Page 63 of Beg for You

I growled as he yanked the paper back out of the trash and laid it on the counter in front of me. “Look at her. She looks fucking miserable.”

I glanced down at the picture. Cassy was wearing a white dress suit, her fiancée on one side and her father on the other, in a formal announcement for family and friends.

“She’s smiling,” I forced out past dry lips. “Doesn’t look too cut up…to me.”

“That smile is false as hell. I’ve seen her smile, and I know you sure as hell have. Whatever is going on there, she doesn’t want it—”

“Stop.” I shook my head. “Christ, why won’t you let go of this?”

“You care about her, I know you do,” Dane said.

“What I do or don’t feel means jack shit.” My hand shot out and slammed down on the newspaper. “She was seeing someone else the whole fucking time. I was a distraction, a final fling before she married Mr. Perfect. That’s it, that’s all it was.” I scrubbed my hands over my face then met my brother’s eyes. “She screwed me over just like her father did, just like her brother before that. She fooled me, I’ll grant you that. But all she succeeded in doing was making it easier for me.”

“To do what?” Dane said, voice tight.

“Revenge, little brother. What else?”

My brother shook his head. “You’re making a mistake—”

“We done?”

Dane cursed and strode to the door.

He yanked it open and turned back to me before he walked out. “Hurting her, it won’t change anything. It sure as fuck won’t stop the pain you’re feeling.” He stormed out and slammed the door after him, no doubt headed across the street to rat me out to Bull.

My hand lifted to my chest, rubbing at the ache that had started up behind my ribs. I stared back down at Cassy, at her smug fucking fiancé and her asshole father.

My gaze moved over her beautiful face, her lips that I’d tasted, remembering the way her skin felt under my fingers. The way her hair looked down and messy after I’d fucked her instead of the perfect bun she’d worn for the picture, not a hair out of place.

Cold.

The ice queen had put back on her crown.

It had always been there, though, hadn’t it? She’d just hidden it from me to get what she wanted.

You did the same thing to her.

Yeah, I was a hypocrite and I owned it. But for me, somewhere along the way, the lines had become blurred. Revenge had stopped being important. Had been forgotten completely.

It had felt real. What we’d had together had felt so fucking real.

Which showed just how blind, how pathetic I was.

I hated myself for it, but I wanted her still, and I got an awful feeling that I’d always want her. I didn’t know what to do with that.

Dane was right. Nothing I did could change the past—it might make me feel better, though.

But as I snatched the paper off the table, balled it up and flung it back in the trash, I wasn’t so sure about that either.

Cassy

I stared over at the main house, watching as car after car pulled up outside. Guests were arriving for what should have been a celebration—mine and Spencer’s engagement party. Instead, I felt dead inside, numb.

Like I was getting ready for a funeral.

My funeral.

I’d felt that way since I ran from Cal’s apartment several weeks ago. Like I was about to step up to a noose. A vision of my father tightening the rope around my neck and kicking a stool out from under me flashed through my head.