Page 149 of Only for Him

I shrink into the seat, spine bowing, ribcage pulling together tighter than the body will allow.

I want to tell him I’ve enjoyed all of it, from the very beginning, it’s all I’ve ever wanted and I’ve never enjoyed anything more. Every bruise, every scream, every goddamn second.

But that’s not what he’s really asking.

“You’ve doomed us both,” he murmurs.

I flinch. “That’s not?—”

He punches the dashboard, and the car lurches in its lane.

“Don’t.” His voice is a snarl. “I fucking trusted you. I thought you and I saw the same solutions to the same problems. I thought you were different.”

I stare straight ahead. “I am.”

He barks a laugh. “You’re not. You’re like every other cop. Always building your case. You never gave a damn about what I’m building. You just wanted to put that shiny badge to use.”

His words are a razor. I take the cut and let it hurt. Every streetlight stabs the car with another burst of white, a photo flash capturing my wretchedness in perpetuity.

“Why did you do it, Giselle?”

Giselle. Notlittle viper.It stings like salt on a wound.

My hands twist together, nails digging so hard I break the skin. I want to bleed, to feel something besides this rotting ache and guilt.

“I didn’t know,” I choke out. “I thought you were just a crazy stalker. You didn’t tell me aboutthe girls, or the auctions, until it was too late.”

The more I talk, anger blooms in my throat. Because I have some good fucking points, actually. What had he done to earn my trust?Notkill me? Leave me goddamn roses and tampons? Make me come until I couldn’t breathe?

And all that was supposed to beenough?

“And I thought youwantedme to find you,” I go on. “I thought that was the whole point! A sick game we were playing, and I wanted to win, okay? I didn’t know we were on the same side. I had to have something on you.”

He shakes his head, disgusted.

“You didn’t need to have somethingonme,” he says, voice raw. “You alreadyhadme.”

I almost laugh. The idea of owning Roman is absurd. He’s a force of nature and no one owns a hurricane.

“And that’s not what I meant,” he says. “When I asked why. I meant, why didn’t you tell me?”

I go still.

“If you’d told me, we could have got ahead of it. You mademepromiseyouthat this was real. And all the while, youknewyou’d already fucked me over.”

His voice cracks, just a little but it’s enough to drag tears from my eyes and a wail from my throat.

“You had so many chances. And every moment that you didn’t tell me? That was a new betrayal.”

About this, at least, he’s right. I should have told him.

But I was too afraid of this.And now, it’s happening anyway—worse than if I’d just told him that first night.

He veers onto a side street by my building. The car idles at the curb, engine humming like a bomb with the pin already pulled.

He doesn’t look at me. “Get out.”

“Roman, please?—”