Page 396 of Power Play

“I’ve been asking you to listen.”

“I listened.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“I answered when I took my key off your ring.”

Her face crumpled before rage straightened it again. “You answered by making sure I understood how easily you could erase me.”

“Nothing about this was easy.”

“You made it look easy.”

“Good.”

Charm stared at me as though I’d slapped her. “Good?”

“I wanted you to believe me.”

“You wanted to punish me.”

“I wanted you gone.”

“You wanted me hurt.”

“Yeah!” The admission tore out before I could decide whether to give it to her. “I wanted you to hurt. I wanted you to feel one fucking piece of what you did to me because I knew you would turn my pain into something you could bargain with if I let you see it.”

“I never bargained with your pain.”

“You’re doing it right now.”

“I’m trying to apologize.”

“I don’t want your apology!”

“It’s all I have!”

“Then keep it!”

“No!” Her voice exploded through the lodge, startling both of us. “You don’t get to demand every ugly truth from me and then refuse to hear anything that doesn’t support the version of me you need to hate.”

“You think I need help hating you?”

“I think you need to hate me so you can keep walking away.”

“I’m walking away because I don’t trust you.”

“You’re walking away because I disappointed you, and Ryan Decker makes it impossible for anyone to survive disappointing him.”

The anger inside me became so complete that everything else fell away.

“You think I make it hard for people to disappoint me?”

“I think you make one failure permanent.”

“Yeah, because I have enough disappointments to fill a fucking lifetime!” I shouted. “My father died from an overdose. My mother walked into a store and never came home. Every family after that promised I could stay until they found a reason I couldn’t. Every person who took me in taught me exactly how temporary love becomes once it gets inconvenient. Forgive me if I learned how to shut the pinche door before someone gets another chance to throw me through it.”

“I am not them.”