her gasp in horror.
But Mr. Stallworth misunderstood. He misread. Because as she gasped, he smiled, and the smile was cunning and...wrong. That was the only warning she had before he reached for her, pulling her close, and pressing his lips to hers.
Her body froze at the unnatural contact. Everything in her recoiled at the feel of his cold lips on hers, so foreign and so at odds to the beautiful, warm sensations that had flooded her when she’d kissed Everly.
She shoved him back as hard as she could, and he stumbled away from her. “What—? What’s wrong?”
His look of shock might have been comical if she hadn’t been shaking with rage. “How dare you?”
He held up his hands as she stalked toward him. “Sarah, please—”
“How dare you take such a liberty with me?” she continued. “How dare you come back here after all this time—with a fiancée —and expect to pick up with me as though nothing had changed.”
His shock began to fade and what was left was ugly. So ugly.
“How dare you?” she repeated, her hands shaking at her sides as rage and fear left her drained. “I deserve better. Your bride-to-be deserves better.”
“You don’t even know the girl,” he started.
“I don’t need to.” She straightened to her full height. “Any lady deserves better than you.”
His lips curved into a sneer. “Oh, I see.” His skin turned a mottled red as he dropped any pretense of kindness or love. “Everly’s gotten into your head now, has he?”
Her brows drew together in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“You sound just like him,” he said, walking backward, his sneer making her stomach churn with unease.
“Just like...who?”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what he did back then.” He sniffed, his eyes hooded and filled with resentment. “He caught me trying to meet up with you that night and gave me the whole speech, much prettier than you just did.” His mocking tone made her ill. “He talked all about how no matter what I did to you, he’d never let me marry you. That he’d make sure you were never mine.”
She blinked in shock. She’d known Everly had seen Mr. Stallworth that night, she knew that he’d run him off…
“He promised he’d never let us be happy, so of course I moved on. Can you blame me?”
Her insides churned, her heart ached, but she still managed to whisper. “Yes. Yes, I can.”
“Sarah,” he started again, but she did not give him a chance to try again. She could practically see him recalculating, his mind racing with new games to play, new angles to try. He’d always manipulated her. She could see that now.
“Enough,” she said, the anger gone from her voice now as weariness set in. Exhaustion. “I am glad you moved on. I am sorry for your bride, but I am glad that I was not so foolish as to be caught in your games.”
“I never played games—”
“I don’t want to hear another word from you,” she said again, harsher this time. “Go. Go find your bride and make sure you treat her better. If the poor girl is stuck with you, the very least you can do is treat her with respect.”
He muttered oaths under his breath but one last look at her eyes seemed to be enough to convince him that he’d lost her...if she’d ever been his to begin with.
She hadn’t. She knew that. But as she watched him walk out the way he’d come in, she had to wonder what it said about her that she’d ever fallen for his lines in the first place.
More than that, how could she have clung to memories of that man. It was so clear to her now that he was nothing but treacly smiles and sugary words.
But just like sugar and pastries, his kind of love would dissolve on the tongue after the first taste. It was made of nothing that lasts. That sort of affection lacked substance. And what she’d felt in return...it was little more than a childish infatuation.
Her mind instantly went to Everly. She suspected whatever these feelings were that she was starting to feel around him were made of something else entirely. Her heart twisted in her chest with the realization. More than a year spent pining over the wrong man, while the real threat to her heart was right in her midst.
And he was a threat. She shut her eyes, the sound of her heartbeat in her ears in the silence that followed Mr. Stallworth’s