Chapter 8 #2
"So that's what you think I am?" I push off the wall, my hands flexing at my sides. "Just another Hale waiting to destroy you?"
"I think…" She stops, her throat working as she swallows hard. "I think it doesn't matter what I think. This fake marriage proves it, doesn't it? We're using each other. I find a way to keep my land, and you seal the deal on your merger. It's transactional. It's exactly what our families do."
"Using each other," I repeat the words slowly, letting them hang in the air. "Is that what prom was? A transaction?"
Her face pales, but she doesn't back down. "That night was a mistake."
Her words hit hard, and I have to take a breath before I can respond. "A mistake?"
"Yes," she says, but her voice wavers, and she turns away from me, pacing toward the window. "It was...it was weak. I was weak. I let my guard down and—"
"And what?" I close the distance between us in three strides, grabbing her wrist gently but firmly, making her face me. "You let yourself feel something? You let yourself want something that wasn't approved by your father or filtered through decades of family bullshit?"
"Let go." She tries to pull away, but I hold firm.
"Not until you admit the truth." I lean down, forcing her to meet my eyes. "You're not hiding behind the family feud because you believe in it. You're hiding behind it because it's easier than admitting you're scared."
"I'm not scared." But her pulse racing beneath my fingertips betrays her.
"Liar." I release her wrist and step back, running both hands through my hair in frustration. "You're terrified. You're terrified that if you let yourself care about me—and I mean really care—I might actually stay this time. And that scares you more than me leaving ever did."
Leaving, she planned for. Leaving, she expected. Staying, she doesn't know what to do with.
"You don't know what you're talking about." She wraps her arms around herself again, that defensive posture that's becoming all too familiar.
"Don't I?" I let out a harsh laugh. "You took off your mask that night. You let me see you, and then you ran. You've been running ever since, and now you're using our families as an excuse because it's convenient. Because it's safe."
"Safe?" her voice rises, anger flashing in her eyes. "There is nothing safe about any of this! Nothing safe about being in this room with you, about having to pretend to be your wife, about—" She stops abruptly, her hand coming up to cover her mouth, like she's said too much.
"About what?" I press, moving closer again. "About feeling something real for once?"
"Stop." She holds up a hand, keeping me at a distance.
"Just stop. You want to know the truth? Fine.
The truth is that our families hate each other for a reason, and whatever happened between us that night…
" her voice cracks. "It was always going to end badly.
This…"—she gestures around the room—"this fake marriage is proof of that.
We can't even be real with each other. We have to hide behind contracts and clauses and business arrangements. "
She's not wrong. I saw this as my opportunity to finally have her and capitalized on it.
I hid behind the contract, used it as armor and invitation all at once, but only so I could have moments like this, have her alone, where she couldn't hide behind her father's opinions and a feud that has nothing to do with us.
"We don't have to." I keep my voice level, controlled, even though every instinct is telling me to close the space between us and make her listen. To make her see that the contract was never the point. She was. "We're choosing to. You're choosing to."
"I'm not choosing anything tonight except to be done with this conversation. I'm going to take a bath, and then I'm going to go to sleep in that bed alone." She pauses at the bathroom door, her hand on the frame. "I took the couch last night. It's your turn."
The door closes between us with a soft click that somehow sounds louder than if she'd slammed it.
I hear the water start running as the tub fills, and I sink down onto the couch, elbows on my knees, and run my hands through my hair.
I replay every word, every look, every crack in her armor, and what I keep circling back to is this: she never said she didn't want me.
She said it was always going to end badly. She said we can't be real with each other. She said our families hate each other for a reason. She threw up every excuse, every defense, every rational argument for why this can't work. But she never once said she didn't want it to.
I lean back against the couch, closing my eyes.
Tonight, she fought me instead of shutting down completely.
That's progress, and I have time. Three hundred and sixty-three days of closed doors, careful distance, and walls she thinks are impenetrable.
A year of her trying to convince us both that this is just business, just a contract.
But here's what I know: Asha Fairfield doesn't run from things that don't matter.
She doesn't cry over things she doesn't care about.
She doesn't fight this hard for something she's not terrified of losing.
And tonight, for the first time in years, she fought.
Tomorrow, she'll go back to being cold and distant.
She'll avoid eye contact over breakfast and pretend tonight never happened, but I'll know the truth.
I'll know that somewhere underneath all that fear and fury, there's a girl who took off her mask for me once.
A girl who showed up to watch me ride. A girl who came to Lexington looking for something she was too scared to name.
A girl who just spent twenty minutes fighting with me about why we can't work instead of simply walking away.
A girl who never said she didn't want me. And that's enough. For now.