Love Bug (The Prescotts Book 3), Tara Wyatt [best mobile ebook reader .txt] 📗

“You say you lied to protect me, but you left me open to being blindsided to protect yourself.”

He opened and closed his mouth, scrambling to find the right thing to say, his brain spinning uselessly.

“But you know what hurts the most? It’s not that you lied to me. It’s that I trusted you with everything I have, and you don’t trust me the same way. You broke my trust, and you showed me just how uneven this relationship is.”

“It’s not uneven. Willa, I love you.”

“But you don’t trust me. Not enough to let me in.” She pushed up off the couch and paced to the window. “You didn’t have enough faith in me or us to tell me the truth.”

He stood too, shoving his hands in his pockets. “So you’re telling me that if I’d told you that I’m partially responsible for my girlfriend’s death, it wouldn’t have changed anything between us?”

She spun to face him, her arms out at her sides. “I don’t know! It might’ve. I don’t know. What I do know is that finding out you lied to me, that you don’t trust me has absolutely changed things.”

He closed the distance between them and took her hands in his. Her skin was pale, her hands like ice. “I only lied to try to prevent you from getting hurt. I need you to know that.”

She shook her head and took her hands back, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t know what to think,” she said, her voice trembling.

Desperation tore at him and he shoved a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry I lied, Willa. I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

She blew out a breath and wiped at her eyes. “But you did. You did hurt me.”

“I—”

“I don’t want to hear more excuses, Max. You lied for your own selfish reasons and you need to own that. I don’t want to hear that you did it to protect me. That’s bullshit. You did it to protect yourself because you weren’t willing to let me in. To let me see the real you. You did it because you don’t trust me enough to be vulnerable with me.” She turned back to the window. “I fell in love with an illusion.”

“No, Willa. I’ve never been more real with anyone.” He didn’t know how to make her see that. He could feel her slipping through his fingers and didn’t seem to be able to do a damn thing to stop it.

“And yet, I’m still finding out about your past from a damn news article. Even though I asked you about it and you had a golden opportunity to tell me. To let me in. But you didn’t have enough faith in me or us to do that. Were you ever going to tell me the truth? Or were you just going to keep lying to me for years to come?”

“I…” He exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, guilt and anxiety and dread all weighing down on him like a boulder. “I don’t know. I didn’t think it through. All I knew was that I wanted to keep that part of myself, my past away from you.”

“How would you feel if the situation were reversed? If you’d asked me about my scar,” she said, pulling her shirt aside and pointing at the faint scar near her collarbone left by her chemotherapy port, “and I’d told you it was nothing, just a little accident, and then you find out from somewhere else that I’d actually had cancer and had just not told you that part? How would you feel?”

He sank back down on the couch, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “I’d feel like I didn’t know you as well as I thought I did,” he admitted. “I’d feel like you shut me out because you weren’t comfortable letting me in.”

Her eyes met his. “And that’s where I am right now.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, Willa. I shouldn’t have lied to you. But we can move past this, and—”

“I don’t know, Max. I love you, but…this is a lot. I’m shaken. I’ve had the rug pulled out from under me, and I’m questioning a lot of things right now.”

His stomach heaved and his heart hammered against his chest, so hard it almost hurt. “Willa, I know this is a lot to take, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I lied. It was a stupid, knee jerk move, and I regret it. But please don’t think that this means that I don’t love you. Because I do.”

Her features tightened, and he could tell she was fighting back another wave of tears. “I know,” she said softly. “I know that you love me the best way you’re able.”

Fuck. Fuck. This was why he’d lied in the first place. To try to prevent her from seeing the damage. Knowing how she’d look at him if she knew who he’d once been.

She took a breath, rubbing her fingers over her lips. “I love you. I do. And that’s why this is so hard for me…” She bit her lip, her brow furrowed. “But I think we should hit the brakes.”

“What?” He felt like he’d been punched in the chest, pain vibrating through his body at the realization that he might actually lose Willa over this.

“Things have been moving pretty fast, and I just…I need some time to think. I need some space to process all of this and figure out how I feel. I’m still reeling right now. I don’t know what to think. I love you so much, Max, but I don’t know how to plan for a future with someone who won’t let me in. Who can’t be vulnerable with me.”

He felt completely at a loss as to what to say or do to fix this. He’d apologized. He couldn’t take the lie back. He didn’t know what else he could give her that would make things right. And now she was