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She’d just gathered the courage to tell him she loved him. And he hadn’t even said it back to her. She didn’t understand what he wanted from her. “I—I don’t know.”
He pulled his hand away.
“You don’t know? You love me, and you don’t know?”
“What do you want me to say? I love you, Jamie, but nothing’s changed. I’m not as strong as you. I don’t know if I can fit into your world.”
Jamie abruptly stood up. “Nothing’s changed. Seriously? You can say that to me after the last week? That nothing’s changed between us?”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“So what did you mean? You’ve met my family and friends. You know they’re not assholes. They liked and welcomed you. You saw what I like to do for fun. We had fun together. We’ve fucked, repeatedly. And we’ve made love and don’t even try to tell me it wasn’t making love, Lucy.” He added that last statement when she’d opened her mouth to deny the very thing he’d known she would.
“And finally, you’ve gotten to know me, Lucy. To see that I am, indeed, a nice guy. A guy who was born into wealth, but a guy who cares for you. Who wants you. And yes, in case you’re wondering, the guy who loves you, too. But nothing’s changed.”
“You’re twisting my words! I just meant there are things about our lives that would make it difficult to be together.”
“And you don’t want to deal with that difficulty,” he said.
“I—I—” She put her hand to her temple, which was now throbbing. “I don’t know!” She finally cried out. “Yes, your family is wonderful. But there are always going to be people like my parents and Mason’s family and dickhead David and that woman Rachel who we ran into. People who aren’t going to accept me.”
“There are always going to be people who don’t accept you all over the fucking place, Lucy, and it doesn’t matter how much money they make. You can’t tell me you love me in one breath and then push me away using the same excuse you’ve always used—that you won’t fit into my world—and expect me to think you’re anything but a coward.”
“Fine. I’m a coward. At least I’ve been honest with you from the start. You kept the fact that you were rich from me, and apparently you’ve kept something seriously important about this Sierra from me, too.”
“You’re right. I did keep Sierra from you. Because I didn’t want to bring her into our relationship. And I wanted to believe that you’d be different from her. That you’d be stronger than her.”
“Stronger how?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I was wrong to bring you here, Luce. Hell, I shouldn’t even be here. Instead of disregarding the fact that Marie and the other people in this town don’t like me, that they blame me for Sierra’s death, and trying to help them, I should take a page from your book and just stay away.”
Her chest seemed to squeeze so tight she could barely breathe. How had things gone from her confessing her love to this? This fight? “I don’t understand anything you’re saying. I don’t understand why you’re so angry. You agreed we couldn’t be together. You agreed to be my friend. That’s the whole reason I let you help me with this fake engagement. You knew I had issues about your money and now you’re throwing it in my face, making me feel like I did something wrong.”
He shook his head. “You haven’t done anything wrong, Lucy, and I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I guess at some point it just felt so natural, us being together, us being engaged, I guess I just started to believe that things could be different.” He shook his head yet again and muttered, “I need to go for a walk. Clear my head. Then I think we should pack up and go.”
He started to walk in front of her to go to the door.
Lucy grabbed his arm and said, “Absolutely not.”
He raised a brow. “Excuse me?”
“You are not calling me a coward and walking out of here without telling me about Sierra. And you are certainly not fleeing this town until you explain why the townspeople blame you for Sierra’s death.”
“You don’t get to demand anything from me, Lucy.”
“As your pretend-fiancée and the woman who’s spent the last week with you, I beg to differ.” She raised her hands, cupped his face, and said, “But even putting that aside, if nothing else, I’m your friend, Jamie. You’ve wanted me to share this whole time when you obviously haven’t shared a part of yourself with me. Can’t you do what you’ve asked me to do all along? Can’t you trust me?”
Jamie reached up, took her hands in his, and then nodded. “Fine. I’ll share. But then we need to talk about us.”
“Okay,” Lucy said.
She sat down on the bed and he sat next to her. Then he told her about Sierra. About how Sierra hated that she came from a different background. About the party they’d attended, and how some of the girls told her she looked “cheap” because her clothes weren’t as nice as theirs. About the boys who’d assumed she was cheap and tried to touch her. About how upset she’d gotten and how she’d told him they didn’t belong together and how she didn’t tell him that just that night, but multiple times before that. And how he wouldn’t listen to her.
“At the party, she was upset. I tried to tell her it didn’t matter what other people thought, but she refused to listen. She left and ended up driving the car into a tree. It was an accident—she wasn’t trying to commit suicide, just lost control of the car. She died at the scene.”
“Her death isn’t your fault,” she said immediately.
“I know that.”
