Page 102 of Hypnotized By Love

That seemed to stop him from trying to rationalize what he’d done. “The what?”

“That story! About the frog who takes the scorpion across the river when the scorpion promises he won’t sting him and then he stings him and they both drown and you’re the scorpion. I knew what you were, and I took you across the river anyways! I can’t believe I did this.”

I walked into the front entryway and grabbed my purse.

Mason’s hands were on my shoulders, trying to get me to turn around. “Please let me explain.”

I jerked away from him. “No. No more explanations or lies or justifications. There’s nothing else to say.”

This time he kept his hands to himself. “Look, I know that you’re scared—”

“You think this is about me being scared?”

His hands were in his pockets, and he was still calm, his voice even. “Yes, I think you’re looking for an excuse because you’re scared.”

I’d spent all this time thinking that Mason knew me better than anyone, and it turned out that he didn’t understand me at all.

Without saying another word, I walked out his front door and back to my car. I could hear his footsteps behind me and him calling my name. I broke into a run.

“You promised you wouldn’t do this!” he said, and his words both hurt and infuriated me. He didn’t get to play that card with me right now.

I ignored him and was alone when I reached my car. I hurried to put it into drive and went home.

I stewed in my anger, so furious at him for doing this. For making me care about him when all he wanted to do was use me.

Never again. I was never going to trust him or any other man ever again.

Rage fed me the whole way home. I heard my mom call my name when I went into the house, but I rushed upstairs. I wanted to be alone when the dam broke, and as soon as I set foot in my bedroom, it happened, and I started sobbing uncontrollably.

After finding out about the way Bridget had lied to me, I had thought that I didn’t have any more tears to cry.

But this was worse. So much worse. I collapsed into a heap on my floor and cried my heart out. Because coming down from anger, I found that there was nothing but despair and heartbreak waiting for me.

I had trusted him. Loved him. And he had been scamming me the entire time.

“Savannah?” My bedroom door opened, and I was so relieved to see that it was Sierra.

“I thought you weren’t coming home tonight,” she said in a playful tone before she realized that I was crying. She got down on the floor next to me and wrapped her arms around me. “Oh no, what’s wrong? What did he do? Do I need to go over there and slap him around a little?”

In between sobs I told her the whole story, and she held me while my body shook and my chest ached and my whole world fell to bits around me.

He’d been so diligent in knocking down all of my defensive walls, and now that I needed them to guard my heart, they were just a pile of rubble, and all I could do was feel hurt and betrayed.

“What did he say when you confronted him?” she asked.

If I could have laughed, I would have. My initial instincts when he first came back to Playa Placida had been right. Why should I let him explain anything? He would just lie in that smooth, calculated way of his, and I was done with it. Done with being used, done with being made fun of, done with being lied to. “I didn’t let him explain. He always has an excuse.”

“Or a reason,” she said.

“Excuse,” I repeated. “He tried to deflect and say that my reaction wasn’t because of that trashy article he’d written but because I was scared.”

My sister raised both of her eyebrows, and I saw in her expression what I was hearing in my own head—that maybe he was right. That I was scared and had been looking for an exit so that I wouldn’t let myself get too close to him.

That I was the one making excuses.

All of my self-doubt and insecurities rose up inside me, making me question what I’d done and said in that moment.

I’d focused so much on how hurt I was feeling that I hadn’t behaved rationally, and now I was wondering if that had been a mistake.

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