Kiss the Stars (Falling Stars #1)(103)

I reached for him, my hand curling around his wrist. Fire streaked up my arm. This man who I was connected to in some intrinsic way. “Don’t you dare walk out on me, Leif Godwin.”

He jolted like he was shocked, his voice haggard, refusing to look at me. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be, Mia.”

“Any harder than it has to be?” My head shook. Frantic. Disoriented. “I trusted you. Put my faith in you. Took all your reservations because I could see that you were haunted by your demons. I took on that pain, Leif, and I let it break me.”

I touched my aching heart. That place that he held in the palm of his hand.

I angled around, trying to get him to look at me. To listen. To hear me. “And you know what, it was worth it. It was worth it because we met there. In the middle of it. In a place that was just for us. And from it, you promised we were going to build a life together. That we were going to make this thing work.”

He whirled around, spite on his tongue as he released the foul-words into the bitter air. “Yeah, and I also promised you that I was going to ruin you.”

“You’re a liar.”

His face blanched at my accusation.

White as a ghost.

Grief curled around me. Terrified of whatever was happening in his dark, bleak mind.

I pressed on, refusing to let him just walk out.

“You’re a liar,” I repeated, “if you say this doesn’t mean something. You’re going to stand there and pretend like you don’t want me? That you don’t feel me? Pretend like you don’t know that we belong together?”

His sorrow darkened the atmosphere.

Finally, he looked at me.

Those sugar-brown eyes held nothing but torture.

His soul slaughtered.

“You’re right, Mia. I am a liar. I’ve been lying to myself. Telling myself that I could possibly have this. That I could have you. That I might in some small way be deserving of those kids.” He pointed aggressively in the direction of the guest wing. “Time to give up the ghost. Because guess what, those ghosts are here for me.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means I can’t fucking have you, Mia.”

“No.” My head shook, and a sob crawled up my throat. “No. I . . . I know you’ve experienced the worst kind of sorrow in your life, and I know the kids’ father was on the phone and that’s going to be hard to navigate, but—”

He had me pinned to the wall in a flash.

I gasped. Words silenced beneath the potency of this man.

Gloom covered me whole.

An eclipse.

But this darkness? It was vile and depraved.

He pressed his hands to the wall on either side of me as if he were trying to hold himself back, his nose pressed to my cheek as he grunted the anguished words, “You don’t have the first clue, Mia. Don’t have the first clue what I’ve done or what I’m getting ready to do. And I promise you, when I’m done? You’re going to hate me.”

He ripped himself back.

Torment and malice written in his expression.

Then he turned, nothing but a storm that thundered through the house as he moved for the front door.

Despair ravaged through the middle of me.

Violent.

Fierce.

Overwhelming.

I ran after him.

It didn’t matter that it probably made me a fool.

That I was desperate.

Pleading.

We’d come too far, experienced too much, shared too much hope for me to let him just walk out.

Without an explanation.

Without a reason for the poison he was spilling on our lives.

I was a foot behind him when I rasped, “Then tell me you don’t love me. Tell me that was a lie.”

Leif whirled around.

I nearly hit my knees when his hands landed on my face in the same second his mouth crushed against mine.

He kissed me. Kissed me in a way that sheered through my heart. Cut all the way to my soul.

I could taste it. The guilt on his tongue and the surrender in his spirit.

He pried himself away, hands still holding me tight. “Doesn’t matter how much I love you, Mia. It won’t change who I am. And me pretending that it will? It’s only going to hurt you more in the end. And that’s my honest.”

Then Leif pulled his hands away as if he’d been burned by the shame, turned his back, and banged out the door.

“Leif . . . please, don’t leave me.”

He didn’t turn back.

Didn’t stop.

And that was the moment when Leif Godwin finally brought me to my knees.

Ruined.

Just like he’d promised.





*



“Hey.” The bed sank down at my side as Tamar’s worried voice filled my ears. Gentle fingers brushed through my hair where I was curled up in a ball.

My face buried in the pillow.

As if it might stand the chance of burying the heartbreak.

But I didn’t think there was enough dirt on Earth to fill up the hole Leif Godwin had left.

My falling star that had burned out far too soon.

I guessed I’d been the fool who’d tried to catch him.

“How are you doing?” Tamar asked softly.

I sniffled. No use in pretending I hadn’t been shattered in two. “Terrible. How are the kids?”