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He froze as she asked him that. She shouldn’t have said it. What did she say now?
Was he going to get angry at her?
You deserve it.
“Just because I’m upset with you, doesn’t mean that I want you hurt or suffering,” he told her. He didn’t look at her as he spoke. Instead, he gripped the bench tightly, staring at the wall. “I’ve spent the last six months wondering what happened to you. If you were harmed. Scared, sick, worried. Until I had to stop wondering. Until I started to forget about you.”
Ouch.
She’d thought he’d yell at her. She hadn’t been prepared for this.
“I . . . I’m so sorry, Tanner.”
“Why did you leave?”
“I . . . I . . .”
“Why, Lilac? You can tell me sorry until you’re hoarse, but it means fucking nothing unless you tell me why. So why did you leave? Without an explanation? Without even a text message?”
“I . . . I . . .”
“I mean, I get that we didn’t promise anything to each other, but to just fucking leave like that wasn’t right. You stood me up. I didn’t know where you were. I was concerned about you. Then, after a while, I realized that you obviously didn’t have much respect for me if you could leave me without a word like that. And now that I’m asking for an explanation, you can’t even give one. Yet, you’ve turned up in my town. Want to explain that? And don’t tell me it was a fucking coincidence.”
“It . . . it w-wasn’t. I didn’t mean to . . . I never wanted to hurt you, Tanner.”
“Who said you hurt me?” he said coldly. “I mean, sure, in the beginning, I was worried about you. But it was a fling and once I put you out of my mind, well, I didn’t think of you again. I moved on.”
“With that girl out there?” Why was she still here having this conversation? Hurting herself? She knew he’d be upset with her. What she hadn’t expected was that his anger would be cold.
That he would have completely put her out of his mind . . . that he no longer cared about her.
How arrogant were you to think he’d still care?
“Carlie has nothing to do with this conversation.”
There was something in his voice? Protective? Did he think that she would try to come between them? To harm what they had together?
She wouldn’t.
“Why are you here, Lilac? If you won’t tell me why you left me like that, then you can damn well tell me the real reason why you’re here. Did you come back here for me?”
He spun toward her. She reacted instinctively, fear filling her as she shied back, falling on her ass. But she didn’t even feel the pain through the panic flooding her. She put her arm up to protect herself.
A whimper broke free as she waited for him to hit her, hurt her.
“Lilac?” His voice was a rough whisper. Filled with regret and pain.
But she couldn’t deal with his feelings right now. She’d gotten her initial panic under control. Only now, she had to deal with the humiliation of what had just happened.
What was she going to do? Say?
“What the fuck is going on in here?” Devon demanded.
Oh God. Oh God.
Now her new boss was here to witness her complete humiliation.
“Lilac? Fuck. Did you think I was going to hit you? Baby, I would never hurt you.”
