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Claire

Now

I don’t know how much time passes as I kneel on the sidewalk, like a victim preparing for execution.

“Hey, you’ve been gone a while; everything okay?” Declan asks, pushing open the front door to the Royal, but as soon as he takes in the sight of me, his casual tone turns serious. “What’s happening?”

I try to speak, but dust clogs my throat. A manifestation of the guilt that’s festered within me for the last decade.

“Come on, let’s get you inside,” Declan says as he helps me up to my feet. I steal a glance in his direction, but looking at him directly, at what could have been if everything was different, is too much.

Once inside, he starts to lead me back toward the bar, where the group remains sitting, their voices blurring into indecipherable conversation. But I stop him.

“No,” I say as quietly as I can. “Upstairs.” I’m not ready to confess to them what I did. Especially not when I’ve just spent the afternoon accusing some of them of lying.

Declan leads me up the stairs, but it all feels so unreal. I’ve dreaded this moment for years, always knowing that one day my lies would catch up with me. But now that it’s happening, it feels just like it always has—a possibility, not the real thing.

Once in my room, Declan and I settle on the bed. I take several deep breaths, trying to calm myself, but each one stays trapped in my trachea.

“Claire, what is it? Let’s just tell each other the truth. No more secrets.”

I look at Declan, force myself to really look at him. I take in the glint of his hazel eyes, realizing this is likely the last time he will look at me with affection.

I still don’t know if I can trust him, but I have no choice. I need help, and he’s the one person who can provide it. But only if I confess.

I take a deep breath and begin.

“I saw you.”

Declan looks at me, confusion etched in the fine lines of his face that have appeared and deepened in the last ten years.

“That night with Phoebe. The night she went missing.”

“Claire.” The confusion crystallizes into something stronger, more real. Fear. “It wasn’t what you think.”

“It was,” I say, my voice oddly clear. I thought when I finally admitted to him what I’d witnessed, I would be more upset.

Emotions frayed, the hysteria I felt that night returning to me multifold.

But it feels as though my admission has cleared the dust that has been welling up inside me, whisking away the emotion with it.

“You had sex with Phoebe,” I say, so as to leave no doubt, nothing unspoken.

It’s one of the scenes from that night that I can never unsee, never unknow.

Phoebe straddling him on the ground in the vast backyard of the Inn.

Her head thrown back in passion, his eyes closed tightly. Neither of them even trying to hide.

“I had come out to look for you. You ran out so quickly after Phoebe. I wanted to check on her too. To make sure she was okay after Adrien went after her at dinner like that. I looked for ages and then I heard…”

Phoebe’s moans still ring in my ear from that night, cutting through the darkness.

“I’m sorry,” Declan says, his face crumpling.

“I’m so, so sorry. You’ll never know how sorry I am for that.

It was only that one time, and it was a mistake.

My feelings for you scared me. I sabotaged what we had, just like I always do when people get too close.

And then Phoebe and I connected and then she came on to me and…

none of that matters. I regretted it even as it was happening, and I’ve regretted it every day since. I’ve regretted losing you.”

The emotion that dried up in me earlier now comes rolling back. I want to believe him, but something stops me.

“But you never reached out. Afterward,” I say through tears. “You let me leave Australia without ever talking about it, without even officially ending our relationship. And you’ve been living in New York all these years, and you never even called.”

I considered reaching out myself, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

The fact was, I couldn’t face the truth.

Couldn’t listen to him admit how he had chosen Phoebe over me.

And another part of me was scared that I would give in and admit to him what I’d done that night. And I wasn’t ready to do that.

Declan looks down, shame splayed across his face.

“It was my penitence,” he says quietly. “I knew you didn’t deserve me after what I did.

I didn’t want you to think that you should take me back and settle for a man that would treat you like that.

” He inhales, and his breath vibrates with emotion.

“A few years after the program, once I’d graduated and started working in Dublin, I received a job offer from my current paper in New York.

You were the first person I thought of, the only one I wanted to share the news with.

And I couldn’t get out of my head that we would meet somewhere on the streets of New York, just like in one of those romantic comedies.

And we could start over. I wouldn’t have to break my rule against contacting you; it would just happen naturally.

Like fate.” He lets out a sad chuckle. “It was stupid.”

“No,” I say. “It wasn’t. But I don’t understand. Why would you do all that for me, put yourself through that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I love you, Claire. I’ve always loved you.”

For a second, I feel like I did after Villanueva’s phone call, blood pumping in my ears, an unidentifiable ringing underlying its steady beat.

I shake my head, but he grabs my hands. Before I can stop them, tears well up in my eyes, crashing down on the carpet one at a time.

He moves to pull me in, but I stop him.

“No,” I say, pulling away. “You can’t love me. You don’t know what I’m capable of. What I’ve done.”

“So tell me.”

“You’ll never look at me the same way,” I say.

“Try me.” His gaze is steady like his tone, and it bolsters me slightly.

I take a deep breath and remember. Behind the Inn. The stars glinting down at me, taunting. Rage pulsing in my stomach.

“I walked for a while that night, after I saw you. I was angry—so angry. And I was trying to calm myself down…” I squeeze my eyes shut as if that will block out the image that has tattooed my brain for a decade.

“Eventually, I went back to my room. I wanted to confront Phoebe, but she wasn’t there.

Her backpack was missing, and I could tell she’d left.

And that made me even angrier. Having the nerve to do what she did—to betray me like that.

” I watch as Declan’s eyes dart away. “And then to just run away.”

Even now, my hand is trembling.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been that mad. I wanted her to look in my eyes and see what she’d done to me.

“So, I went after her. I figured she was out back behind the Inn somewhere. I knew she liked to wander out there to clear her mind. I passed the kitchen on my way out and…I don’t even know why I did it.

I was so damn angry, and my emotions were all over the place…

” I trail off. You would think after ten years of reliving this night I would have a clearer story.

But the words stick in the far back of my throat, refusing to escape.

“Claire,” Declan prompts gently.

“I grabbed a knife from the kitchen—one of the big steak knives. And I went after her.”