Page 45 of Gluttony

He…yearnedfor her?

You did feel that connection, so you know he’s telling the truth. So why are you being such a pussy ass bitch now?

“So how long would it have taken you to finally put me out of my misery? You say I was helping you, and I know you were helping me, but when was that supposed to develop into something bigger, better, something whole and healthy?”

“I don’t know! I was scared, okay?” she finally admitted, though she knew he’d known all along. “I wanted to be with you, Damian, more than anything, but I was so fucking scared that you would take one look at the broken, ugly, real-life Valentina, and you’d run for the hills.”

“So…after all that we knew about one another, after all that we shared about one another, after opening my heart and soul to you, telling you how I felt about you, the bottom line is that you didn’t believe me.”

The blood drained from her face, her mouth dropping open in shock.

“You didn’t trust me. Despite everything you said, about how you wanted to be with me, how you cared about me, how you wanted a future with me, you still didn’t trust me to wantthe same things? You honestly thought that I was just blowing smoke up your ass, that I was just saying what I thought you wanted to hear. I was lying, right? I couldn’t possibly mean it when I said I loved you and I didn’t care what you looked like, right?”

“No,” she blurted, “you’re twisting this?—”

“Am I?” he interjected, “or am I just not willing to take the full blame for what happened?”

Shaking her head, she tried to organize her thoughts, to make sense of what he was saying, but that voice, that bitchy too true voice, was there, taunting her,“he’s right…you did this, too….”

No! She hadn’t lied to him, betraying him. She’d been truthful from the start.

Were you? Truthful? With yourself?

“How long, Valentina, before your love for me outweighed your fear of the taking that risk? How long would you have made me wait because you were scared? How long, Valentina, did you expect me to let your fear dictate my hopes and dreams?”

She didn’t even know where to begin to answer that, not that she had time, since his phone rang right then.

He grunted, pulling the cell from his pocket, and peering down at the screen. Anger slashed his features as he declined the call and shoved his phone back into his pocket.

“Robocaller?” she asked, willing to say anything to break the tension between them. Anything but what she really wanted to say.

Like how you were both in the wrong, and how you feel like shit for making him feel like he isn’t more important than your goddamn fear?

Yeah. That.

He shook his head. “Just some bullshit that won’t stay gone.”

Aw fuck, there was that persistent curiosity of hers, and he must have seen in sparking to life on her face because he narrowed his eyes at her and cupped her chin.

“Nuh uh, not right now,” he asserted, making her pout. His mouth curled into a panty-melting lopsided grin. “You’re adorable when you don’t get your way, you know that?”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Let’s circle back whatever the hell that was you were talking about.” Yeah, she surprised herself with her willingness to continue their painful, but fucking necessary, conversation. Her life might seem like the worst romance novel right then, but she’d be damned if some cliché miscommunication trope ruined her chance at a happily ever after.

He narrowed his eyes, his jaw working as he ground his molars together.

“What I was talking about was how miscommunication and lack of trust kicked our asses from the jump.”

Yup, there it was.

“I didn’t communicate with you, and you didn’t communicate with me about our definitions of ‘wait.’ I didn’t consider that you meant something different, and you didn’t consider that I meant something different. Mistakes were made because neither of us considered the other. I fucked up by not even considering celibacy, I get that, I own that, and I realize that it only sharpens your lack of trust in me. Then again, my Daisy, you had so little trust in me to begin with.”

She shook her head, unable to peel her eyes away from the agony in his gaze.

Once again, tears burned the backs of her eyes; he was right.

“It wasn't you that I didn’t trust, Damian,” she murmured, loving that she could call him by his real name, a perk he’d only ever offered her. “It was…it was the circumstances I didn’t trust.”

She didn’t trust that what they had wasn’t too good to be true.

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