She didn’t take a step back even though she should. “I want to apologize for everything, but I can’t. I did what I had to do to survive. The only thing I am sorry about is hurting you. I never wanted to hurt you.” The tears continued to build on the surface of her eyes, but they didn’t fall. “You know that, Crewe.”
“I don’t know anything, London. I don’t know a damn thing.” The longer we stood outside, the more immune I became to the cold temperature and my hardening heart. I let my guard down again, and of course, it bit me in the ass. I felt stupid for ever trusting her. “I never want to see you again. Do you understand me?”
This time, the tears fell. They streaked down her cheeks to her lips.
Instantly, I felt my broken heart tighten.
“Crewe, I admit things didn’t work out the way they should. I should have talked to you about everything sooner. But you can’t pretend to be the only victim in this situation. You’ve done things wrong too. You took my life away from me when it was never your right. I don’t even know how I fell in love with you to begin with, but the fact that I have tells me this is real. So, you can’t put all the blame on me. We’re both guilty of a lot of things.”
“Maybe I kept you as a prisoner in the beginning, but you were never a prisoner toward the end. I made my feelings for you perfectly transparent. I never lied to you or misled you about how I felt. You, on the other hand, perfectly deceived. That’s worse, if you ask me.”
“Again, I was just trying to survive. In the process, I began to love you. I didn’t know it was going to happen, but it did. I could have run off with Joseph the second I got the chance, but I didn’t. I stayed behind and made sure you survived. I didn’t have to save Ariel, but I did because I know how important she is to you. I made a lot of mistakes, but I did the right thing when it mattered most.”
The breeze increased, and I watched her shiver slightly. If this were a different time, I would wrap my arms around her and take her inside. But I couldn’t look past my heartbreak or my embarrassment. She tricked me, and I honestly didn’t know what was real and what was a game. I was too angry to even consider forgiveness. I was too pissed to even contemplate starting over. “The only reason why I’m gonna say this is because it’s the only chance I’ll ever have.”
When she blinked, more tears fell.
“I really loved you. As in, I loved you in a way I’ve never loved anyone else. I trusted you. Fuck, you were my whole world. There was nothing I looked forward to more than getting off work and making love to you. I was happier with you than I ever was with Josephine, or anyone else that came before her. What we had was special. For the first time in my life, I was actually happy.”
More tears came, a waterfall in the making.
“But that’s over because it never really happened. Maybe you were sincere in your feelings, but I have no way of knowing when those moments occurred. When you told me you loved me, it was a lie. The second the words left your mouth, they were meaningless—”
“But they aren’t meaningless now, Crewe,” she said through her tears. “I love you. I know I do. It just took me some time to come to terms with it, to realize I couldn’t run from it anymore. This relationship didn’t start off in the right way. But that doesn’t mean we can’t give it a new beginning.”
“I don’t want to have a new beginning.”
Her hands reached for mine, and her frozen fingers wrapped around my wrists.
I pushed her away before I gave myself the opportunity to enjoy her. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“Crewe—”
“Get off my property.” I wanted this to end. I wanted to go back to my life and forget she ever existed. I stepped back and turned to the entrance.
“I know you still love me.”
I stopped and turned around, watching her hair blow in the wind.
“I know you do. Just take some time to think about what I said. I’m staying in Edinburgh for a month… I’ll be around.”
“I don’t love you, London,” I said coldly. “I stopped loving you the second Joseph pointed that gun at me.”
She’d stopped crying, but her eyes were still shiny. “Ariel told me what she said to you.”
My eyes narrowed as the betrayal swept over me. I never asked Ariel to keep that a secret, but I assumed she would have kept that information to herself.