Page 121 of Stay With Me

He grabbed her hand and shouted. “Well,that’snot okay!”

“Why not!”

“Because I love you, Sammie! I have never in my life loved anyone like this, and I love you!”

Her jaw gaped slightly, and they stared at each other for a moment; both breathing deeply and both wearing the same stunned expression.

Say it!her inner voice screamed at her.

She blinked a couple of times and shook her head.

Absolutely not,the other part of her brain fired back.

Nick rubbed a hand through his hair and then dropped it at his side. “And that’s why I even bothered bringing any of this shit up. So no, it’s not okay that after everything we’ve been through together, you suddenly feel like you don’t know who I am anymore. That’s a bullshit excuse because you’re afraid.I hurt you, and I know that, and if I could go back in time and do everything differently, I would. But I can’t. I’m sorry. God knows how sorry I am, but I’m not the person I was, and I’m sure as hell not the asshole who actually and intentionally led you on for ten weeks.”

Her pulse picked up intensely to the point that it thudded in her ears, and she instantly dismissed his declaration of love as another symptom of his delusion while her pride hung on his stinging reference to Eddie part one.

She gritted her teeth and defiantly stuck out her chin as she stepped backward away from him.

“You don’t loveme,Nick,” she retorted. “I’m Samantha.Sammie is the woman from your dream and you loveher.”

She turned sharply and flung the door open, but didn’t close it without throwing a final blow solely intended to hurt him as much as he’d hurt her.

“I’m glad you kissed me because you were right. That was the last time it’s ever going to happen.”

She slammed the door and jogged through the stinging sleet, shutting herself up in the safety of her car, where she wept so hard that her throat became raw and her head felt like it would split open.

She lost track of how long she cried, the tears finally drying up, and she gripped the steering wheel and shoved in the key.

Before turning it, she hesitated.

She didn’t know if she’d cried herself into clarity or disorientation, but she got a sudden urge to run back inside, apologize, and forgive him.

“What the heck is wrong with me?” she demanded of the steering wheel.

If leaving and throwing everything away over what he’d done seemed reasonable and justified, why did it feel like pulling out of the parking lot would rip out her heart and fling it onto the pavement, leaving only a gaping hole in its stead?

You know why.

She shook her head at her inner voice.

“He did this to himself and to me,” she argued.

Doesn’t matter,her mind countered.You already felt that way. It’s why it hurts so badly, and it’s not going to change just because you leave.

Maybe it was her heart speaking and not her mind.

No, it was definitely her heart speaking because there was zero logic and only emotion.

So logic won and Samantha left with a gaping hole in her chest that hadn’t ever been there before.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Nick

Nick stared at his front door, standing completely motionless other than his hands, which repeatedly clenched into fists and relaxed, over and over and over.

His jaw twitched.