The words were still throbbing in my ears, still pulsing in my veins, still vibrating in my body when a different voice piped in from behind me.

"I can explain."

I shifted to see Donovan at the door, panic clearly written all over his expression.

"Sabrina. Come with me, I'll tell you everything." His hand reached out, beckoning, his voice pleading. His eyes pierced through me, but I couldn't see him the way I had previously. He seemed blank to me, or my eyes were too glazed. If there had been a piece of art there, I’d no longer see it.

Raymond clapped his hands suddenly. ”That's why I know your name!” he exclaimed. “You were one of the scholarship girls. I'm not very good with names, especially out of context, but I should have put that together sooner.”

Me too, Raymond. I should have put it together sooner, too.

Though now he wasn't so sure. He squinted, trying to recall. "That was you, wasn't it? What happened? You dropped out of school."

"Let's talk about this on—"

I put my finger up to hush Donovan. He’d had his chance to talk. He’d had weeks, months, years to tell me the truth.

I turned instead to Raymond. "My father had a heart attack. And I missed the end of the semester to go home to watch him die." My throat was tight as the rage from all those years ago returned like bile. "My scholarship was pulled because I missed finals, and when I appealed…"

I turned my focus on the younger Kincaid; there was venom in my stare. Just like before when my past had been reformed in my mind when Donovan had shown where he had been the puppet master behind the scenes, it was being re-created again now. The anger and hostility I had felt for a decade had been toward some vague corporate charitable foundation. Now there was a face to hate.

But which one?

I spun back toward Raymond. "Who decided?” I was desperate for the answer. Desperate for the answer to be different than the one I knew it was. "Who decided to deny my appeal? Did you even read over my case or was the decision all in Donovan's hands?" My elbows were tight at my sides, my hands in fists, and I was shaking. Shaking from rage that made my breathing shudder.

Raymond lifted one brow and turned his stare toward his son, understanding lighting his gaze. "You already tried to give her up," he said pointing a finger in Donovan's direction. "That's why you didn't want her back at Harvard." It was clear he was just putting pieces together himself.

He hadn't been part of this.

It had all been Donovan.

And I’d been such a fool.

I needed some space to breathe. Needed to be away from the two pairs of eyes staring me down, watching my every reaction. I wanted off their chessboard. I brushed past Donovan, running from the room, no destination in mind except to get away.

He was right behind me, on my heels, as he always was.

"Don't listen to my father. Let's talk about this. Let me explain. It was better if you weren't there, Sabrina."

We were in the middle of the house when I whirled around to face him. "Better for who? For you?"

"For you. Always for you." His voice was thick with agony.

But his misery couldn't dare to compare with mine. His was a lie. A boldfaced lie.

"Better for me because I wouldn't ever have to face your family? Because you’d never have to bring home a scholarship girl to meet your folks? Because you thought I'd be ashamed to stand in the presence of the almighty Raymond Kincaid?" I'd believed him when he’d said he wanted me away from him because he was afraid he would love me too much.

Stupid, stupid me.

He wasn't afraid of loving me too much. He was afraid his parents would hate me too much.

"No, it's not true. What he said is not true. He's guessing. He thinks I give a shit about their opinion, and I don't. I never cared about that."

I rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet. I wanted to believe him. It could be so easy to let him take care of this—of me—like always.

Down the hall, Raymond stepped out of his study to watch us, and I knew I had to ignore “easy.” He was a visual reminder that he'd had Donovan first. I couldn't dispute that he was at Donovan's roots any more than I could dispute that my parents, and Audrey, were at mine.

I shook my head. "I'm finding it hard to believe you right now."

Before he could argue again, I turned away and ran upstairs to the room we'd been sharing and slammed the doors behind me.

He followed. I knew he would.

"What about trust?" he said, bursting through the doors. "You said we should trust each other."

I bent to pull the cord of my charger from the wall by the bed, then dropped it into my purse along with my cell phone. "Well, that was stupid. I was stupid to believe that someone like you could ever learn anything about trust."

