Actual Stop (Agent O’Connor #1)(39)

“That isn’t fair, Luce.”

“Fair? Oh, this’ll be good. I’m not being fair.”

“No, you’re not. How does me looking at Allison in any way diminish how I feel about you?”

“You can’t be serious!”

“I’m absolutely serious. Tell me how.”

Lucia folded her arms defiantly, and a harsh scowl twisted her features into something unpleasant. I’d never thought I’d ever describe her as anything less than beautiful, but I was close now.

“You never look at me like that,” she muttered angrily.

“How do I look at you, then?”

She refused to meet my eyes and didn’t answer.

I rubbed the outsides of my index fingers with the pads of my thumbs. If she’d been drinking, she probably wasn’t logical enough to rationalize with on this point, but I was determined to try anyway.

“Luce, you and Allison are two different people. I’ve had different experiences with both of you, and as a result, I have different feelings for you. I don’t think you should compare my past with her to my present with you.”

Lucia gaped at me. “You don’t?”

“No. I don’t.” I wanted to say a million other things. That I really cared about her. That she was the first woman since Allison who’d made me feel anything. That I wanted to make an honest try at a future with her. But the words stuck in my throat, nearly suffocating me. I swallowed hard, determined to dislodge them and say something—anything—to reassure her, but she spoke first.

“So you do still love her.” The statement was forced, and she choked on it a little.

I sighed heavily and sank back into the cushions of the couch, then tilted my head back and briefly passed my hands over my eyes. God, I wished I were better at this lying thing. However, that I wasn’t was telling in and of itself. I could lie all day to people I didn’t give a damn about. One look from Lucia, and I crumbled, blurting out the truth.

“I honestly don’t know. I think maybe I love who she was to me, if that makes any sense. Isn’t it always like that with your first love?”

“She was your first?”

I nodded, even though the question had been rhetorical and Lucia wasn’t even looking at me.

“She left you, then.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I winced. “It’s a long story.”

A caustic laugh escaped her lips. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The request unsettled me. I wasn’t sure whether it bothered me more that she was asking or that it would hurt to tell it. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s over.”

“You don’t think I have a right to know?”

Annoyance flashed white hot behind my eyes, and I clenched my teeth. “No one has ‘the right’ to that story. It was between Allison and me. No one else. And it’s finished.”

“I just want to know what she did that broke you. What was so bad that I wasn’t enough to mend.”

I looked away, clenching my jaw and glaring at the far window. My hands trembled. She didn’t understand anything at all. Not if that’s what she thought. Because she was enough to mend me, as much as I was capable of being mended. But she wanted me free of any and all emotional baggage, and that simply wasn’t realistic. Not at this stage. We were both way too old for that to be a possibility.

I opened my mouth to tell her so, but before I could get a word out, Lucia rushed on, cutting me off. Again.

“That’s what she did, you know. She wrecked you, and then she threw you away just like a child does with a toy that no longer holds her interest. And you know what? I don’t know if you can ever be fixed. You’re f*cked up, Ryan.”

The undercurrent of her words was sharp, borderline cruel. I’d never heard her speak with such disdain before. That alone jarred me and set me on edge, but the words themselves would leave permanent scars. I wanted to fight back yet run away.

“That’s not true.” My voice was a harsh rasp, but she’d expressed my greatest fear. I’d always secretly worried that maybe something was wrong with me. And now she was confirming it.

A cynical laugh bubbled up from inside her, and I winced. “Isn’t it? You’re detached, Ryan. You talk a good game and act like you feel things, but nothing touches you. At least not the things that should. You won’t let them. Instead, you prefer to make people fall in love with you yet continue to feel nothing for them. You get validation without any risk to your own heart. You’re cold, and you’re heartless, and no one else matters to you but you.”

I shook my head. She was hurt because she thought I loved someone else, and that defense mechanism of alchemizing pain into anger was prompting her to say these things. The animalistic response to lash out when injured was causing her to look for my weaknesses and press on them hard. She didn’t really want to wound me and would regret her words eventually. I knew these things, but her statements still stung.

I wanted to start swinging back. I was hurt now, too, and infuriated and resentful. I wished I could tear into her, cutting fast and deep, leaving her bleeding. I wanted to injure her for saying those things to me. For deliberately being cruel. For making me question myself. Or maybe for giving me the answers to questions I’d always been afraid to ask.