But even that would never be enough.
She had taken off her ring. And he would wear it until he died.
As a reminder. Of what love had looked like.
Before he destroyed it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Hannah
“HANNAH…”
She didn’t want to hear her name in his mouth.
Not like that. Not soft. Not reverent.
Not like he still had the right to say it with love.
She stared at the floor instead of his face. Because she couldn’t take it. Not the voice. Not the way he looked at her. Like she was still his.
Had he whisperedhername?Sienna’sname.
Had he spoken soft words into another woman’s neck? Had he groaned them against someone else’s skin?
She didn’t want to know.
But wanting had never stopped pain before.
Daniel let out a broken sound. He dragged a hand over his face like he could claw himself out of his own skin.
“It wasn’t the same,” he said. His voice cracked open on the last word. “I love you.”
Something in her splintered. Not in a fiery, dramatic way.
A small, cold crack.
A quiet fracture through something she didn’t know was still whole.
But she didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. She kept her arms crossed tightly across her chest and forced herself to look at him. Even as everything inside her screamed to run.
“You didn’t have to love her,” she said. Her voice was quieter than she meant it to be. Unsteady. Thin. “You just had to want her enough.”
And he had.
She couldn’t stop thinking about it—the want.
That Daniel hadwantedsomeone else. Had chosen someone else with his hands, his body, his time.
That he’d reached for someone who wasn’t her.
Her throat tightened, but she met his eyes anyway.
He looked like he was being crushed from the inside. Like if she breathed wrong, he might fall apart.
She wanted him to. She wanted to see it hurt.
“Did you think about her,” she asked, “when you were with me?”