Page 38 of Devlin

Her voice trembled at the end, but she sucked in a sharp breath, steadying herself. “And now you think you can just… what? Show up with dinner and talk your way back in? Ten years, Devlin.” She let out a shaky laugh, but there was no humor in it. “I had to rebuild myself from the ground up because of you. And you think you get to waltz back in and just… throw out an explanation, and it’s all fixed?”

Devlin’s chest ached, but he held her gaze, refusing to look away. “No.” His voice was rough and raw. “I don’t think that. I don’t think I deserve anything from you, Mia.”

Her lips parted slightly as if the admission surprised her.

He swallowed hard. “But I do know one thing. I regret it. Every single day, I regret it. And I will spend the rest of my life proving that to you if you let me.”

Mia studied him for a long moment, her eyes unreadable. Finally, she exhaled and shook her head.

16

Mia’s heart had been pounding ever since she’d sat on her bed, facing Devlin. The air in the small, container-like room felt stifling, pressing down on her. She instinctively knew that whatever they talked about tonight would alter both their lives. Yet in truth, her heart had been hammering from the moment she’d first laid eyes on him again.

But in her wildest dreams, she’d never imagined the words that had just come out of his mouth.He hadn’t cheated.The shock of it stole her breath and left her momentarily frozen as her mind struggled to process. Others might whisper that he was lying, but Devlin never lied. That had always been one of his defining traits. It was why, if he had opened his mouth and told her the truth ten years ago, she would have believed him. But he hadn’t.

He’d let her suffer. He’d let her grieve their relationship, their love, and their future. He let her believe he had destroyed it with another woman in their bed. And now, this?

She stared at him, unblinking. Not because she was overwhelmed with relief—there was none. No weight lifted off her chest. No breath of fresh air filled her lungs after a decade of suffocating pain. If anything, the air grew heavier, thick withanother layer of betrayal. She grappled with the bitter truth that he had let her believe the worst, knowing the agony it would cause. There was no relief in this confession, only another layer of betrayal.

He had known what she thought, what she’d gone through, and he’d let her. Let her hate him. Let her mourn him. Let her leave. And now, his unwavering gaze remained locked onto her, the tight clench of his jaw revealing his own turmoil. His hands flexed open and shut, a nervous tell she had learned years ago.

Her thoughts tangled, unable to settle or land anywhere except on the unshakable truth. He had broken her then, and now he was twisting the knife all over again.

The blanket around her shoulders suddenly felt suffocating. She let it drop and straightened her spine. “I think you should leave.”

He blinked, then shook his head as he stood. “No, Mia. I’m not leaving.”

Her chest tightened at his defiance, at his absolute gall to stand there and act like he had any say in this. Her jaw locked, and she could barely spit out, “You’re not leaving?” She stared in disbelief, her gaze sharpening into something lethal.

His arms spread wide, palms up in a pleading and insistent gesture. “No, I’m not. That’s the whole problem, Mia. I let you walk away ten years ago thinking the worst, and I’ve hated that ever since. But I told myself that by doing so, you could live your life, and I had to deal with it, even though it hurt both of us.”

She let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Hurt both of us?” she echoed. “You have no fucking clue what I went through, Devlin. None.”

He swallowed hard but pushed forward. “I wrote you a letter?—”

She jumped to her feet. Her scoff cut through the air, sharp as a knife. “A letter? A goddamn apology letter that didn’texplain anything other than you were sorry it ended the way it did! Do you hear yourself? You let me believe I wasn’t enough, that I wasn’t worth the truth, and you think a ‘gee, I’m sorry you’re hurt’ letter was supposed to fix that?”

She stepped closer, her anger vibrating under her skin, nearly unbearable. “Tell me something—when you wrote it, did you intend to send it? Or was it just something you did to make yourself feel better? Another way to justify letting me go?”

He winced. “I realize it wasn’t enough to repair the damage. And I get that… it was stupid of me.”

Her heart twisted painfully, fury warring with something dangerously close to devastation.

He held her gaze as he pointed down at the floor. “But, Mia, we’re here. Right now. Together,” he rasped. “Don’t you think that means something?”

Mia inhaled sharply through her nose. “Maybe it means I should have my head examined for even listening to you,” she growled.

“You know me?—”

“Iusedto know you?—”

“No, you know me,” he ground out. “There are things about us that aren’t the same, but deep inside, you know me.” His voice dropped to a low intensity, his words forceful like a storm about to break. “If I thought for one moment that the best thing for us was for me to walk out that door right now, letting you hate me, I would do it. But what we had was worth fighting for, and I didn’t fight for it years ago. If you don’t think it’s providence that we randomly ended up in the same place, at the same time, on the other side of the fucking world, then I know you’re lying. And one thing about you, my Mia, is that you don’t lie.”

Her heart clenched so tightly in her chest that she winced, and she plopped down onto the side of the bed again, afraid her legs would no longer offer support. Her nails dug into her palms,rage bubbling along every nerve because part of her did know him. That was the problem. Because if there was one thing she could still do after all these years, it was fight.

And if Jim Dev thought he could just walk back into her life, say a few words, and expect everything to fall into place—oh, no.

Mia felt the air shift as Devlin crossed the small space. His long strides ate up the distance between them before she could react. He sank down beside her on the bed, one leg bent, the other foot planted on the floor as if he belonged there.

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