Page 68 of Because You Loved Me

But when he’d carried her inside and kissed her…the way they’d made love…hadn’t that communicated everything that needed to be said?

The way he was looking at her now, the words he’d just spoken—the reality of it all crashed down. They hadn’t been communicating their feelings, not at all.

It had been a goodbye.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

How had she been so stupid? He’d never wanted this. Never wanted her.

She’d started this. She’d created this chaotic mess they were in.

She’d end it.

She’d had a lifetime of pushing her feelings down and compartmentalizing them. So she did what she knew how to do and put the lid on her heart that was threatening to shatter into a million pieces and opened her eyes.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

His fingers were still laced through hers. It felt like a last tenuous connection but she wasn’t ready to let go. Not yet.

“I thought it was best to be honest.”

Honest.

“And? What did the two of you talk about?”

She didn’t want to know. She didn’t care.

She already knew.

“You, of course.” Before she could ask, Asher added, “He didn’t seem to know who I was.”

Or what he meant to her.

“I don’t know if that makes it any better.”

They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“He told me the two of you are meant to be together. That no one knows you the way he does.”

She opened her mouth to object, but closed it again. It was true that she and Ryan had been through a lot together. But there was a lot he didn’t know. Things she’d told Asher instead. It didn’t feel like the right time to bring it up.

“Ryan’s always been a pretty confident man.” What she wanted to say, what she should have said, was that it didn’t matter what Ryan thought because she didn’t want to marry him. Not then, not now, and not ever. But the words didn’t come out. “He told me the same thing the other day when I spoke to him on the phone.”

Asher nodded, as if she’d just confirmed his suspicions.

“He said it wasn’t too late to make things right, but?—”

“To make it right?” Asher’s eyebrows lifted. “And that’s what you’re going to do then?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’tnotsay it, Noa.” He smiled, but there was no humor behind it. “You know what else you didn’t say?”

Again, he tried to laugh, and Noa could tell he was trying to keep the conversation light when there was nothing light about it.

“You didn’t tell me how things went with your family today. Not that you need to. I just…it doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t it?”

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