I been fooling myself all week? Last night, I could’ve sworn I saw real feelings when he looked at me, felt them in the sweet way he’d made love to me, and now this? I really couldn’t believe it.
My hands started shaking and tears welled up in my eyes, their onslaught never ceasing once they started spilling out. Hurt, pain, and rage like I should’ve felt when Will walked out on me raced through me now—like a lightning strike that’d somehow been delayed.
Although dealing with being abandoned once was bad enough. Having to deal with it twice in as many weeks? That was unthinkable. Unimaginable.
Loathsome thoughts churned in my brain, and I couldn’t get them to stop while I packed. Am I really just that unbearable? Am I unlovable? Would I ever find anyone who would really stand by me and have my back?
Sobs kept wracking through me. I couldn’t stop crying. This was the kind of pain people had been expecting me to feel after my wedding had fallen apart. Yet I hadn’t felt a damn thing.
But throw me into paradise and toss a hot guy into my room, and I get my heart broken. Pathetic. I’m utterly pathetic.
I’d never felt quite so downtrodden, quite so defeated, or quite so used. Where do I even go from here?
None of these were thoughts I’d ever had about myself, yet I felt every stinging word of the truth now. Gah. Had I really just been such an easy, vulnerable fucking target for Jaxon? Why yes, darling. You even threw yourself at him.
After a few minutes, I slammed my back into the door and sank down until I was sitting on the floor, hugging myself as I tried to weather the storm of emotion I’d known was coming but had been counting on Jaxon being here to see through with me.
Every nickname he’d called me, every smile and heated look.
Lies.
All of it had been nothing but lies. It couldn’t have been anything else. If he cared about me at all, he wouldn’t have left me without so much as a goodbye.
My whispered words in the early hours of this morning came back to me. I don’t want to say goodbye to you tomorrow morning.
Humiliation laced with mortification spread through my veins. It was too early for it to have gone down any other way. He’d already known when I said that, when he pressed that kiss that’d made me so foolishly hopeful to my head, that he wouldn’t be here when I woke up.
That he wasn’t planning on saying goodbye.
I fell apart on that bedroom floor, finally crying for everything I’d lost in the space of less than two short weeks and everything that had been taken from me. A million miles away from home and without a soul knowing what was happening, I let myself mourn for my future with Will that’d never materialized, but also let myself mourn the end of the best relationship I’d ever had. Even if it’d only been a week long.
The worst thing of all was I was pretty confident Jaxon had ruined me. At least for a while, I wouldn’t even be able to look at any other man.
My heart was shattered.
Broken, bruised, and bleeding, and he’d given it a final stomp before tossing it right back at me. And I hadn’t even been awake to catch the useless damn thing.
Not only that, but he’d also taken that part of me that being with him had unearthed, because there was no way I’d be able to trust that woman’s judgment again.
And so I cried for me, for Jaxon, and for Will. For unrealized dreams and unrealistic plans. For the relationships I’d had and the relationships I’d hoped they would turn into. For the anguish that felt like it’d crawled into my heart for good and for the humiliation that would never leave me.
I reminded myself over and over again that I was a strong, independent woman and that I didn’t need a man. A voice in my head whispered that this one breakdown was okay. That no one could be expected to go through the emotional wringer the way I had and begrudge themselves that one ugly cry session.
When I got up from here, I would be that queen again that I’d told Jaxon I was. But for now, I was going to cry because I already missed his hand in mine and the weight of his arm over my shoulder. I already missed being