I wanted to tell him he sounded like a petulant child, but I wasn't about to pick a new fight when we already had one we needed to resolve.
“I wanted to talk to you,” I said. “But I can't when you're like this.”
He snorted and grabbed a bottle from the floor. “Thought you would've gotten the hint by now. I don't want to talk to you.”
My eyes burned, but I refused to give in to tears. Instead, I pulled my anger closer and used it to keep myself focused.
“I just wanted some time to myself. I mean, we just spent a week non-stop together. It was fucking claustrophobic.” He took a drink from the bottle. “I don't think it's too much to ask to be left alone for a few days.”
“That's what you want?” I curled my hands into fists. My entire body shook with anger. “You accuse me of being manipulative, among other things, and when you've been proven wrong, you run away.”
He glared down at me. “What was I supposed to think?”
“What were you supposed to think?” I barked out a bitter laugh. “How about you were supposed to trust me?!”
He shrugged and staggered over to the window. “Trust you? That's a laugh.”
“Excuse me?” I moved forward a few steps. “You were the one who told me our entire relationship was based on trust. And I trusted you.”
He grimaced as he glanced over his shoulder. “Spare me the self-righteous shit.”
“I'm not pregnant, you asshole!” I'd never been a violent person, but right now, I wanted to slap him. “I never was! So I didn't lie! I didn't trick you or any of the other shit you accused me of! I didn't do anything wrong!”
“Why didn't you just tell me that it was Juliette's?” he asked. “I mean, you're so smart. You should've figured it out. It's not like you forgot she was there.”
I stared at him, hardly believing what I was hearing. Was he seriously going to blame me for what happened? Sure, in the heat of the moment, I'd forgotten that Juliette was sharing a bathroom with us, but that was hardly reason to blame me. Just because I hadn't been able to come up with a different person to blame, an explanation that made sense, didn't mean his behavior was justified.
“It shouldn't matter if there wasn't another explanation. It shouldn't matter if the evidence pointed to what you thought.” I took a step toward him. “You should've trusted me.”
He turned, his eyes blazing. “Trusted you? Sure, Hanna, I should've trusted you.”
His words were still blunted, but his anger seemed to be sobering him enough to get out what he needed to say.
“I went after you,” he continued. “That day. I went after you so we could talk.” He gestured toward a box sitting on the coffee table. “Bought you a gift, even.”
What was he talking about?
“I went to that restaurant. Saw you there, with that guy.”
For a moment, I had no clue who he was talking about. Then it hit me. Tucker.
“He looked like he knew you real well.”
I folded my arms. “Yes, he did. We grew up together.”
Cross's laugh was brittle. “I'm sure you two were good friends. Did you have fun catching up?”
“Actually, we did, asshole. Unlike some people, Tucker can actually manage polite conversation without accusing me of being a horrible person.”
Cross's eyes narrowed. “Tucker. As in your ex-boyfriend who fucked you then dumped you? No wonder he looked familiar with you. Did the two of you get reacquainted now that you've gotten some experience under your belt?”
“You bastard.”
He drained the last of the amber liquid from the bottle.
“I trusted you to take care of me.” My voice trembled, but I forced myself to say it all. “I believed in you. Took you home to meet my family–”
“There was your first mistake,” he cut me off, “thinking I wanted anything to do with your family. Or any family for that matter.”
I flinched and hated myself for it. I couldn't help it though. Everything I thought we were moving toward, he didn't want, had never wanted. He'd called me his lover, his girlfriend, but I assumed that meant we would eventually become more, that we'd have a family together. I never once considered that my fears had been right, that he didn't want a future with me.
Now, however, I could see that I should've listened to my sister after all. She'd warned me to stay away from him. For the first time, I regretted that I hadn't.
“I wish I'd never met you.”
I turned and walked away, half-hoping he'd come after me, tell me that he hadn't meant any of it, that he was just scared that he might lose me. All of the things the heroes in romance novels did when they realized their woman was walking away.
But he didn't.
I managed to hold back the tears until the taxi dropped me off in front of Juliette's apartment building, but they started to flow the moment I stepped inside. I could barely see or breathe when I walked into the apartment, and then Juliette's arms were around me, and she held me as my heart broke, as my world fell apart.
Chapter Ten
Cross
I let the water beat down on me, and closed my eyes, knowing I would have a hell of a hangover once this was all done, but the pain that would come with sobriety, I knew, would be worse. I started drinking as soon as I'd gotten on the plane, and I hadn't stopped since. Whenever I felt the buzz fading, I found more to drink. By the time Hanna surprised me at home, I'd made my way through most of the alcohol I had in the place. The only thing I hadn't touched was the wine, and that was because it didn't do anything to help me forget. I needed something stronger for that.
Now, with Hanna's last words ringing in my head, I knew there wasn't enough booze in the world to make things better.
I wish I'd never met you.
The pain knifed through me each time I remembered the expression on her face, the venom in her words. I wished the alcohol could make me forget what I said to her. All those horrible, awful things that I never thought I could ever say to anyone, much less the woman I loved.
And that's what made this so much worse than anything I'd ever done before. I loved her. For a while I thought that was all that mattered. Then, when she'd asked me to meet her family, I'd thought it was just about making her happy. I'd been nervous, of course, but it wasn’t until I'd seen that pregnancy test that it hit me all at once. It didn't matter how much I loved Hanna. I had my life, and I was happy with it. I didn't want anything else.
Except I didn't have Hanna now.
She walked out, said that she wished she'd never met me.
I didn't know how to handle this. In the past, I'd had sexual partners who'd gotten too attached, and I'd had to make sure they understood I wasn't interested in anything long-term. It'd been so long since I'd cared about anyone for more than just sex that I'd forgotten what it was like to deal with real feelings.
“Fuck it all,” I muttered as I climbed out of the shower.
Hanna had left. She didn't want to see me again, wished that she'd never seen me in the first place. She hadn't given me a chance to really explain how panicked I'd been, why I'd acted the way I had. She hadn't even tried to understand what I'd been going through.