Page 159 of The Secret We Keep
Her head turns to me with caution. “Yes, it is. You’re too scared to go back to work, so you’re testing your skills on me.”
“Testing my skills? What the hell are you talking about?” My gruff voice sounds angrier than I mean it to, but I can feel my hackles starting to rise. I hate her thinking that I would do anything like this to her.
“You’re using me to see if you can still help people. Well, newsflash, City Boy, you can’t.”
City Boy?
That irks me. “Morgan, you’re talking nonsense.”
She springs off the bed like a jack-in-the-box. “Am I?” she hollers, both of her hands going into her hair. “Then prove me wrong. Explain it to me, Paddy. Explain to me why you let me close, then you push me away, over and over again.”
A tsunami of pain washes over me.
When Morgan notices my expression, she lets out a breath, steadying her shaky voice. “I don’t understand any of this. I love you, but it’s clear that has only ever been one way.”
Her words have me on my feet and closing the gap between us. “That’s bullshit,” I choke out, one hand holding the sheet around my waist, the other cupping the side of her face.
She tries to pull away but for the first time ever, I don’t give her the room. Fuck that. Not this time. She can’t think that the feelings I have for her aren’t real.
“I always do right by the people I love, you know that.”
Morgan frowns before she laughs. It’s fake. Filled with animosity.
“What is it you want me to do?”Because I’m trying here, baby. I’m really fucking trying.
“I don’t think you and I are right for each other. As friends, we’re great, but like this,” her hand flicks between us, “it’s not going to work.”
She might as well have put a bullet in my brain. Agony. Total. Fucking. Agony. That’s all I feel.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I?” she counters with a snap, and I have never seen her so sure about anything in my life. I stare at her. Muscles tense and rigid. My throat burning. “I actually take back thanking you for putting so much time into me,” she huffs distastefully again, before turning to the window in our room. “I mean, if you didn’t provoke these wild emotions in me, I wouldn’t have done half the things I have in the time we’ve been hanging out. I thought I was grateful,” she lets loose a pained sigh, “but I wish you had never bothered.”
I turn on the spot, scrubbing a hand down my face. Seeing her so emotional is tearing me to pieces. I have to look away. I have to gain some fucking composure. “Spending time with you was never about me. I wanted to spend time with you because I fucking love you, Morgan. You helped me in a way that I didn’t know I needed. The only thing I regret is leaving here three years ago. But everything else I would do a thousand times over if it meant I got to spend more time with you.”
“So?” she says softly but dismissively, with enough force to hurt.
I turn to face her. “So,” I begin, edging closer to her, gripping the sheet tighter. “I would give up everything for you in a heartbeat if I knew it would make you happy.”
“Why?” she asks, this time looking over her shoulder at me.
“Because I love you, curly fries. Always have done. Always fucking will do.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No.” I take another step forward. “You’re my be all and end all, Morgan Brooks. My forever. The reason why I’m still here working a shitty arse job with my old man.” I swallow and take a breath, keeping my emotions in check.
“You’re here because you can’t go back to work yet. Don’t make out like it has anything to do with me.”
“Actually, I was given the all clear to go back last weekend.”
Her voice raises instantly. “What?”
Sweet Jesus, I keep making this worse. I blow out my cheeks. “Tom called me.”
“So you lied to me? Twice.” Her voice cracks like frozen ice.
I bite the inside of my mouth, tasting copper. “I’m sorry.”
