Briony reached out and laid a tentative hand on his arm. “I forgive you, Cass. It wasn’t the best way to go about things, but I know your heart was in the right place.”
Cass shrugged her hand off and stepped back.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make excuses for me,” Cass snarled. “My heart was focused solely on making your father feel backed into a corner, to make him feel the way my aunt did and as if he had no choice left but to do what I said.” He leaned in, his eyes no longer golden but dark and hard. “I wanted to bring you before him so that he could be reminded every day that he had messed up. Your very existence damages his pride.”
Each word landed like a punch to the stomach. But Briony didn’t back down. She went toe to toe with him.
“And how about now?” she challenged. “Or are you just so determined to keep me at arm’s length that you’re telling me all this?”
“I’m telling you because it’s the truth,” he snapped back.
“Yes, but you’re missing the other half of the truth!” she cried. Dear God, could the man be any more pigheaded? “You apologized. You told me everything. You offered me choices.”
“I never should have put you in that position in the first place.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” she agreed. “But everyone makes mistakes, Cass. It’s how we react to the people we’ve hurt with those mistakes and how we respond moving forward that matters. From what I’ve seen, Daxon is stuck in an endless loop of selfishness. Agreeing to the contract was more about his own pride than saving the country he hurt. My stepfather and stepsisters cared more about wallowing in their own grief than overcoming our loss as a family. I’m working on accepting that it’s not me who’s to blame for any of it. They are who they are—self-absorbed people who don’t bother to look beyond themselves.” She poked him in the chest. “But you aren’t like that!”
Cass met her gaze, his jaw tense, eyes blazing. The tension in the air between them crackled, shifted from anger to that electrifying intensity that always seemed to be just out of reach.
Please kiss me again.
Cass jerked back as if she’d spoken the words out loud.
“You have a good heart, Briony. But you make far too many excuses for the people who hurt you.”
He started to walk off. She blew out a frustrated breath.
“You know what I think the other part of your problem is?” she called after him. “You’re a stuffed shirt.”
Cass’s steps faltered, then stopped. She watched his shoulders rise up toward his ears then fall. Had she said too much?
No, she told herself.You never say enough.
Slowly, he turned.
“A stuffed what?”
“A stuffed shirt.”
He frowned. “Is that like a stuffed bird?”
Briony groaned. “No. It’s an expression. It means formal, boring, pompous.”
A glower darkened his face as he took a step in her direction.
“I can assure you no one has described me as boring.”
“You spent how many years focused on getting revenge? And then once you have it, all you do is feel guilty for achieving what you’ve been working on for so long and attend meetings. What else do you want out of your life, Cass? When are you going to start living?”
Would it be rude to dig out her cell phone and snap a picture of the thunderstruck expression on his face?
“This coming from the woman who spent six months being a servant to her abusive family?”
She raised her chin, determined not to let him see how much the cruel but accurate comment hurt.