“Then what do you want?” he asks, sounding like he’s this close to losing it with frustration, like I’ve given him any indication that I want anything at all from him.
“I want you to leave me alone,” I say flatly.
He turns to face forward again, his jaw working as he stares out the windshield. “I can’t do that,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. That’s the one thing I can’t give you.”
“Why?” I demand. “Why are you still torturing me?”
“Torturing you?” Royal asks, grabbing my arm and shoving my sleeve up. “I’m not the one torturing you.”
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I bark, yanking my arm away.
We stare at each other a long moment, and I curse myself for giving him what he wants, for fighting back. He’s asking me for the one thing I’m unwilling to give, too—a response. It’s the one thing Preston never asked for, the only reason I could give him what he wanted.
“Look, Royal, I don’t know what you want. I’m the one who should be asking you that. You won. You broke me. I will never be unbroken. Isn’t that enough?”
“What about what you did?” he asks, his voice quiet, his eyes searching mine. “I read the messages you sent that creep. You were playing me all along.”
“I wasn’t,” I whisper, swallowing past the quivering, sick feeling in my throat.
“Bullshit,” Royal says, turning to face forward again. “You wanted to destroy my family.”
I take a deep breath. “You’re right.”
We sit in silence for a minute.
“Are you even sorry?” Royal asks.
“Of course I’m fucking sorry,” I snap. “Look at me.”
“But are you sorry for what you did? Or just sorry you got caught?”
“Nothing happened to you,” I remind him. “It never came out.”
“It could. You don’t know who he is.”
I swallow hard.
Royal catches my hesitation and swings his head toward me. His eyes narrow. “Do you?”
“It’s Preston,” I whisper.
He flinches, then turns to face forward, his fingers gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles whiten. “Preston knows,” he says flatly. “I knew it. They all know, don’t they?”
I press a fist to my chest, trying to breathe. It’s like I can feel his pain, the pain of my betrayal. I didn’t just lose. I losthim. I didn’t just try to take down his family. I hurt this beautiful, terrible boy.
But he did worse than hurt me. I can feel bad about what I did, can even hurt for him, but I can’t forgive him. Not even if I deserve what I got.
“He won’t tell anyone,” I say.
“I trusted you, Harper,” he says to the windshield.
I shake my head. “My turn to call bullshit. You didn’t tell me your secrets. I found out on my own.”
“And if I had?” He turns to me, searching my face, as if the answers will be written there.
I don’t answer. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.
“You’d still have spilled them.”