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“Let me go.” I punch his chest, but he holds me tighter. “I made you a promise and…”
I wrench myself free and snatch up my bag where I dropped it on the sofa.
“I love you, Malone. I’m in love with you. I thought… I thought maybe you could love me back, but I was wrong. Just know you are worth it. To me.”
My heart’s in pieces, turning into bleeding dust, and I head for the door when he speaks.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He sounds surly, angry, outraged. “Who wouldn’t love you? Good God, Red, you’re perfect. Of course I’m in love with you. But I shouldn’t be, and you deserve better. I’m trying to let you go.”
“Okay.” Hope surges so bright I almost have to shade my eyes. But those are just words. He needs to mean it.
So I keep walking to the door.
It’s not enough to say it after telling me to go. He needs to fight for me.
If he doesn’t, then I’m going. And I will never see him again.
I reach for the door and twist it open.
He doesn’t say a thing.
The tears push at my eyes again, but this time, I won’t let them fall.
I press the button for the elevator at the end of the private foyer.
“You’re going to leave?”
His words ride through my blood, but I don’t turn. “I made a promise.”
“Goddammit, Scarlett.” He spits the words like angry bullets.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to turn the fuck around.”
The command in his voice calls to me, wraps around me like love. But it’s not enough.
“You’re a coward, Malone. You ran off on me. Never checked if I was okay. Never said a word. You just left. And now? You made me promise to leave. I’m no coward, so I’ll go.” I wait a second. “I’m getting on the elevator.”
“And if I don’t want you to?”
“I’d say you need to make up your goddamn mind about what it is you want.”
He’s silent, and the elevator dings. The doors open. Then his hand slams down on the button and his other one curls around my arm.
“You.”
I stand there. The word vibrates through me with a sweetness I’m not sure what to do with.
“I want you.”
His other hand coils into my ponytail and he pulls my head to one side, his mouth skimming along the skin of my throat, making me shake and shudder, and everything inside me lights up like the Rockefeller Christmas tree.
Malone stands behind me, his body heat seeping into me, and he whispers, “What the fuck do you think I want?”
“I don’t know, Malone. You told me to go.”
“I was trying to save you.”
