“You’re a fool! Get back inside,” he roars.

“Don’t leave!”

He shakes his head, already taking me by the shoulders so he can push me back. “Lainey, go back inside!” he demands, his voice rising over the wind and the traffic. “You don’t have fucking shoes on.”

God, he’s pissed. With his dad, with me. We’ve made it so impossible for him.

“Please don’t leave.” My voice breaks with emotion, but he doesn’t listen. He’s so intent on being rid of me.

I can already feel the moment starting to slip through my fingers. He’ll deposit me in the lobby and disappear, this fleeting window for honesty will end, and we’ll be right back where we started—enemies.

I can’t bear it.

I can’t endure another breath knowing he hates me.

“I’m sorry!” I shout suddenly, so overcome with emotion that I nearly choke on the words. “I didn’t mean to play a part in any of this—”

“Don’t,” he cuts me off, his jaw locked tight.

“You have to listen, Emmett.” I grab for him, desperate to get it all out. “The last few months have been unbearable. I’ve tried to please everyone. I’ve tried to play the perfect part for my grandmother, but it’s killing me. I’m catatonic, day in and day out. I hear rumors about you, where you are, who you’re with—”

“Where I am and who I’m with has nothing to do with you!” he erupts, so intent on letting his anger get the best of him.

Already, freezing tears are starting to slip down my cheeks.

“How can you say that? How can you be so blind?!” I jerk out of his hold and push his chest again and again so that he’s forced to step back, my momentum carrying us down the sidewalk, away from the hotel. “It’s my heart you stomp on, my fucking soul you crush beneath your ruthless acts. ‘It has nothing to do with me’ and yet every rumor of you with another woman is a knife in my chest. I care for you though you’re an utter fool, a selfish…unkind man.” The longer I rant, the cooler my tone becomes until eventually, I just sound totally defeated. “You have no regard for anyone but yourself. Don’t you see that? I’m in this too. I’m the one you injure in this war with your father.”

Still, he doesn’t listen. “You put yourself in the middle of this, Lainey. You’re to blame as much as me.”

“You’re right. I am equally to blame. But do you know why I was so willing to go through with my grandmother’s request of me? Beyond my desire to please her?” I get right up close to him, my head tilted back, my gaze clashing with his. “You want to know my deep dark secret?” His dark eyes bore into me as I continue faintly, “Because I love you.”

No.

I look down as I amend, “I loved you. Once, when I was younger. I built you up as some fantastic mirage of a man. I left you roses on the dock every night when you swam—”