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Chapter 3 Eden
Every word Cain utters is the equivalent of a dagger piercing my skin. I close my eyes as the last one slices through my flesh and bone—making a beeline for the shattered organ that still beats for him.
Despite his betrayal. Despite the pain pumping through my veins.
Despite the little voice in my head chastising me for loving a man who cares about politics and his image more than he’ll ever care about me.
The heart wants what it wants. Even when it’s broken.
“You can’t help who you fall in love with,” I whisper, tears prickling my throat. “Because trust me, if I could, I’d pick someone—anyone—else to give my heart to right now.”
Someone who deserves it.
I reach for the doorknob with shaky hands. If I spend one more moment in this room with him—he’ll sever the rest of me. The little shred of sanity I’m barely hanging on to.
My breath leaves me in a rush when Cain spins me around, then presses me against the door.
“Eden.” He says my name like a small prayer as he frames my face in his hands. “I know it hurts, but please try to understand where I’m coming from.”
I shake my head. I can’t. I won’t. Not anymore.
I’m tired of seeing things through Cain’s eyes and making excuses for the way he treats me when he’s never once bothered to see things through mine.
Because if he did? He’d see how much pain I’m in. And if he truly loved me the way I love him…it would kill him.
But he doesn’t. And now the stone-cold realization is staring me right in the face.
Loving someone isn’t dangerous.
Falling in love with the wrong someone is.
Cain Carter’s been the air I’ve longed to breathe from the moment I laid eyes on him…but right now? He’s suffocating me.
And I need to find a way to let go of the anchor dragging me down before it’s too late.
“Why should I, when you never once thought about what it feels like from my side? Then again, why would you? Why think about my side when your side is so much better, right? It must feel great knowing you’re loved by someone who would do anything in the world for you. Someone who lets you use them because one second of your attention is better than a lifetime without it.”
His jaw works. “You need to find a way to accept we can’t be together…just like I have.” I start to protest, but his fingers skim my throat, causing my heart to kickstart back to life. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
No, I won’t give in. I won’t let him shut me up like he always does. “You’re already hurting me, Cain. Because I’ll never know what a love like mine feels like in return. Even though you’re the key to my happiness…according to you, I’m the key to your destruction. Our two sides will never meet in the middle. I’m the girl you want to stay away from…and you’re the man I cling to.”
Something ugly and painful twists my insides, puncturing the dam of anguish I’ve tried so hard to hold back. “You’re not capable of loving me the way I love you. You’re not capable of choosing me…you never will be. Even though I choose you with every single breath I take.”
His thumb grazes my cheekbone and for a moment, I see the tiniest flicker of genuine emotion in his eyes. The kind that makes me believe he feels the same way for me.
“If you weren’t my stepdaughter. If you weren’t so young—if things were different—I’d choose you. In any other lifetime but this one, I’d choose you and never look back.”
And therein lies the problem. “No matter the obstacles—I still choose you. In this lifetime…in any lifetime, I’ll always choose you.” He tightens his hold and I reach for his wrists, caught between wanting to keep him close and wanting to push him away, because his touch feels like salt in the wound he created. “Please, don’t marry that woman. We both know it’s only for show and you don’t really care about her.” I lean into his touch. “Choose me, Cain. Love me back and I’ll love you harder than anyone else ever has or ever will. I’ll—”
“Eden.” He presses his lips to my forehead. “I can’t.” His mouth brushes the tears ru
With a groan, he takes my hand and places it on his bulging erection. “You see what you do to me?” I squeeze his length through his pants, and he props his arms on either side of my head. “How fucking crazy you make me?”
His muscles tense as I rub him harder. The friction is so intense between us I’m surprised we don’t burst into flames.
In one swift motion, he unzips his pants and rocks into my hand. “Why don’t you get on your knees and finish what Margaret started like a good little girl?”
And just like that, a tiny piece of my heart plummets…falling from the pedestal it was clinging to with everything it had.
He said her name.
The woman he’s going to marry. The one he never told me about.
The one he’s choosing over me.
Cain realizes his mistake the moment I remove my hand. “I’m—”
“Don’t.” He’s not sorry. He never is.
Closing my eyes, I wait for the sharp, shooting pain radiating through the center of my chest to lessen enough that I can walk out of this room.
As if he can sense my impending departure, Cain’s body sinks against mine, his lips softly tracing the shell of my ear, keeping me enslaved. Fu
Often in the same breath.
“I love you, Eden.”
Then why did you trick me into coming here so you could break my heart?
Reaching behind me, I turn the knob. “Then why does it hurt so much?”
My feet barely touch the hallway floor when he closes the door. No doubt afraid someone might be watching.
My heart pangs as I touch the rustic mahogany. Eleven years between us but a lifetime apart.
He’s going to marry Margaret. He’s going to become mayor. He’s going to get everything he ever wanted…and live happily ever after.
While I’ll be left with nothing.
Too bad the man who tried to kill me on the dance floor didn’t finish the job.