Page 74 of The Vengeance You Crave

"Peyton, please. I'm sorry, okay. I'm fucking sorry."

"Too late, Luc. You should have thought about that before locking me in a pool house all weekend."

"Aw, come on, it wasn't all that bad, was it?" He takes a step toward me but soon stops when my entire body tenses with anger.

"Yes, Luca. It was. There's nothing you can do or say that's going to make this any better. I was stupid to think there could be anything salvageable here."

"P," he growls, closing the space once more but I'm not having any of it.

I know I can't let him touch me. It's too dangerous.

"I'm not leaving town," I tell him before he so much as suggests it. "I need to be here. I have people relying on me."

"Peyton, I didn't even—" I hold my hand up, cutting him off.

"I'll stay out of your way," I promise before pulling my car door open and dropping into the driver's seat.

"No, please. I just want to talk. My dad, he—"

"You lost any right to 'just talk' when you called me a liar and turned your back on me, Luc. Too little too late."

Slamming the door closed, I quickly hit the lock in case he decides to try and drag me out before starting the engine and flooring the accelerator.

Stones fly up behind me as I speed past him, forcing him to jump out of my way.

My hands tremble as I fly from the lot. I don't even remember if I looked to see if the intersection was clear. It must have been because I'm not sitting in a crumpled car.

My heart is still racing and my eyes still burning with the tears I refuse to shed after leaving him like that.

It's what he deserves,I tell myself.

* * *

"Hey, sweetie. You're home early," Aunt Fee says when I walk into the kitchen to find her doing something on her laptop.

"It was dead. Bry sent me home for an early night."

She studies me for a beat. "You look like you could use it. You're doing too much," she states.

"I'm fine," I promise, pulling a bottle of water from the refrigerator and twisting the top.

"You're not and we both know it. What's really going on here, Peyton?"

I stare at Aunt Fee for long seconds, wondering just how much I want to confess. I have no idea how much she actually knows, but seeing as Mom and her shared everything, I have to assume that she knows it all.

"It's Luca," I confess, dropping into the seat opposite her.

"Oh." She lowers the lid of her computer and folds her arms on the table.

"You know you'd run into him eventually," she says softly. "How'd he take it?"

Images of our time together flicker through my mind. "Not well."

"Silly, silly boy."

"He's loyal," I mutter, thinking of his refusal to accept the truth.

"Yeah, to the wrong person."