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“There’s nothing left to say. There’snothingyou could say that I want to hear.”

That should have been clear enough, but seemed to have the opposite effect of opening the floodgates.

He stepped forward, earnest and pleading. “Caz, I’d do anything if I could take it all back. If I’d known then what I know now—what it was going to do to you. How hard it would be for you. I’d have deleted your message the second I heard it. I wouldn’t have asked you a single goddamned question. Even if youhadbeen guilty. But I can’t undo it. I can’t…think of anything except to tell you how sorry I am. How much I regret it. How much I missed you, still miss you, willalwaysmiss you. Will always love you.”

In the face of that raw pain, unchecked emotion, something cracked open inside me, too.

I launched forward, slammed both fists into his chest, cried, “Whydid you do that? Howcouldyou? Why couldn’t you believe me? Trust me? You say you love me, but you don’t even know me. You never did.”

Raleigh gripped my forearms. Not hurting me. Not pushing me away. Holding me against him.

“Honest to God, I don’t know. I used to think sometimes it was so good, so perfect between us that it couldn’t be real. I’ve gone over it again and again. I feel like I must have been crazy.” I could see he was struggling it. “Maybe partly it’s because, being a cop, you see things, find out things that change how you see everyone. You find out a neighbor knocks his wife around or the pastor is cheating on his wife or the kindergarten teacher stole the candy drive money—or tried to hire someone to kill her husband.

Yeah, all of those things had actually happened in our little town. Except the kindergarten teacher. She didn’t steal the candy drive money.

“It changes you,” Raleigh admitted. “It changes your understanding of people. Your understanding of the world. It teaches you to look for the bad in everyone. You expect to find out the worst.”

“I’m not everyone! I wasn’t your neighbor or your pastor or-or—” I was crying so hard I was swallowing tears, could hardly get the breath for words. “It wasmeyou thought those things about. That I wouldkillsomeone because I didn’t like him? Because he was a pain in the ass, I planned tomurderhim?”

“I never believed it was premeditated.”

“Well, it would havehadto have been, since I would have had to have purchased the gun ahead of time.”

“The gun was never connected to you.”

I thumped his chest again. Hard. “Kind of my point!”

He cradled my hands in his. “But Caz, Peyton was such a dick, and he was on your ass all the time, going straight to Astrid any time he felt you were challenging him, questioning him, not showing him the proper deference. He fought your being made assistant VP. You hated him.”

“I didn’thatehim.”

“It sure seemed like it. It sure sounded like it. You talked about how much you wanted him gone, how much better off the company would be.”

How much better off we’dallhave been. Because of Astrid’s stupid affair with the least likely guy on the planet—a guy who worked for the company, who was her subordinate. Even so, I’d never said I wanted tokillhim.

Raleigh, in that heartwarming way of his, was still building his case against me. “You were young—”

“I wasthirty.”

“You only turned thirty last month. Either way you were…a little sheltered.”

“No need to tiptoe. You thought I was immature.”

“You were sheltered, that’s what I’m saying. You were…used to getting your way. You were used to having what you wanted whenever you wanted it. And you didn’t just not like Peyton, you loathed him.”

I made a sound that was supposed to be a laugh. “Right. I was immature, spoiled, and pampered and so I thought I could get away withmurder?”

Raleigh’s expression was pained and guilty. “You’re asking me to come up with a logical explanation—”

“No.” I shook my head, pulled away from him. “No. I’m not. I’m the one who said there was nothing left to say, andthisis why. The more you try to explain it, the worse it is.”

He didn’t say a word.

“Just go,” I said wearily. “Get the fuck out.”

“Okay.” He nodded but didn’t move. “This isn’t actually what I wanted to talk to you about, though.”

I think my jaw dropped. “Huh?”