She sighed, not able to stop the tears now. “You didn’t just break my heart, Kaegan. You destroyed it. You had been my only boyfriend ever. The one guy who was supposed to love me and believe in me, yet you didn’t. You were quick to believe the worst about me and the very thought of that devastated me. I never thought you would do me that way. Reject me so callously. Make me feel like I was nothing to you. That all our years together meant nothing. I had nobody to talk to. Vashti was attending college in New York and I was too hurt to tell my parents or my brothers anything. So I went through that time alone.”

She paused a moment, trying to collect herself, and then said, “Samuel, the same Samuel you accused of being my lover, was there for me. He became worried about me to the point where he persuaded me to go see one of the therapists on campus. The same one who’d helped him deal with a lot of things. In my senior year of college when I should have been happy because of my accomplishments, I was fighting depression and struggling with self-esteem. Because of you, my confidence took a nosedive.”

“Bryce, I—”

“No, Kaegan. No more apologizing. I want you to stand here and listen. I graduated without you being there and I came back to Catalina Cove. Everyone wondered what had happened between us and I couldn’t tell them that the man I’d loved all of my life thought I was shit.”

She swiped at her tears. “So don’t you dare say that I’m willing to give up on us so easily. You gave up on us ten years ago. And now that you find out the truth you want me to just fall in line. It doesn’t work that way for me. You said you were sorry and I’ve accepted that, but I meant what I said about not wanting you in my life as a friend or anything else. You are a liability to me. You are the cause of so much pain. Pain that I simply refuse to go through a second time. We can never pick up where we left off because I doubt I could love you again. You destroyed my ability to not only love you, but to love anyone, Kaegan. A part of me will always resent you for doing that. Now if you will excuse me, I’m going back inside.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

KAEGAN PULLED HIS truck into Bryce’s yard and came to a stop. He glanced at the package on the seat beside him. It was dinner her mother had prepared and asked him to bring. He knew Mrs. Witherspoon and figured she was well aware that he was the last person her daughter would want to see today, yet she’d asked the favor of him anyway.

After opening the truck door, he got out and grabbed the bag off the seat beside him. As he made his way to the door, he thought about the conversation they’d shared in the garden at the dance. She had unloaded a lot that night and she’d poured out the depth of her pain and her disappointment in him. Now he understood why she didn’t want them to be friends. She didn’t just not trust him with her heart—she refused to trust him with her well-being. Now, more than anything, he had to prove to her that he wasn’t that young Kaegan who’d grown up with insecurities that he’d allowed his father the power to play on them. He was a much older, wiser and more secure Kaegan.