“One, I told Paul. I confirmed it was safe to swim here. Contrary to what you, my uncle and almost everyone else seems to think, I can make intelligent decisions.”
“I never said—”
“No, but you implied it. Multiple times. And second, do you have any idea how confusing all of this is? Ten years ago you told me I was just a girl with her head in the clouds and that you would never want someone like me.” He winced hearing his own words spoken aloud, pain flashing across his face, but she didn’t let up. No, it was time for him to finally see how much he’d hurt her. “I thought something was wrong with me, that all my fears were true. The person I was when I was with you was just an illusion and one that you’d seen through.” A sob rose in her throat, but she swallowed past it. She wouldnotcry in front of him. “Your rejection was confirmation that I was fanciful, naïve. You told me I wasn’t mature enough, wasn’t good enough—”
“I remember every word I spoke that day,” he ground out as he stood, “and I never said you weren’t good enough.”
The sob rose higher as her eyes grew hot. “It was implied.”
He leaned forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. “No! I was the one who wasn’t good enough. I will never be good enough for you.”
The words hung in the air between them.
Antonio’s chest rose and fell as he stared into her eyes, his expression deadly serious. She stared back, speechless.
“Anna, when you...when you told me how you felt...”
The pain in his voice wiped away her anger. She started to reach out, to lay a hand on his shoulder to comfort him, but stopped before she touched him.
“I had noticed you.” She leaned forward, barely discerning his words over the waves splashing onto the beach and the gulls cawing overhead. “I’d noticed you the week before you told me how you felt.”
“Noticed?”
His shoulders rose then fell as his breath came out in awhoosh.
“Physically.”
Did the earth actually shift under her? Maybe it was watching the waves move up and down that gave her the sensation of being caught at sea, tossed back and forth in a maelstrom.
“So when you said you had no interest in me...”
“You’re just a child, Anna.”
The look of disgust on Antonio’s face froze her in place as dread built in the pit of her stomach.
“We’ve had fun the last few years, but your head is always in the clouds. For God’s sake, you’re a child!” he repeated. “We could never be a couple.”
She stared at him. “But... Antonio, I—”
“Don’t say it.” He cut her off. “I heard you the first time. You think you love me, Anna, but you don’t. You love a fantasy you’ve built on fairy tales and who you think I am.”
“That’s not true!”
He laughed. A cruel, harsh sound that tumbled from his lips as he looked away from her toward the sun setting over Granada. Her heart ached as the golden light illuminated his face. How could he look so handsome when he was breaking her dreams into a thousand pieces?
Then his gaze swung back to her, pinned her in place as his brown eyes hardened. “It’s best if whatever relationship we had ends now.”
No!What had she done? If she’d just kept her mouth shut, if she hadn’t told him how she felt, she’d still have her friend.
“Let’s just pretend this never happened. I won’t bring it up again, I promise.”
He shook his head once.
“It’s too late for that. Goodbye, Anna.”
Antonio sucked in a shuddering breath. “I said what I had to. To get you to let go.”
“So you made a decision for me?”