Page 168 of We Are Yours

My lips trembled. It was on the tip of my tongue.

“What do you want me to say?” He coaxed. “What do you need to hear, Isla? You want to know the truth. I’ll tell you the truth…” Without thinking twice about it, he spoke with conviction, “I love you. I’ve always loved you, and I won’t ever stop. Do you understand me? I’m in love with you! That’s why I came back…”

Tears brimmed my eyes. My heart ached, pouring out for all to see.

His expression suddenly turned heated as he called out, “Are you really going to stand there, though, and pretend you two haven’t been?—”

“Yeah, Julius,” I interrupted. “And you were gone all those times too.”

“I was working, Isla, like I’ve been for the past month and a half. I wasn’t fucking around on you.”

Kraven abruptly intervened, “She didn’t cheat on you, Julius, so stop acting like she did. You weren’t together. You haven’t been together. She’s not yours… You just think she is…”

Realizing he didn’t know the truth, Julius broke his illusion into a million pieces, enjoying every last second of it as he brutally ripped the rug out from under him before I could chime in.

Crudely, he lit the flame. “I was her first, Kraven. She became mine the night before I left, you fuck.”

My heart exploded.

What did I do? How do I fix it? Where do we go from here?

Kraven jerked back, glancing over at me with an expression I couldn’t read. “Is that true?”

I swallowed hard, shivering.

“Is. It. True?”

“I… I…”

I was backed into a corner. In less than a second, my world as I knew it suddenly came crashing down on me. All the blood drained from my face as I stood there frozen.

Immobile.

Shocked and nervous.

His reaction triggered something inside me. Our eyes never wavered from one another as I grasped the reality of the future. For a minute, my pain broke through the uncontrollable emotions.

I strained, locking up, staying firmly rooted to the place I stood with the wind knocked out of me. I felt like I’d just been punched in the stomach.

My heart.

My mind.

My love…

Was broken.

Snapping like the strings of Julius’s violin. They were both yanking every sentiment from my body, every last emotion as if it belonged to them.

I might have been standing there with them, but my mind was somewhere else entirely.

“Isla,” Julius stressed, “tell him the truth!”

I gasped, placing my hand over my mouth, not wanting to be heard.

The truth blatantly slapped me in the face again. I couldn’t stop my feet from moving, following the sound of his voice.

Three steps.