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“You can stop lying to me now. There’s nothing to save in this relationship.”

“I disagree,” I say.

“You’re just trying to sleep with me,” she whispers. “And I’ll let you do it, and then I’ll hate myself for it. Because none of this means anything to you.Idon’t mean anything to you.But I fucking loved you, Klaus. Damn it, Istilllove you.”

She launches off the bed, running toward the door. I catch up with her easily. Right before she can open the door, I place my palm over it, trapping her beneath my body.

“I let you talk,” I say. “I let you say what you had to say. Will you let me do the same?”

She turns around to look up at me.

Her eyes are frantic now. Her breathing has gone haywire.

There’s only one way to calm her down. I need to tell her the complete truth.

“Put your hand inside my pocket,” I say.

A look of disgust falls over her face. “Fuck you.”

“It’s not that.” I shift my hand over the door as I reach into my pocket. I pull out the ring box I’ve been carrying with me since I fell in love with her.

“It was real for me too,” I say.

“What is that?” she whispers.

“I wanted to give it to you on our date night,” I say, opening it to show her the ring. “I wanted you to be my wife. I wanted everything with you.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, blinking away tears. “What sort of sick game is this?”

“It was never a game for me, Emma,” I say. “I thought I knew love before, but I knew nothing until I met you. It feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life for you.”

“I heard you talking to Mrs. Hendricks,” she says, shaking her head.

“None of that was true,” I say. “I only said those things because Adam was at the club that night. He was eavesdropping on my conversation with Victoria. I couldn’t let him know that I had feelings for you, so I lied. Everything I said to Victoria was a lie.”

She looks into my eyes, trying to read my very soul like always.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she says. “Why would you lie just to spare Adam’s feelings?”

“Because I learned just how dangerous he was that night,” I say. “He was the one who tried to attack me when I was coming back from New Orleans. He showed up again at that ice rink in Chicago.And on the night we broke up, Alaric told me Adam was involved in other nefarious activities. He was implicated in a dark web crime ring we’ve been trying to track down. I wanted to kill him, but I knew I had to be methodical about it. He was an impulsive, insecure maniac, so I had to be careful with my words.”

“The night before Halloween, you came back with knife cuts all over your body,” Emma says.“Adam did that to you?”

I nod.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was him?” she asks.

“I didn’t want you to worry about it until the problem was resolved,” I say. “I didn’t want to ruin your peace for no reason.”

She searches my eyes for a moment. And then she glances down at the ring I’m still holding.

“There’s something I need to give you,” she says. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a wallet and a phone. “Theybelonged to Adam. I grabbed them after he was killed by the chandelier. You said he waspart of some crime ring, right? Maybe you’ll find something on his phone.”

I take them from her.

The phone is locked, of course, but I know a guy who can open it.

“Thank you,” I say. “This could be really helpful for us.”