Page 137 of Keeping Kasey
Because otherwise, the things I did…
I don’t know how to twist this, spin it, or use it to my advantage.
When she stormed out of my office—the truth hanging over me like a guillotine—I didn’t have a single word to say.
I barely reached my chair before collapsing into it.
Heat flooded my chest, but no amount of deep breaths could smother the flame.
What was I thinking?
But I knew the answer.
I could disguise it before as hatred for her betrayal, but now that I know the truth, I have to face the grim reality.
She left.
I loved Kasey. I asked her to stay. I all but slid a ring onto her finger.
And sheleft.
The office door opened and shut, and I knew it was Damon who left—probably to go after her.
“What now?” James had asked.
I laughed—a haunted sound.
“What now?” I barely lifted my head enough to show him the hopelessness crushing me to pieces. “Now I try to justify putting Kasey through hell so I can live with myself.”
It was the truest thing I’d said in months.
“She still lied about the attack and the program being hers. She still ran,” he said, reading my mind exactly.
It was one of the very rare moments my brother told me what I wanted to hear instead of what I needed to hear.
He said it himself last night—I’m in over my head.
“The things I did…” I shook my head. “She’s never going to forgive me.”
“Do you want her to?”
Yes.
But I couldn’t say that. I shouldn’t have been sayinganyof that.
I should’ve been planning our next move.
I made mistakes, and now I needed to ensure they weren’t for nothing.
“I want the traitors out of our family,” I told him. “But she can’t be our prisoner.”
“That won’t be as easy as saying sorry.”
“I won’t be saying sorry.”
I can’t afford the weakness. Not even for her.
“What then?”
