Page 2
Two
Belle
Right.
So, I may have underestimated the all-grown-up-now West Stevenson.
May have underestimated the boy who’d been my first love and how much he’d changed.
Once he’d been devoted to me, would have grown wings and flown to the moon and back, picked his way through the Sahara in soul-crushing sandstorms, crawled for miles over broken glass…he would have done all those cliché idioms about love and devotion for me without a second thought.
Which was why I had to let him go.
But that’s not why I’m here today.
This whole thing is dumb, probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
But…I’m desperate.
And—
I stifle my sigh.
I’m desperate . I have no other choice and I’m fucking desperate and I had to know that he was still the same West as a decade ago.
“ Belle,” he growls, and I jump.
“I—” But I don’t go any further. Because I can’t summon any words, an explanation that makes this make sense—me being here, me starting shit.
Because it doesn’t make sense.
Except to say that I’m the aforementioned desperate.
“Why the fuck are you here?” he snaps. “Or should I say, why the fuck are you here asking that insulting ass question?”
Desperate.
D.E.S.P.E.R.A.T.E.
“ Belle! ” he growls again and I jump again. But this time, it unsticks the words in my head.
“I wanted to…”
Just as easily as the words came, the rest of my sentence fades out.
Probably because it ends with ask you a favor.
Fuck.
My chest goes tight, and I struggle to hold his gaze, guilt rippling through me. I can’t screw up his life like this. Not when I already hurt him so badly all those years ago.
His hands settle onto the outsides of my arms, gripping me firmly. Not painfully.
But firmly.
And as though he wants to shake me until I finish what I was going to say.
“I’m just a bitch,” I say, and it’s not exactly a lie. The last decade hasn’t made me sweet, hasn’t made me pliable and easy-going. It’s made me a fighter.
And increasingly isolated.
His brows flick up in surprise, or maybe in question, but I don’t miss it in his eyes—the concern.
For me.
Crap .
That seals it.
“I wanted to push your buttons, knew I had the ammunition to do it.” I shrug, know it’s sure to piss him off, to distract him from all the things I don’t want him to see. “I was hoping for my viral moment. Gotta get those sponsors, you know.”
Something slithers through his gray eyes.
But it’s something I don’t recognize, and not because it’s here and gone in an instant.
Mostly it’s because suddenly he’s encroaching on my space, his big frame bending, his face in mine, a thunderstorm in his eyes.
“Liar,” he whispers.
Right.
I already knew this was dumb.
Now I know I need to end this.
“Since I didn’t get that viral moment,” I say, lifting my chin and deliberately taking a step back, breaking his hold on me, “I’ll go.”
Silence, charged and hot and taut, fills the room.
“You’ll go.” Quiet words.
“Yes.”
“You’ll go .”
Quiet words that are laced with such rage that I take another step back.
“Oh, no,” he mutters, reaching out and snagging my wrist. “You’re not just going. ”
I open my mouth, jerk at his grip, but it’s useless.
A moment later, he’s spinning us and all the air whooshes out of my lungs as I find myself pressed to the closed door, his body flush against mine. “You don’t get to do this, to show up out of the fucking blue, asking that shit, and then waltzing right the fuck back out again.”
What’s wrong with me that his furious words slide like velvet over my skin?
That I wonder how else he might have changed, might have grown ?
If his hold shifted, if his hands skated down my body, slid into my clothes, and he fucked me right against this door, I know I wouldn’t protest.
I know I would enjoy it.
Crave it.
Love it.
That was the problem before.
“Now, you’ve always been a shit liar, Belle?—”
My eyes close, both at the knowledge that hasn’t always been true and because the nickname…
God, I’ve missed it.
He’s the only person to ever call me that—the only person I allowed to have that.
Hearing it now…
No.
I can’t have it, can’t allow myself to have it.
I force my lids back open, force myself to hold his gaze as he continues talking.
“—so just cut the crap and give in.” He bends closer, his hair tumbling over his forehead, his gray eyes blazing. “Tell me why you’re here, baby.”
That desperation creeps back in, but I attempt to beat it back.
“Tell. Me,” he growls.
My attempts at escaping continue to fail, panic crawls through my insides, a lie coming to the tip of my tongue. “I?—”
“No lies,” he snaps, cutting me off. “No bullshit. Just fucking tell me.”
And the desperation takes control.