Page 236 of Severed Heart

We stare off for a few silent seconds before he speaks.

“Tell me why she accepted.” He pours a finger full of gin in his tumbler.

“He wasn’t sure she would say yes, so he did it in a room full of people who knew them both as a couple and as successful business partners. To remind her of what they’ve built together—also what she stands to lose if she didn’t take the ring. It’s a little manipulative, but he worships her.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Tobias snaps.

I sigh, knowing he doesn’t want the truth even as he demands it with the lift of his chin. “Because he’s both good to and for her.”

He rakes his lip, but it doesn’t lessen any of the blow in his expression. Pressing in, for him, for her, I give him more of the brutal truth.

“This is what you decided for her when you sent her back to Georgia. A normal life, non-club related.”

He nods, even as sweat breaks out on his brow.

“You know your choices,” I remind him. “You either go get her and risk losing her to our life, or you let her go”—I cut my hand through the air to stop his bullshit objection—“I mean,reallylet her go.”

“I have...” He spares me a glance as I flat out call bullshit with my eyes alone. “... Enough to make her believe I have,” he grits out.

“You still love her, Tobias,” I deliver point-blank.

“I’m with Alicia.”

“No,” I scoff, “you fucking aren’t. Alicia knows that, too. And like Alicia with you, Collin knows Cecelia’s notall inwith him. That there’s something or someone from her past holding her back. I’m willing to bet my life that Collin has absolutely no knowledge of you. Even without mention of the club, and that’s because she’s holding out hope just like you are. If you truly are her past, she would have told him about you, and she hasn’t, which makes her all the more alluring to him.”

“You seem certain of all of this,” he says, tossing more gin back.

“I am.” I shrug.

“Simply because of the way he proposed?” he asks.

“There’s a lot to be said about approach, but there’s more, there’s always more, and you know damn well I watch out for her, so don’t play fucking ignorant,” I warn, done with his excuses.

“Subtlety is no longer a trait you possess,” he says, swallowing another healthy sip of gin. A numbing I’m all too familiar with. “She doesn’t love him,” he insists.

“Maybe not in the same way she did you,” I agree. “A way she no doubt now identifies as unhealthy thanks to you, but she does love him.”

I hold his stare, intent on seeing this through. “She loves him enough to marry him, and if you don’t stop it,she willmarry him, T.”

“She’s too smart to trap herself in the lie she’s living, and make no mistake, she’s living a lie,” he argues.

“Which makes you birds of a feather,” I drop, a second before he shatters his keyboard with his fist. Blood drips from his hand as all pretense of calm flies out the window.

“The risk is still too great,” he argues weakly.

“Tessa can endure it,” I counter, “and you’ve seen that for yourself. There are marriages that last in this fucking club ... but I’m not here to talk you into going to her.”

“Then why are you?” he snaps.

“I’m here to tell youshe will marryhim if you don’t stop it.”

Tobias’s eyes flare as I become the enemy, his temporary scapegoat for the pain lancing through him.

“Since we’re being honest, why don’t you come clean about being happy to deliver this news to me.”

“Fuck you,” I bite out. “Despite your current skewed perception, not everyone is your enemy.”

“No, but you’re no friend of mine since I’ve disappointed you so greatly. Your grudge is still there. Tell me it doesn’t please you to tell me this,” he hisses as I turn to take my leave. “That it doesn’t please you that I live as you do, as a fucking dead man.”