Page 51 of Daring to Love

“This is not me,” I growl, not caring if I look like a madman as I stalk out.

I don’t wait for the lift to take me down but instead rush down the four flights of stairs, needing to get to Amelie before somebody else does.

* * *

I tearout of the taxi, barely waiting for it to come to a stop at the curb, and I push my way through the throng of journalists and photographers that have already set up camp at her gate.

“Move, damn it!” I shoulder my way past them, ignoring their eager, beady eyes as questions rain down on me. They’re on the hunt for blood, scenting my impending doom, but all I can think about is getting inside the front door.

Quickly, I bring the key Amelie gave me to the keyhole, but even though I hear it unlock, I can’t turn the handle. She changed the locks. I start pounding on the door, the pain lancing up my fist ignored the longer I slam it against the solid wood.

“Amelie! Let me in!”

Panicked, I keep banging on it until, finally, the handle moves, and I squeeze my inside. I turn my head, desperate to see her, but Amelie avoids my gaze and stays hidden behind the door and shuts it behind us. Once we’re safe from any prying eyes, I move to wrap my arms around her, but she wards me off, her hand raised between us, but I need her to listen to me. To hear me out.

“I’m sorry. Please believe me.”

“You shouldn’t have come, Finlay.”

She leans her back against the door, refusing to meet my gaze.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve fucked up royally, I know that, but I can’t lose her.

“Let me explain…”

“What is there to say? You betrayed me.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

Disbelief is written all over her face when she finally raises her head, her anger palpable.

“Didn’t you? Right, then…” She wets her lips, her cheeks flushed, and tear-stricken face makes my lungs burn. “Explain to me how your article about me magically wrote itself?”

I rake a hand through my hair.

“They were my notes, I admit that, but I didn’t write the article. My editor did. I never planned for it to be printed.”

“Why write all those things down – everything we shared, including, I might add, the intimacy, if you didn’t mean to publish it?”

Groaning, I shake my head. There is no answer I can give her that will make it better, and she knows it, too.

“How could you, Fin?” She tears her arm across her nose, but her sniffles don’t fade. “How could you write about our sex life like that? You cheapened us…yo-you made it sound as if I was some needy virgin when we first met! As if I begged you to fuck me!”

I flinch, her words beating me down bit by bit.

“I don’t know. I just…I didn’t want to forget a single thing you ever told me about yourself. I wanted to remember how I feel when I’m with you…to put into words how much you mean to me.” I grimace. “And instead, he twisted my own words into a sordid affair.”

A sound between a sob and groan fills the silent house.

“I don’t believe you.”

I can’t stand the distance between us any longer, and moving fast, I close the distance in a couple of strides. I lower my head to keep my eyes locked with hers.

“Please…I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t think.”

She shuts her eyes tightly as silent tears flow down her splotchy skin.

“I want you to leave.”