Page 101 of Toxic Kiss

The deep fissures in my soul hold a dark truth that I’ll never be able to escape, and I can only pretend for so long before I have to face it all over again.

I’m pathetic.

CYRUS

I shouldn’t be here.

But I can’t leave either.

The sliding door to the balcony is open, but I stay back and watch her from a distance through the clear glass. Haven doesn’t know I’m still here. She thinks she’s alone with the envelope while the firelight paints gold over her hair. Fuck she is stunning. I rub the spot where my heart is, knowing that she is the cause and the cure.

I lean against the wall and fold my arms over my chest, trying to convince myself I’m only here to make sure she’s okay.

That’s the lie. The truth is uglier. I want to see her open it. I want to see the moment the illusion shatters, and she realizes that she is free to be mine.

The paper crinkles in her hands. Even from here, I can see the tremor running through her fingers. She sits curled in the large chair like something fragile and breakable. It’s the same as when she used to sit at the edge of the pool when we were younger, and she thought nobody was watching.

Christ. I knew the guy was scum, but even I didn’t know how bad.

I only ever hire the best. I paid Thomas enough that he dug through every dirty secret Charles McMillian III thought he buried. Pretentious douche. I know exactly what is in that envelope. Every photo. Every timestamp. Every lie.

And I handed it to her like a loaded gun.

The first picture hits her like a punch. I can see it in the way her shoulders stiffen. She flips the page. Then another. Haven covers her mouth, and her breathing changes. Short and shallow, like the air around her suddenly weighs a thousand pounds.

Good, a cold voice in my head whispers. She needs to know the truth about the fucker. He doesn’t deserve her. No one does. Not even me, but I intend to keep her.

But another voice—one that sounds suspiciously like Patrick—asks a different question.

Does she deserve to find out like this?

I swallow and push the thought aside. What’s done is done.

She keeps turning pages. Each one slower than the last. The photos spill out of her hands and scatter across the floor like broken glass. For a moment, she just stares. And I realize something I never expected.

She isn’t angry, screaming, or throwing things. Hell, I expected her to at least burn the evidence…I even have copies. She does none of that.

The sound she makes is so quiet it almost doesn’t exist. A small broken breath that scrapes across the space between us and wedges itself somewhere deep under my ribs.

Fuck.

My fingers curl into fists. I can see Patrick in my mind, shaking his head before he fades away.

I didn’t expect her to love Charles, not this much. That’s stupid, I guess. She has her whole future planned with him. The house, the ring, the goddamn wedding. Anyone would break like this. Anyone would fall apart watching their fiancé betray them.

Then she pulls out her phone and plugs in the USB.

I almost sprint across the room to stop her, but it’s too late.

Haven doesn’t just cry.

She shatters like her soul is being torn out, and the sound she makes squeezes my heart. She runs to the edge of the balcony and bends over the railing, dry-heaving like her body is trying to reject something poisonous.

Haven collapses onto all fours, sobbing uncontrollably.

What the hell have I done?

I’m moving before I realize it…before I can stop myself. Haven doesn’t even hear me.