Echo (Black Lotus #2)(24)

“What are you doing?”

I turn to the house and see Declan standing at the front door in a pair of tailored slacks and an untucked button-down. My heart’s beat immediately responds to him, and I murmur, “Nothing. Just looking at the grounds,” while I walk over to him.

He looks down at me as I walk up the steps leading to the front door, and when I get a whiff of his cologne, I want so badly to jump into his arms. To make this all disappear. To go back in time so I can do it all differently. To save him from the cliff of goodness I shoved him off of.

But he doesn’t say a word as he gestures with his hand to enter his home.

It takes nearly all my strength to stay on my feet when I step inside the massive entryway. Looking up and around, everything has been remodeled in an elegant, contemporary flair of whites and ivories. The foyer spans the length of the house, and you can see straight to the back where it opens up to the large, glassed atrium. Everything is bright and peaceful, except for the man who walks past me.

I follow as cold darkness leads me into an elaborate sitting room, which has yet to be remodeled. The walls are lined in aged wooden bookshelves that hold hundreds and hundreds of books. So many you can smell the pages and leathered bindings. An antique chandelier hangs over the large seating area of leather wingback chairs and a tufted chesterfield sofa that’s identical to the one he had in the office of his loft back in River North.

Declan takes a seat in the center of the couch, offering no welcome when he speaks. “Say what you need to say.”

And suddenly, everything I thought about saying last night is gone. I have no words as I look at him. I walk closer, and instead of sitting on the couch with him or on one of the chairs, I sit on the wooden coffee table right in front of him, and when I do, he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

We don’t speak for a while; we just look into each other’s eyes. Mine filled with pain and sorrow; his filled with chilling anger. Threatening tears prick and burn, but I fight to remain strong, when truthfully, I’m a shattered little girl, yearning to cling to the solace that’s right in front of me and never let go.

With a shallow breath, my eyes fall shut, pushing a couple tears down my cheek and I whimper, “I’m so sorry.”

I can’t bear to look at him in my insurmountable guilt for what I’ve done. My head drops to my hands as I will for strength, but it doesn’t come. That’s the thing with Declan, he’s always had a way of making it difficult for me to lock up the truth of my emotions. He’s the one person who was able to strip down my barricade and make me feel—truly feel.

When I finally open my eyes, he hasn’t shifted. His hard face remains, unaffected by my tears.

“Say something,” I whisper. “Please.”

Creases form along his forehead, and his eyes look to ache, when he finally does speak, asking, “Why did you do it?”

I vow to myself to stop all the lies. To give him transparent truth about everything. If that makes me a savage in his eyes, which it undoubtedly will, then fine. Because if he’s going to judge me, I at least want him to do it honestly.

“Revenge,” I finally admit.

“I want the truth,” he demands.

“I married Bennett with intentions of destroying him,” I say, and then pause before adding, “I married him to kill him.”

He releases a heavy puff of air in disbelief. “What the f*ck is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know . . . I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“What I told you was a lie. The story about me growing up in Kansas and my parents’ death. It was all a lie.” The guilt has festered long enough, and I crack. My words bleed from the cobwebs of my soul, and I cry as the wounds shred apart. “I don’t know how to make it right, but I want to. I never thought I would fall in love with you the way I did.” My words spill out through my constricted throat.

“Tell me why,” he snarls. “What did he do to you that you’d want him dead?”

“He murdered me. I wanted payback.”

Declan’s jaw grinds, and I go on, explaining, “I was happy . . . When I was a little girl, I was happy. I lived with my father, and then one day . . . ” I choke on the agony of my words. “ . . . One day he was taken from me. Arrested. I was only five years old when it happened. It was all Bennett’s fault. My dad was sent to prison and I was sent to hell.”

I stop when I can’t speak anymore and simply cry. Choking in broken gasps of air while Declan just sits here—a stone of a man with eyes of disbelief, confusion, anger. It hurts to look at him, but I do it anyway.

“I never saw my father again, and when I was twelve years old, he died in prison. Killed by another inmate.”

“What did Bennett have to do with this?” he interrupts.

“Because . . . it’s a long story,” I exhaust.

“You owe me the truth.”

“He . . . he thought I was being abused by my dad, but it wasn’t the truth. He told his parents, and the authorities were called to investigate, but instead they uncovered that he was trafficking guns and arrested him. I know it sounds bad, but he was a good man and I had a good life with him.” My cries erupt harder, blubbering, “He wasn’t bad, he was perfect and loved me, and Bennett took it all away. In a single moment, he set fire and incinerated everything in my world. That * stole my life!”