Page 159 of Heartless Sinner

The setting changed, but the groom never did.

The attempted assassination had taken so much from us.

It stole our future, but it didn’t steal the way we felt. If anything, it left the love behind and turned it into something painful.

Brooks and I hadn’t fallen for each other through grand gestures. There hadn’t been any fancy dates or elaborate declarations. We’d fallen in love through late-night conversations. Shared memes. Daily texts.

Sometimes, they were nothing more than thinking of you or goodnight. No matter how busy we were, we never missed a day. Not one.

And I’d ruined all of it.

No matter how hard we tried to bury what I’d done, the truth always clawed its way back into my thoughts. If Brooks ever found out, this would disappear.

The love he fought so hard to deny.

The way he looked at me.

The way his hands held my face like he was afraid to let me go.

All of it. Gone.

There’d be nothing left but hatred.

We’d both known this would never be a simple Son-Fawn arrangement. We were only two days in, and our masks were already slipping, no matter how desperately we tried to keep them in place.

“You ruin me,” Brooks whispered, his thumb sweeping across my cheek. “Every single day.” His next breath left slowly through his nose. “I can’t dig myself out of this pit. Every memory I have of us just drags me deeper into it.”

“Brooks,” I whimpered.

He suddenly let go of me. The loss of his hands made me want to reach for them again, but I didn’t.

Brooks stepped back and shoved a hand into his pocket. He pulled out his phone, stared at it for a second, then tossed it onto the bed beside me. “Scroll through our messages.”

The phone landed facedown beside my thigh.

“Read every reason I can’t fucking let you go.”

My fingers weren’t steady when I picked it up. Tears crowded my eyes before I even woke the screen.

“I …” I shook my head. “I can’t.”

“You can,” Brooks argued. “Passcode is 0-4-2-6.”

April 26.

My birthday.

He nodded toward the phone. “Look at the screenshots. Every conversation that made me fall in love with you.” His voice cracked on the last few words. “And I hope to God they made you fall in love with me too.”

My chest hurt so fucking bad.

Because they had.

Every stupid meme. Every late-night call. Every goodnight, Princess.

Every time my phone lit up with his name and I smiled before I even read what he’d sent.

Reliving those moments would hurt too much.