Page 55 of Knot Your Romeo

He settles into the chair, and immediately the space feels too small, too intimate. His presence wraps around me, bringingback memories of our afternoon by the lake, the way he'd kissed me like I was something precious.

"Your hair," he breathes. "It's beautiful, but...what happened to the rest of it?"

Now I look up, meeting his concerned green eyes. "Nothing I couldn't handle."

But Eli knows me well enough to read between the lines. His jaw tightens, and I can see his alpha instincts stirring. "Who hurt you?"

"It doesn't matter." I close the book, preparing to leave. "It's handled."

"Jolie, please." His hand moves toward mine on the armrest, then stops just short of touching. "I know I hurt you. I know I was a coward about what happened between us. But if someone else hurt you—"

"Then what?" I finally look at him directly, seeing the conflict in his eyes. "You'll protect me? Take care of it? Be my knight in shining armor?"

"Yes," he says simply, and the conviction in his voice nearly breaks my resolve.

"Until when, Eli?" I lean forward, keeping my voice low but letting the pain I've been carrying bleed through. "Until your scars bleed again? Or until you decide I'm not worth the risk?"

He flinches like I've slapped him. "That's not what happened."

"Isn't it?" I stand, clutching the book to my chest like a shield. "I offered you everything I had, and you only gave me part of you because you're still in love with a ghost."

"Kate is—"

"Kate is gone," I interrupt, feeling tears prick my eyes. "She left you three years ago, Eli. But you're still waiting for her to come back, aren't you? Still hoping she'll realize she made a mistake and choose you after all."

The raw pain that flashes across his face tells me I've hit the mark. "You don't understand—"

"I understand perfectly." I move toward the door, but he stands, blocking my path. "You're terrified that if you let yourself love someone again, they'll leave you. So you push people away first. You make sure you're the one doing the leaving. So what is this? You want to be my friend?"

"That's not—" He runs his hands through his hair, frustration radiating from every line of his body. "Jolie, please. Just let me explain."

"There's nothing to explain." I try to step around him again, but he moves with me, his larger frame effectively trapping me between the chair and the bookshelf. "You made your choice clear when you pulled away from me. You're not ready for an Omega, remember?"

"I was scared," he admits. His voice is so quiet that I barely hear it. "You're so young, so full of life. I couldn't bear the thought of watching you realize you'd settled for a broken Alpha when you could have anyone."

The vulnerability in his confession nearly undoes me. But I've learned the hard way that good intentions don't protect hearts from breaking.

"I'm not Kate," I say firmly. "I wouldn't have left you for my scent match because youaremy choice. Biology didn't make that decision for me—I did. But you couldn't see that, could you? All you could see was your own fear."

"I see it now," he says desperately. "I see you, Jolie. I see how strong you are, how brave. I see you chose me over Romeo, over biology, over everything that should have mattered more. And I threw it away because I was too much of a coward to believe I deserved that kind of love."

Tears are flowing freely now, but I swipe them away angrily. "You don't get to do this, Eli. You don't get to break my heart and then show up with pretty words when it's convenient for you."

"It's not convenient," he protests. "I haven't slept since you left my cottage. I can't eat, can't focus on anything but the memory of how you looked at me when I rejected what you were offering. I've been going out of my mind trying to figure out how to fix this."

"You can't fix it," I whisper. "Because the problem isn't what you did—it's what you couldn't do. You couldn't trust me enough to believe that I meant what I said. You couldn't trust yourself enough to take the risk."

"I trust you now—"

"No, you don't." I finally step around him, putting distance between us before his proximity destroys my resolve. "You're still the same scared Alpha who would rather be alone than risk being hurt. And I deserve better than that."

The words hang between us in the quiet bookstore, and Elias stares at me like I've just delivered a death sentence. His face pales despite his tan.

"Jolie," he says. "Please don't give up on us. I know I don't deserve another chance, but I'm begging you—"

"There is no us, Eli." I back toward the door, clutching the book so tightly my knuckles are white. "There never really was. That was just me, fooling myself into thinking I'd found something real."

"It was real," he insists, following me. "What we had was the most real thing I've felt in years. Don't let my cowardice destroy that."

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