Page 7 of Between Never and Forever

She was trying to leave when all she had to do was stay. “I can’t be with you, Dex.”

“Fine. Don’t be with me.” I shrugged, acting as though the words didn’t feel like a knife to my gut. Then, trying to temper my reaction, I rubbed a hand over my face before I continued. “But you can’t leave. You’re Dimitri’s best friend. Your family needs you, and I…” I needed her too.

Didn’t she know that by now?

“My family needs me to leave. I’m a mess here. I’m wild and reckless, and it’s bad for my career and the record label and—”

“You’reyouhere,” I corrected her. “You go be fucking Goldilocks for a damn record label, then you’re selling yourself short. They’re watering you down. You should be singing the songs you sing in your bed to me. We go down to the lilacs in the woods, and you sing your heart out, Kee. That song you sing with your mom in the kitchen, the world wants that. That’s what you deserve, and what your family—”

“My family,” she emphasized and suddenly straightened, “wants me to go just like I want to go.”

“What the fuck did that record label tell you?” Something was wrong.

“They told me I can make it. My dreams can come true. And that Ethan really does love me, Dex. And I…” She hesitated and looked out the window, her chin trembling as she said the next words. “I think I love him too.”

That was the wrecking ball of destruction. Those words obliterated the confidence I had in our relationship, the confidence I needed to keep her here. “You don’t mean that,” I said and walked right up to her to take her chin in my hands, to rub over it back and forth. “Don’t lie to me, Kee. Not about that.”

She lifted her chin and backed away out of my reach. Her eyes shut, and I immediately missed the dark chocolate color of them. “Why are you making this hard? This wasn’t supposed to last, Dex. You know that.”

“Of course it was,” I whispered to her. “We werealwaysgoing to last. You sang to me that you’d love me forever.”

“I do!” she screamed and threw up her hands, but then she fisted them and brought them back to her chest. “I did. But Ethan and I work together and…maybe I don’t love him now, but I could.”

She uttered that part in desperation, like she was trying to make me comprehend.

I shook my head. “I don’t understand, Kee.”

“I could love him, Dex. I will. I can do anything I set my mind to. You told me that once, and I believe it.”

“Don’t play with me,” I ground out. She was twisting my confidence in her, twisting my love. My emotions spun round and round, out of control. Sadness mixed with rage that burned so hot all I saw was red, vivid red that made me want to commit a damn crime against a man I didn’t know.

“Just… You honestly shouldn’t be here. I’m surprised my manager even let you through.”

“Let me through?” I muttered through gritted teeth, rage pumping in my stomach, in my bones, through my blood. “No one is going toletme do shit when it comes to you. You’re my girlfriend.”

“Ex-girlfriend,” she murmured.

“What?” I stepped back like she’d pummeled me.

“We can’t keep doing this. It’s not good for either of us. It’s never going to work with me moving and…” Her voice broke, but she managed to get out, “You can’t just be with me in secret for years. They have me under contract for three, and what if I re-sign with them? They’ll want me with someone…”

“Someone who will propel your career? Someone like Ethan Phillipe?” I wrestled the words out now, knowing where this was going.

“It’s not only about him, Dex. Do you honestly think it’s healthy for you to see me flirting with him out there and then coming back to apologize to you in private?”

“Then tell the label about us.” I said the words slowly because I’d never said them before.

She hissed, “What?”

“Tell them about us,” I repeated.

“I… I can’t, Dex.” She shook her head, and her beautiful hair swung back and forth.

“So you’re choosing him? That why you wanted me to keep this secret so badly for so long? In the end you wanted him and the fame and the money.” I shouldn’t have said it, but hurt people hurt people and all that shit.

“Screw you.” She shoved me, but I saw the quiver in her lip now. “You know that’s not what this is.”

“What is it then?”