d hoped for. For both of them. But somehow she’d messed up. “I want those things, too.”
A tear tracked down her cheek and he watched it. As it fell to the bed, he shook his head. “You’re not capable of giving me those things. This is over, if it ever started in the first place. I can’t do this.”