Page 195

“That isn’t fair,” Aura said.

“Neither was deciding that current Charm couldn’t handle information because the woman who entered treatment might have struggled with it.”

“We weren’t only afraid of what it would do to you,” Bliss said. “We were afraid of what you would do with it.”

“What does that mean?”

“That you would go after Ryan.”

“I already went after him.”

“You would’ve gone harder. You would’ve decided fixing what Lance did could make Ryan trust you again.”

The truth landed close enough to hurt because I couldn’t say with certainty that she was wrong.

“That still wasn’t your decision to make.”

“No,” Bliss said. “It wasn’t.”

I hated how easily she admitted it. I wanted resistance because anger needed somewhere to go, and both of them standing in front of me with tears on their faces made every direction feel like cruelty.

Bliss pressed both hands against her chest. “We didn’t know how to protect his right to tell you and your right to understand what happened. We chose Ryan because he was the person Lance attacked and was actively trying to destroy.”

“And the version of me you thought couldn’t survive knowing it, right?”

Her face crumpled.

I looked toward the closed doors. Beyond them, Ryan stood beside Cade, shaking hands and pretending the most important thing happening tonight was Bliss’s wedding. He had promised to speak to me later, and I’d been angry because later felt like another locked door.

Now I understood why I was an open wound.

Lance’s investigator. Photographs of my sick body moving between strangers. A moment outside Ryan’s truck rearranged into intimidation. A bruise he couldn’t have caused offered as evidence that he had. Meetings where Ryan allowed people to examine every brutal part of his life before he would expose mine.

Ryan had looked at the me I am today, and still refused to risk his heart.

For the first time, that refusal didn’t feel like anger I could outlast. It felt like the only sane decision available to him.

“I thought the study was the worst thing I did to him,” I said.

“It was,” Aura answered carefully. “What Lance did afterward was Lance’s choice.”

“It was another consequence Ryan paid for loving me.”

“That still doesn’t make it yours.”

“No, but it makes Ryan’s answer make sense.”

Bliss stepped toward me. “What answer?”

“Sunday.”

“He hasn’t left yet.”

“He will.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.” Tears spilled over my face, but my voice remained steady. “Ryan told me exactly what this weekend is. I kept believing if I showed him who I am now, something would change. I thought he was afraid of the study repeating. I didn’t know Lance proved the damage could follow him even if I was out of his life.”