Page 87 of Angel

Roxy jolted.

‘Are you saying you don’t trust me?’

‘Rox, it’s not that,’ I growled, wincing at a headache coming on. ‘Can we not discuss this now? After everything I’ve been through, I don’t want to talk about it.’

She pursed her lips, then blurted. ‘Just like we’re not going to talk about the fact that I told you how I feel about you?’

‘Rox,’ I groaned, ‘Please -.’

I caught the flash of hurt in her eyes, but I’d only so much bandwidth to give her.

‘Forget I ever said it,’ she muttered with a rare bitter twist of her mouth.

‘Roxy, I just don’t have the capacity right now -.’

My rasped timbre trailed off.

We stared at each other for a long beat until she spoke up, her jaw set like flint, eyes ablaze.

‘I adore you, Angel, but in this moment, fuck you,’ she snapped.

I flinched.

The hell?

‘Fuck you for making your pain the center of the universe,’ she spat, the words cutting right through the morning quiet. ‘Since we got here, it’s been about you, your past, your broken heart, and how Evangeline left you at the altar. I’m trapped in this forced marriage too, and after the intimacy we’ve shared, I deserve respect, not your hot and cold routine. Grow the fuck up and take care of your issues. It’s not anybody else’s responsibility to heal you besides you. I’m done being empathetic about it; I’m not a therapist, and it’s not my job to rehabilitate you.’

I stared at her, stunned into silence, then I cleared my throat with a rough huff.

‘Respect,’ I rasped, rubbing the back of my neck. ‘I probably deserved that.’

We stared at each other as any lingering tendrils of warmth between us cooled into ice.

‘We need to start packing,’ she murmured, her voice flat and drained of all affection. ‘Our flight out is in a few hours.’

With that, she strode back inside the bedroom, as the stone walls closed in on my heart once more.

ROXY

The rest of the day was a killer, packed with a suffocating tension.

Angel and I lurched from unimaginable bliss back to stifling strain.

Evangeline had succeeded once again in spoiling the little joy I had with her venomous presence, even from all the way in the States.

I’d also contributed to the current shitshow with my unfiltered utterance about loving him, followed by losing my shit at him after my sister’s call.

Why the hell had I done it?

While I castigated myself, Angel folded into himself, falling silent and brooding, his mind probably tripping over whatever garbage my sister spewed into his ears.

I felt so lost and frustrated.

After connecting with such wild, uninhibited passion over the last few days, the cold tundra routine he was pulling now was a massive slap in the face.

Part of me wanted to scream, to demand why he was letting his toxic ex rent space in his head after the magic we just shared.

However, I locked my feelings down, refusing to give in to the angst or let him see me spiral over his moodiness.