“You’re an amazing man, with so much to offer, so many good qualities, but you’ve sold yourself some line of bullshit that you’re no good, that you don’t deserve good things, that you don’t deserve to be happy. It’s like you’re punishing yourself—still. You won’t listen to anyone who tells you differently. God knows you won’t listen to me, but you’re hurting yourself, and now you’re hurting me too. I love you, Cole—yes, I said it and I mean it,” she added when his eyes jumped to hers, “but I can’t seem to make you see the man I see, the man I know, the man I love, because you’re too set on believing you’re still that angry teenager who made some mistakes. We all make mistakes, and we have to get over them, let them go, move on, but you can’t. You’re stuck, and I can’t help you!”

She stood there for a good five seconds, catching her breath, watching him, willing him to ask her to stay, to apologize, to…anything. But all he did was rub the back of his neck while an angry tic pulsed in his temple. He didn’t even look at her.

And there was her answer.

She closed the distance to the door, wasting no time now, anger, disappointment, and sadness warring within her, blurring her vision with tears that she refused to let fall. With the door open, her hand on the knob, she paused, looked over her shoulder at him. “I hope you can figure your shit out, Cole. If you do, let me know. Otherwise”—she swallowed the lump in her throat—“I can’t be with you anymore.”

Cole stood next to the breakfast bar as she closed the door somewhere between quietly and an all-out slam.

There it was then, what he’d been expecting all along. The other shoe had dropped. Sierra had left him.

There was no satisfaction in having been right though.

She’d said she loved him. She wasn’t the type to throw those words around for impact, so he was pretty sure she meant it.

As that sunk in, he battled with himself. He hadn’t wanted her to love him. Hadn’t wanted her to care enough to be hurt, because there was no question in his mind she was hurting. And yet, when she’d said those three words, her voice raised in anger and frustration with him, there was no denying…a part of him wanted nothing more than her love, wanted to be the man who deserved her love.

Too bad he didn’t know how to be that guy.

He slammed his fist down on the countertop again, punctuating it with a “Dammit!”