Page 72 of Because You Loved Me

He wouldn’t let her.

He couldn’t look at her because if he did, he was afraid his face would give away everything he was thinking and feeling, and he refused to be weak in front of her. Not when she’d just willingly told him everything he needed to know about the situation.

It was a fling.

A fun distraction.

They didn’t have any kind of real connection. Not like she had with her fiancé.

Ryan had warned Asher without even knowing what he was doing. The two of them had a connection. There was no way she wasnotgoing to go back to him. It had always been inevitable. She wasn’t his. And she never would be.

That was clear.

“Nothing is keeping you here.” The words were sour on his tongue, but he couldn’t stop himself from what came next. “I’ll have two more to take your spot by the end of the night.”

He saw the exact moment when Noa realized exactly who Asher Carlson really was.

Her face crumbled, but only for a moment before she gritted her teeth, took two steps toward him, and slapped him across the face.

“Fuck you, Asher.”

He took the blow without reacting. The sting in his cheek was nothing compared to the pain slicing through his chest. But there was no way he could go back now. He’d committed to his path of being the biggest asshole he possibly could. The only thing he could think of was to push her away and back to the life she was meant to have.

The man she was meant to marry.

“Maybe just give me some sort of timeline.” He doubled down. “You know, of when you’ll be gone, so I can let the ladies know when they should be here. I don’t want my bed to get too cold.”

There was no way he would have believed he was the one saying such awful things to Noa if the words hadn’t come from his own lips.

For a moment, she looked as though she might say something. Her pretty mouth opened and closed. Finally, she shook her head, just a little. “Go to hell.”

She turned and stormed into the little bedroom.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath and rubbed his hands through his hair.

It took everything in him not to follow her, wrap her up in his arms, and beg her for forgiveness for the vile things he’d said. Every cell in his body urged him to go to her, but there was the tiniest part of him that screamed at him to let her go. It was for the best. He’d never wanted her. Orthis.Or any of it. He’d spent his whole life keeping love at bay. Just because a gorgeous, smart, sexy, kind woman had jumped in his truck didn’t mean any of that had changed.

Yes it did.

Everything had changed.

Asher shook his head and tugged at the roots of his hair.

No.

Even if he did want to be with her, to try to make something out of this crazy thing they had going on, it would never work. She deserved more. She deserved the man who knew her inside and out and had been through it all with her. She deserved the man who would sit and wait for her even after she ran out of their wedding because he understood that she might need to sort through some things before committing to him forever.

That’s what she deserved.

What she did not deserve was a man who was married to his work. Who had no idea what he was supposed to do with his time now that the only thing he loved had been taken away. All Asher had was work. That wasn’t enough for a woman like Noa. She deserved so much more.

He turned and slammed his hands onto the tabletop. He dropped his head and let it hang while he worked to collect his thoughts.

Asher had not woken up that morning determined to blow things up between them. Not at all. He could still feel the touch of her skin on his. Their heated bodies and their lovemaking the night before. It had been different. More intense. More—it didn’t matter.

Did it?

Maybe it did. Maybe he was being a giant jackass and what they haddidmatter.

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