“I still think about that night,” he says, his voice distant, as is his gaze. “How you looked. So gorgeous in that costume. How carefree you were—and drunk. You were always locked up so tight most of the time when it was just the two of us. Only giving me pieces of yourself here and there, like stray little crumbs I couldn’t help but gobble up.”
“I was scared,” I admit.
His gaze jerks to mine, surprise etched in his face. “Scared of what? Me?”
I shake my head. “Never you. Just of—the repercussions of you.” Nothing good lasts. I learned that early on.
We don’t look away from each other. It’s like we can’t.
“I gave you everything when I was younger.” He removes his hands from his pockets, taking another step toward me. Until he’s so close, I can feel his body heat reaching toward me, drawing me in. “Yet you pushed me away every single time.”
“I was an idiot.”
Spence shakes his head, his expression grim. “No. I was the idiot. Always there for you. Never turning you away, even though you rejected me constantly. I let you use me.”
He reaches out, his fingers landing on my face. Tracing the line of my jaw slowly. So slow I close my eyes, my lips parting. God, I still savor his touch. His closeness. The very essence of him.
“I was young and stupid,” I whisper, my eyes flashing open. I suck in a breath when he dares to touch the corner of my mouth. My entire body prickles with awareness, waiting for him to make a move, but nothing happens.
Much to my disappointment.
“I was too.” His voice is harsh, slashing into my precarious emotions, shredding them to ribbons. “I’m not the same person I was back then. I’m stronger. Meaner.”
My brows draw together. Meaner? I can’t imagine Spencer ever being mean.
Especially to me.
His fingers drift down, until they’re gently circling my throat, his thumb pressing into my skin. “You don’t know what I’ve been through the last couple of years. How much I’ve changed.”
He doesn’t know what I’ve been through either, and how I’ve changed as well. Maybe we’re too different now. We don’t have anything in common anymore, and the realization…
Makes me sad.
“Pretty little fairy princess with the roses tucked in her gold-spun hair.” His words are sweet, but his touch is crushing. His fingers tighten, making the air stall in my throat and my eyes flash open to find him watching me, his eyes glittering in the darkness.
There’s a matching darkness that lies within him. I see it now. Can feel it surround me, holding me in its grasp, much like his fingers around my neck.
“You look like pure innocence, Syl. In that blue and white dress and the flowers in your hair. But I know the truth. You willingly married that man, and he was a pig.” He jerks me forward, pulling me by the neck, and my body collides with his, my skin tingling upon impact. “How was it, fucking the old man? Did you enjoy it? Could he even get it up?”
I stare up at him, trying to find my voice. He doesn’t know. He thinks I let Earl touch me, but my husband wasn’t interested in me. Not like that.
And I never understood why. Never questioned it.
I preferred it. I didn’t want him to touch me. The only person who’s been inside me, is the very man whose fingers are currently around my neck.
“You’ve been tainted, you know that?” He presses against the underside of my chin, tilting my head back as he bends over me, his mouth hovering above mine. Tempting me to rear up and press our lips together. “Fucking ruined for life, Sylvie. I hope you enjoyed your time with that asshole, however brief it was. No one will want you now. Especially me.”
He shoves me away from him before I can say a word, leaving me gasping for air. Bending forward, I rest my hands on my knees, swallowing hard as I try to catch my breath. The flowers fall out of my hair, one by one, landing on the ground with a soft plop. Yet he doesn’t say another word.
Just walks away and leaves me there alone, fending for myself.
“You’re a liar, Spencer! I know you still want me!” I call out to him, though he doesn’t look back. Of course he doesn’t.
I watch him walk away, anger and pain hitting me like a double punch to the heart. For the first time in my life, I feel utterly abandoned by Spencer Donato.
And it hurts far more than I ever thought it could.
EIGHT