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I took determined steps, steeling myself for what was to come. And when I was only a few feet away from him, Wes lazily pushed himself off the wall and sauntered towards me.

“Hey,” I said, my voice sounding a touch too high pitched. I had been dreading this moment for days, spending sleepless nights trying to figure out the perfect wording. But when it came to how I should begin, I always came up short.

“That’s the best you’ve got for me?” he asked with a sly smile. “No, hey sexy, or hey handsome ? Or maybe, hey glorious one ?”

Oh my god, he was actually being playful. Wes was never playful.

Moody? Yes.

Irritable as all hell? Absolutely.

Sweet and soft? When he wanted to be.

But playful? That was a hard no.

And yet, here he was. And that made it so much harder.

“Sorry,” I muttered, wringing my hands together. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

Wes reached out and took a strand of my hair, stepping closer. He twirled it around his finger, eliminating the space between us. He slid his hand around the back of my neck, diving his fingers into my hair as he whispered, “Any way I can help?”

I just couldn’t take it. I couldn’t do this with him like this. I had to end it now .

I stepped back away from him, placing several feet between us, catching him off guard. Wes’s eyes filled with concern as his brows drew together, and a frown consumed his beautiful lips.

“Mara? What’s wrong? What—”

“I can’t marry you.” The words tumbled out of me, causing my chest to ache as though my lungs had just collapsed. I had to do this. I had to!

He stiffened, taken aback. “What?”

“I’ve been wanting to tell you, but I just didn’t know how. But—” I hesitated again, feeling my throat closing up. I pushed through it. “I can’t marry you.”

Wes’s eyes searched mine, pain smearing across his face. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t stare into those golden hues and lie to him. I backed away, placing more distance between us. “I can’t marry you, Wes,” I repeated. “I-I’m in love with Matias.” I purposefully looked away, not wanting to see the hurt I knew I was causing him.

Silence filled the space for two heartbeats before Wes grabbed my arm and forced me to face him. “I don’t believe you. Why are you doing this? What aren’t you telling me?” he insisted, anguish and desperation lacing his voice.

I tried pulling away from him, but he gripped my arm tighter. “I am telling you, but you’re just refusing to listen. I don’t love you, Wes. I’ve never loved you.” I watched as the words reverberated within him—a kaleidoscope of emotions taking their turn across the planes of his face.

“I don’t believe you,” he repeated again. But I heard it. I heard the doubt seeping in.

“Matias!” I called. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do this to him. But I had to. I had to break him.

“Don’t call for him,” Wes spat out, taking a forceful step towards me and yanking me closer. I stumbled forward, wrapped once more in the intoxicating essence that was Wes.

The awakening scent of eucalyptus opening my lungs…

The familiar heat that was his chaotic and masculine energy…

And the sculptured strength of a body I wanted nothing more than to surrender myself to…

I wanted him. I wanted Wes. And that want strung the gossamer thread of my resolve too tightly, threatening to snap…

But it was too late.

Matias ran to us, Blondie hot on his heels. Within a few seconds, Matias forced himself between us, shoving Wes back hard.

The furrow of Wes’s brows deepened, anger spreading its wings across his face as he rolled his shoulders back. “Don’t you fucking touch me,” he growled at Matias.

But Matias rose to the challenge, bringing himself up to his full height, face twisted in a scowl as he got right in Wes’s face.

“Can’t you fucking hear her, bro? She’s done with you.

Touch her again, and it’ll be you and me, Wes.

You and me.” I pulled on the back of Matias’s shirt, and he stepped away from Wes, putting distance between them.

Wes breathed heavily, and I could see the wheels spinning in his head. He turned his gaze back to me. “Mara,” the word left his lips with so much hurt, so much despair, that I wanted to pull him into me and hold him. To tell him the truth…

But this was for his own good.

“ Please ,” he begged. He was actually begging me, and that tore me to shreds. “Don’t do this to me.”

My lips parted, my heart breaking in two. I swallowed as I stepped in front of Matias. “I—I wanted to love you. I prayed to the universe to help me feel something— anything —for you. But I…I don’t.”

“The gala,” he uttered. And his pain…so much pain. “After the gala—”

No, no, no, no. I couldn’t afford to remember that night. I spun on Calista. “Tell him what you saw that night,” I ordered, my voice shrill. “ Tell him! ”

Blondie looked at me, taken aback by my frantic nature. She arched a brow before she faced Wes, hesitating only for a moment before finally letting him have it. “I saw them kissing on the balcony…right before you asked her to marry you.”

I looked back at Wes and witnessed the color drain from his face. “But after…” he repeated, the words hardly a whisper as they escaped him.

He didn’t want to believe the lie I was trying so hard to get him to accept as truth.

But he had to. I needed to stamp out any hope he carried in his heart.

He couldn’t know just how much I truly loved him.

It was going to kill me, and I knew I was going to rot in hell one day for what I did next.

But it was the only other thing I could think of.

The only thing I knew would seal the deal and hammer the final nail into the coffin of Wes’s heart.

“I know how it all felt.” I swallowed, searching for strength.

“But whenever I look at you, I only see Chase.” Wes froze, his entire body going rigid.

I pushed further, finding the wounded nerve and striking it hard.

“I only see him , Wes. I only feel him when you touch me. And I-I imagine him when you kiss me. I don’t see you. And that’s not fair to you.”

That did it. I watched as the sting filled his eyes, consuming the tortured expressions on his face. And my heart broke. I felt it crack and shatter into a million pieces within me.

Wes closed his eyes, turning his face away from me as he breathed heavily, deeply. I wanted to touch him. To cup his cheeks and kiss the pain away. But I stood my ground. I stood my ground as Wes rode the waves of sorrow and agony until finally his breathing steadied.

Slowly, he raised his head, and I watched as the stoic mask—the mask I hated with the depths of my soul—came crashing down into place. As the walls I had worked so tirelessly to break down rose, encasing Wes in his own emotional prison.

I could barely breathe, my lungs desperate for renewed breath. With trembling fingers, I pulled the ring from my finger, feeling the weight of my hope-filled fairytale, and held it out to him. “Here. This belongs to you.”

Wes’s stony gaze flickered to the circlet, but he made no move to take it. “Keep it,” he said dryly, all expression gone from his face. “I’m never going to need it.”

“I’m so sorry—”

“Save it, Mara.” His voice cracked like a whip. “Tell that to him when you break his heart next.” The words came out icy, with a bite that felt like a sucker punch to my gut, stealing my breath. I didn’t say anything. He had every right to be angry, to be hurt.

Wes took one step back, then another, until he turned and walked away from me, leaving a wretched feeling of utter hate in myself for what I had done to him. But it was to save him in the end. He would just never know it.

“I got to hand it to you, Telvian,” Calista said, “you sure know how to break a heart.” I couldn’t even muster looking at her. I just watched as Wes walked away, never turning back to look at me, until he was out of sight.

“He’ll be okay, Mara.” Matias placed a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“No, he won’t,” I replied, feeling the tears as they slowly slid down the curves of my cheeks.

I knew with all my heart that I was right.

Because I took a broken boy, pieced him back together, only to shatter him all over again.

And I would carry the guilt of what I had done forever with me.

I would carry it for the rest of my life.