Page 72 of Ruthless Blade

“I love you,” he whispered. Hold on, did I hear that right?

My eyes opened and I looked at him, his gaze never wavering from mine. “What?” I asked, clearly, that’s not what he said. The medicine was fucking with my head. I must be hearing things.

His gaze softened, and he took my hand in his. Already tingles spread through my body, but I tried to ignore it.

“I love you. I think I have for a while now, I didn’t know how to handle it.”

My breath caught, and I had no idea what to say. He was confessing his feelings for me, something I’ve wanted, and for the life of me, I couldn’t say anything. Not a damn word.

He loved me, so what? What exactly did that change? We still couldn’t be together, even if I wanted us to.

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, pulling my hand away from his. “Even if that’s true, we can’t be together. We’re about to be...” I swallowed the lump in my throat, “step-siblings. There’s no way...”

“No we’re not.”

I blinked, looking at him. “Huh?”

“They broke it off, they aren’t together anymore.”

I didn’t even know how to respond to that, everything that I wanted was within reach, but I couldn’t grab it.

I was already affecting him. His thoughts, his emotions. If he was going to go to the NHL and be successful, then I couldn’t stand in his way. I couldn’t be the one to cost him everything he’d worked so hard for.

I licked my lips, tears filling my eyes. “We can’t be together Kayden, at least not right now. Not until I’ve had time...and you’ve had time.”

He took a step back, his hands clenching in fists. “You’re not about to do this.”

My gaze met his, “I am. And you can hate me all you want, but I refuse to stand in your way. Not only that, but I need to heal Kayden. Not just from this, but from the pain in here...” I pointed to my heart, pieces of it still broken from everything that has happened in the past year.

“As much as I want to, I can’t be with you until I’ve been able to heal the parts of myself that I lost.”

He sat in the chair near the bed, the one Mom had pulled closer. His head went in his hands and the sight broke me.

He wasn’t someone who crumbled easily, he didn’t take no for an answer and he took what he wanted without hesitation. But as I looked at him, I knew that what I’d said, even though it was the right thing to do, was crushing him.

I looked away from him, pushing the side of my face into the pillow, letting the tears fall. Neither of us said another word, and when I woke up from a nap, he was no longer there.

Doing the right thing, fucking sucks.

Chapter Thirty-Six

KAYDEN

It’d been a couple days since I walked out of her room, and it was like I had my ass handed to me.

I honestly thought that when I told her how I’d felt, how I loved her, that she would welcome it. I never expected her to shut me down, crushing my heart into a million fucking pieces.

This is why you should’ve stayed away. Shut down the distractions, kept yourself on track.

I couldn’t fucking do that though. I couldn’t stay away from her, no matter how much I wanted to.

Training had become my escape.

Every morning, I was up before the sun, running drills until my legs burned. I pushed myself harder than I ever had, skating until the ice felt like it was melting beneath my blades.

My mind wouldn’t shut up. I couldn’t sleep, and I could barely eat. I turned into someone I didn’t even recognize. Falling in love with her, after years of wanting her and telling myself I couldn’t have her, royally screwed me up.

The thought of not being with her, not being able to protect her, made me a failure. I’d promised Jake I would protect her, even if that meant pushing her away, and what did I do? Fall in love with her only to be pushed away by her.