Page 115 of Bene

“Go ahead,” he said, getting closer until their mouths were only a breath apart, “go on and lie to me again.”

She let out a shaky breath against the bathroom counter. “I am sorry. I would do anything to go back and—”

Still leaning over her, Bene dragged a handful of her hair back behind her neck so that he could murmur in her ear, “Except you can’t change what you did to my family—to my father, my mother. And I’ll do whatever to make sure I ruin you … like you could only try to do to us.”

She let out a cry as he pulled away from her. He turned to leave the bathroom. To just get the fuck away from her. He heard the shuffle of her dress as she, too, pushed away from the counter to probably come after him.

“Bene, please just listen to—”

“Fuck you. This is it. This is over.”

Vanna’s choked gasp made his shoulders tense. “Don’t say that.”

Again.

Again with that fucking shocked disillusion of hers. As though he was hurting her. Like she really fucking ever cared. As if this thing they had been wasn’t just manufactured by her lies and bullshit, and not from something that was real on her part.

He swung around on her before he could think better of it. But she was already there. Right at his back. And turning so fast had him chest to chest with her. Her petite height caused her to still need to look up at him, and he leaned down further, too. Until their noses touched, and their eyes were level.

She needed to see it.

What she did to him …

She should see it.

“You don’t get to be the victim here. Don’t look at me and act like I’m doing something bad to you. Do you fucking hear me? You never gave a shit about me before, not when you only wanted to tear my world down, right? Well, good, you did it, Vanna. But just because the person I thought would be my world turned out to be a fucking liar doesn’t mean it stops turning for everybody else. And you don’t get to act like I’m hurting you right now when from the start, it was all just bullshit.”

Water lined her eyes.

Her bottom lip trembled.

He could already hear what she was going to say before she did—knew it would be the truth simply because her pain was most obvious, even if he was trying to ignore it while hurting her with his words because fair was fair.

Right?

They couldn’t be.

Even if her original intentions for him changed.

After everything?

No way.

“If you would only let me explain,” she whispered. “Let me tell you that I lov—”

“Don’t.”

He was so hyper-fucking-aware of their close proximity again. Of that sugary perfume lingering on every edge of her. How her makeup stayed perfect—a feat, he was sure—despite the tears that she freely let fall down her cheeks.

That she was more beautiful when she cried.

Somehow.

That he still wanted to kiss her.

Those lips, though.

And that something inside him just craved her—every horrible and perfect part of her.