15 #3
His eyebrow lifted, like he was almost amused by how quickly I’d rambled on.
But fucking hell. I had tried to be kind. I had tried to be professional, but I had officially reached my limit.
“Are you finished?”
I scoffed.
“Go to hell, you prick.”
The smirk deepened, like I’d just confirmed something for him.
But before he could respond, the door opened again as my father appeared, a bewildered look plastered across his face. “What is up with the two of you?”
I turned immediately. “He wants me to apologise to him.”
Something shifted in his expression. “And?”
I frowned. “And, I don’t think he deserves one.”
The words came out sharper than I intended, but once they were out, they didn’t soften. I felt them building in me after that, like a pressure I couldn’t hold back anymore.
“Come to think of it, I’ll apologise for one thing.
” I turned to face Rihaan, voice tightening, “I’m sorry for calling you egotistical.
Because honestly, I should’ve been more specific.
What I meant was that Rihaan Patel is an egotistical, arrogant dick who is driving his career down a one-way road towards a series of chronic injuries. There. Satisfied?”
“Maeve.” My father’s voice was a sigh, the hints of exhaustion and disappointment clear in my name.
I looked at him properly then.
And something in my chest cracked open at the expression on his face.
Just that familiar, quiet disapproval I’d spotted on him the day I’d visited his house.
“I’m disappointed that you don’t think he deserves an apology.”
The room tilted slightly at his words.
“You’re taking his side?” My words came softer than I’d wanted. But there was a lump growing in my throat.
“I’m not taking sides.”
“You are.”
“Maeve—”
“Again.”
The word slipped out before I could stop it.
And the moment it did, something inside me went very still.
Because suddenly, I wasn’t just looking at him.
I was seeing him.
Not the version I’d built in my head over years of trying to earn something I couldn’t name.
Not the version I’d kept hoping would finally look at me and see enough.
Just…him.
And it hit me, clean and brutal, that I had spent my entire life trying to become someone he would choose without hesitation.
Someone who would finally make him proud enough to stay soft.
To stay kind.
To stay mine in the way I had always needed him to be.
But standing there, watching him defend someone else over me without even realising what it was doing to me—
I understood something I had been avoiding for years.
The man I kept hoping for only existed in the version of him I had built to survive loving him.
And the real one—
The real one had always been here.
My throat tightened.
I swallowed it down.
My father’s phone rang.
He glanced at it, already half-detached, and stepped away to answer.
Just like that. Like the moment hadn’t split something open in me.
When he came back, his expression had reset.
Controlled again. Professional again. “I have to go back out there.” He looked at me briefly.
“I’m not taking his side, Trouble. But I need you to think about it.
Okay? Be a good girl and sort this out before you leave this room. ”
Then he left, and the hurt I’d felt was now laced in with humiliation.
The door shut behind him with a soft, final click.
And the silence that followed felt different now as I stared at the shut door.
“So,” Rihaan started, “are you going to be a good girl, trouble?”
My glare came fast as my head snapped to his.
It had been sharp enough to cut, but it only made his smirk deepen.
“All you have to do is apologise,” he said smugly, “and we can call it a truce.”
“Dream On, Liar.”
He stiffened, his brow furrowing like he was searching the meaning behind words when something like realisation finally drew on him.
“Is that what all of this has been about? You’re mad that I lied about who I was a few years ago?” The bewilderment on his face would’ve been amusing, had the past twenty minutes been a dream.
“You knew I didn’t date Cricketers—”
“No. I didn’t.”
I frowned. “I told you—”
“I may have not remembered the night the first time, but I remember this very clearly. You asked if I worked in sports, and I said no. There had been no rules. You simply took that response and ran with it. Sure, I’d…”
I tuned him out as he recalled that night out loud. He couldn’t be right. No, I remember…
Horror flashed across my expression as my brain pulls out the memory. I’d mixed my conversation with Samyra with his.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
When my eyes met Rihaan’s again, there was a strange look in his eyes.
“Why did you lie that night?”
He rubbed his palm over his mouth, almost like forcing away the words that were settled on his tongue.
“I’d asked Matt for a favour: a night to forget.
His advice had been to pretend I wasn’t…
me. And I was desperate enough that night to know the feeling.
” He shook his head then. “Yeah, you can keep your apology and your truce. I’m out of here. ”
Fuck.
I truly messed up.
How in the world was I supposed to fix this?