Starting Point - Elle Aycart Page 0,57
She was moving on—and breaking his heart in the process. “I was very clear from the beginning, wasn’t I? Don’t look at me like that. You got to fuck me. What else did you want?”
She knew what he wanted. He’d been very open about it. “I want you. You, heart included, not just your body.”
Her expression was hard. “Not on the table. Never was.”
“Why? Because you’re sick? I told you—”
“How I choose to spend my time is my business and mine alone. I want to live life to the fullest. I gave you the two weeks you asked for. You and NoName were fun while it lasted, but now we’re through.”
He’d never seen Megan this resolute. She turned around and walked toward the asshole.
So this was why she’d insisted on keeping it casual? Why she’d never admitted they had a relationship, or spoken to him about her feelings?
The asshole said something in her ear, and she laughed. He offered his hand, she took it, and they headed to the dance floor.
That was it for Alec. He couldn’t watch anymore. It was clear Megan had moved on. He couldn’t even say she was drunk, because she moved with confident grace and her speech was unslurred. Maybe she’d just needed liquid courage to put him in his place.
Such an irony. From the beginning, she’d insisted she wasn’t a charity case. And she wasn’t. He’d been the charity case. He’d followed her around like a puppy, dick and heart in hand, ready to serve her. Begging her to love him. Imposing himself on her.
No more. Unable and unwilling to see Megan with someone else, he turned around and left the place. If that was what she wanted, he wasn’t going to get in her way.
Megan managed to maintain the charade long enough for Alec to storm out of the club. Thank God, because she couldn’t stand it any longer. A minute more and she would have broken.
The guy in front of her—Larry or Harry, she wasn’t sure—was getting handsy, trying to grab her by the waist and bring her against him. His mouth was dangerously close to hers, so she turned her face away. She couldn’t even muster a smile. She lifted one finger. “Give me a second. Bathroom’s calling.”
She made it to the bathroom, her heart in her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. She closed herself in a stall and leaned against the door. It was done.
She knew how important trust was for Alec. If there was something he couldn’t forgive, it was breaking trust. Betrayal. Unfaithfulness was something Alec would never put up with. It had shattered her heart to speak to him the way she had, and all but killed her to leave with that guy. Every cell of her body had rebelled against it. She’d wanted to throw herself at Alec, hug him, and ask him to take her away from that place.
She had to be strong, though. She had to shatter any image Alec had of her. Only then would he let her go. Yes, he would hate her, but that was preferable to the alternative.
Megan knew Alec was the one for her. He was the one she wanted to run to for comfort, for pleasure, for fighting shit out. Whatever was going on with her, she wanted him by her side. And that was why he had to leave her—because she was so in love with him, she could never walk away from him of her own volition. And they had to part ways. She wanted him to have a life. He didn’t have to suffer with her.
By now she was crying a river, something she hadn’t done since Jess died. Crying was useless. It solved nothing and it was a waste of energy. She’d accepted her lot—or so she’d thought. Yet now she couldn’t stop bawling her eyes out.
So much so that someone knocked on the stall door. “Whoever he is,” a woman’s voice said, “he’s not worth it, honey.”
But he was. Alec was so worth it.
She shut her eyes. It didn’t help; his face was stamped on the inside of her eyelids. How hurt he’d looked. The warmth in his caramel eyes had gone out like a light, leaving them cold, inert. He’d never looked at her like that before. It had sliced so deep.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been in the bathroom, or how long she’d been sobbing, for that matter, but it was about time to pull up her big girl