Page 40 of Devlin

“I was so broken,” she finally said, her voice barely above a whisper. “When I saw the look in your eye as you leaned against that bathroom door… dressed only in a towel, hanging low on your hips… and that woman in bed behind you, with what looked like sex hair and no clothes…”

She winced at the memory, the sharp pain of it slicing through her all over again. “I looked at you, waiting for you to tell me it wasn’t what it looked like. That I had it all wrong. But you said nothing. You just cocked a damn brow at me and stood there so casually, like you were daring me to say something. And when I ran… I thought you’d come after me. I sat in the parking lot for a few minutes, waiting, sure that as soon as you got dressed and realized I’d left, you’d follow. But you didn’t.” Her voice cracked slightly. “And my heart broke. I’ve never felt pain like that before. Not in the past ten years. Not even once.”

She exhaled shakily. “After that, I wondered if everything you ever told me was a lie.”

“Mia,” he rasped, his voice thick with emotion, “I swear, I have never lied to you. Not once. I let you believe the worst because… at first, I was shocked that you were standing there. And then, I realized that letting you believe it would set you free. And maybe, just maybe, you’d be better off.”

Mia swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat refused to budge. She could barely look at him, could barely hold theweight of his words, because the sheer audacity of it—of him deciding she needed to be set free, of him choosing for her—was almost too much to bear.

Her voice came out cold, flat. “You thought you were doing me a favor?”

Devlin flinched, the guilt on his face stark in the dim lighting. “I?—”

“No.” She cut him off, her eyes burning. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to sit here and act like some noble martyr. You shattered me. And you had a choice. To fight for me. To tell me the truth. And you let me walk away.”

She exhaled sharply, pushing off the bed to put some space between them. Because if she stayed too close, she wasn’t sure if she’d lash out or completely fall apart.

Pacing the small room, she ran a shaking hand through her hair. “Do you even know what it did to me?” She turned back to him, her eyes flashing. “Ten years, Devlin. Ten years of believing I wasn’t enough. That I was a fool. That everything we had meant nothing. And you let me believe it, knowing it would rip me apart.”

His jaw clenched, but he didn’t try to argue.

She inhaled deeply, trying to steady the trembling in her hands and voice. “I was broken. And instead of pulling me back, you let me drown.”

His head dipped forward, his hands scrubbing over his face. He looked exhausted, worn, wrecked. But that didn’t change anything.

When he lifted his gaze, his eyes were red-rimmed, filled with something she wasn’t sure she wanted to name. “I thought I was doing the right thing,” he rasped. “I thought… maybe, if I was gone, you’d be free of me. That you’d go after your dreams instead of trying to save me from myself.”

Mia exhaled sharply. “You don’t get to decide what’s best for me.”

He nodded slowly, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “I know that now.”

Her breath was uneven, her body trembling. She should still be furious. She was furious. But beneath it, something else clawed at her ribs—grief. The loss of all those years. The life they could have had.

She clenched her jaw and forced herself to push past it. “And what about that letter?” she demanded. “The one where you didn’t deny a damn thing and only said you were sorry?”

His jaw tensed. “Because after you left that day, I lost it. I went into a rage. Cheryl felt awful—she was crying, saying she’d talk to you and try to explain. But all I could think about was that you deserved better than me dragging you down. So I told her not to worry about it. Later, I found out she tried to call you, but you had already changed your number.” He let out a slow, bitter breath. “A couple of weeks later, I was drowning in regret. I wrote you that letter because I never meant to break your heart.”

His eyes squeezed shut for a moment, and she could see the pain radiating from him. When he looked at her again, his voice was a hoarse whisper. “I swear on my life, my Mia, I never meant to break your heart. But I did. And my own broke right along with it.”

She let out a shuddering exhale, pressing her fingers against her temples, hating the way her body reacted to those words. The way a traitorous part of her wanted to believe him. Because this was the Devlin she had loved. The one who never lied. If she had thought he cheated, it was only because he let her believe it. The silence between them stretched tight, fragile, neither of them moving.

Finally, she exhaled sharply and wiped at her cheeks, hating how vulnerable she felt. “You still don’t get it, do you?” Her voicewas soft but razor-sharp. “It wasn’t just about what I thought happened that day. It was about everything after. You let me leave. You let me go.”

His face crumpled, pain slicing through his expression. The words hung between them, heavy and raw.

17

Mia let out a slow breath, her heart thudding unevenly in her chest. The weight of the past ten years sat between them, thick and unmoving, but something was shifting, something she couldn’t quite put words to yet.

Devlin had always been solid and unwavering. Even now, with the raw confession of his regrets laid bare, he had a steadiness, a quiet certainty that made her pulse race in a way she wasn’t prepared for.

“What did you do to get help?” she finally asked.

He exhaled sharply, rubbing his hands over his jeans. “I did what my captain ordered. I worked with Markowitz’s wife and kids, and made sure they had what they needed. I contacted your parents and best friend, but they shut me down. I leaned on my parents, and they wanted me to find you. But when I tracked down one of your classmates, they told me you’d taken a full-time job in Haiti. So I let you go.”

"And other women? Other relationships? It's been ten years. How often have you been in love?" She wasn't sure why she asked those questions because she didn’t really want the answers. But the words were already out, and she could hardly pull them back in.

His lips pressed together, and for a moment, she wasn’t sure he would answer. Then he spoke, his voice raw. “Other women? Yeah. Not as many as you might think. Other relationships? No. Been in love?” He shook his head. “Not once. The longest anything lasted was a weekend.”

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