Page 25 of Between Never and Forever

“Then why ask the question?”

“I don’t know. You brought it up.”

“Bullshit.” He rolled his eyes like he still knew me. “You’re as jealous as I am.”

“You can have whoever you want,” I whispered.

“Can I really? Do you have whoever you want?” He narrowed his eyes at me in challenge.

I met him head-on. “Not that it matters to you, but yes, I do.” I was standing up to him, and we both knew it. One of us needed to draw the line in the sand after all these years.

“I’m sure you do.” He clenched his jaw. “But when I’m with someone else, I still picture you…and I’m sick of it.”

My heart pounded. I wanted to tell him he didn’t get to be sick of it when I had to endure it too. Yet, I couldn’t. This conversation needed to be over. So I moved to brush past him, but he caught me at his side and pulled us over to a corner where he could lean in and whisper, “You picture me every time you fuck your fiancé, too, Kee?”

The anger that bubbled up inside me was overwhelming when normally I just tried to ignore my emotions, tried to suppress the irritation I had throughout the day. With Dex, he always had a knack for pushing me too far. “You don’t get to ask me that after you left me in the lilacs, Dex. You left me to become who I am today, and you don’t know a thing about that person.”

“That’s probably true. But I remember who you were, and I want to stop remembering, Kee.” His voice cracked, and I hated that I still wanted to soothe it, that I felt myself breaking too. “So, you’re going to get rid of that fiancé of yours. I’m too jealous to see him here with you.”

I glared at him. “I’m sorry. You’re jealous of what exactly?Ididn’t have a date hanging on me all night, whispering in my ear—”

“You accepted a proposal from the guy you’ve been dating for fifteen fucking years.”

“You’ve known from the very beginning it’s fake for the media! I don’t even want to marry him,” I blurted out before slapping my hand over my mouth.

He smirked like he’d goaded me there, like we were in a chess match and he’d won. I even caught a hint of the dimples I used to love flash across his face. I had to admit he still knew me enough to piss me off. He continued on in his stupid chess game, moving me around like I was a game piece he could control. “Then don’t. Don’t get engaged to him. Call your record label right now and tell them no. Kill the story.” He sighed. “I don’t want that shit in the papers tomorrow, Kee.”

The way he used my nickname pulled at every fiber of my being. I was Keelani the Singer, Keelani the Sweetheart. Keelani Hale was a brand.

But here, in front of him, I was just a human, and a vulnerable one at that. “I can’t do that,” I told him quietly as I shook my head.

His stare hardened. “Still chasing that fame then?”

“That’s not—” I took a breath so I didn’t fall down the hole of pain and fury with him. “I have contingencies in my contract. I don’t care about the fame, but the time and money are valuable.”

He chuckled and rubbed his five o’clock shadow. “Money and time? You’re here for six months, and we’re paying you plenty.”

I hated that he acted like he knew everything. “You’re paying myrecord labelplenty, sure.”

“So, what? You want a few more shoes in your closet?” He looked me up and down. “Fine. I’ll double it.”

“Double it?” I squeaked.

“Not good enough? Triple it. What do I care? And it can be outside the label’s contract so you can keep it all to yourself.”

That money would let me pay for my mother’s care for years and give me an opportunity to do what I wanted for once. I’d be free finally.

Still, the deal was too good to be true. I, more than anyone, knew what that looked like now. I stepped back and shook my head. “They won’t agree. They need me to look like I’m going to marry someone. They want the publicity. Without the engagement, there’s no story and—”

“Then you get engaged to me.”

“What?” I hadn’t heard him right, surely.

“Get engaged to me. Give them the story of a lifetime.”

My heart galloped in the way it should have when Ethan got down on one knee. My heart wanted this to be a real proposal when it absolutely wasn’t. “I’m not getting engaged to you! Are you— You have a girlfriend, Dex. How much have you had to drink?”

He rubbed his jaw again, looking me up and down, somehow studying every layer of me even though I wasn’t giving him a single part willingly. “Yeah. It’s time.”