"Don't say that. I've shown you parts of me that no one else has ever seen." He stood at the foot of the bed, his fist anchored on his hip as if that was the only way to keep it from reaching out to me.

"You mean I saw you vulnerable?" I spat. "So fucking sad. I'm sure it doesn't even compare to the parts that you saw of me."

"I was only ever trying to protect you."

"Bullshit. I am tired of the fucking bullshit. Just tell me the goddamn truth!"

"This is the truth," he yelled.

I tilted my chin up defiantly. "Okay. If it's all true, why didn't you tell me that day in the office? Why didn't you tell me when I asked you if there was ‘anything else?’ Why didn't you confess this when we decided no more secrets? What about that?"

His lids shut halfway, as though the things I said were too heavy and hard to bear. When he opened them again fully, they were glossy and deep green.

"Because I knew this would hurt you,” he said softly. “And I was done hurting you. I didn't want to hurt you anymore."

"You didn't want to hurt me. Of course.” My tone was thick with sarcasm. "Let me guess—you ‘didn't want to hurt me’ is the reason you snapped away my scholarship too. Just like the reason you didn't want a relationship with me. You didn't want to hurt me. It's the reason you always run. The reason you always fucking end up hurting me."

"It's not that simple." His body was tense with how complicated it was.

"It never is," I laughed sardonically, spotting a stray earring I’d left on the nightstand. I grabbed it and stuck it in my purse.

Donovan took two steps towards me but didn’t go farther when I put my hand up in protest.

"If you had been with me, I would have destroyed you,” he said emphatically. More emphatically than he would have if he were closer. "Look how close I came to destroying you while you were at school. Look what I did to you with my jealousy over Weston. With your grades. I couldn't have you at Harvard. You were better off away from me."

And there it was, spelled out. Finally. His reasoning. His confession. His truth. No better than the excuses Raymond gave.

"Do you have any idea how nearly you destroyed me by taking that away from me?" My voice was as unsteady as my hands. School had been the only thing I thought I had left to live for after my father's death, besides Audrey. "Harvard was supposed to have been our way out. It was going to be the future for my sister and me. And you took it away because you couldn't handle yourself around me?"

His shoulders sagged with the weight of this truth. "I took care of you. I tried to make it up."

I blinked back tears, but it was useless. They were coming anyway. Angry and hot. "Did you ever even really love me? Or was the decade that followed just a way to assuage your guilt?"

"How can you even ask that?" Deep in his throat, his voice broke. "I love you, Sabrina. All this time, I have loved you."

I bit my lip and tugged my purse up on my shoulder, hugging my arms around myself. "I don't think you know what love is."

With tears streaming down my face, I strolled past him out the doors. His mother had come out of her room at the other end of the hall, but she didn't try to talk to me. Just watched. A family of watchers and stalkers—none of them knew how to connect with people. None of them knew how to love.

I’d feel sad for them all if I wasn’t so busy feeling sad for myself.

I trotted back down the stairs. My luggage was already by the door, waiting for our trip back home. I waited in the foyer for Donovan to arrive, because of course he would.

And he did.

"You're wrong," he said, as he walked toward me. "I might not love you in the pretty traditional way that you're looking for, like some hero, like Weston might. But I do love you. Everything I did—everything I do—is because I love you."

I ached for him.

Every limb, every joint, every cell ached with the pain of his words. Because I loved the way he loved me. I preferred the way he loved me a million times to the way a man like Weston could—or any other man could even dare to try.

But I couldn't heal his hurt.

Because I hurt too much right then too. I hurt with my own pain, pain that he had inflicted with his lies and deceit and betrayal. Maybe he wasn't lying about why he sent me away, why he took away my scholarship. But at the very least he had lied by keeping the secret since we decided to be together.

He should have told me.

I couldn't say whether I would've forgiven him or not.

But he should have fucking told me.

"I’m going to call a cab," I said, not looking at him directly. "I can't be in a car with you."

"Don't be ridiculous."

I spoke right on top of him. "I'm not being ridiculous. I don’t want to be in a car with you for two hours. I can't stand to look at you. I can't stand to hear you breathe. I can’t be near you."

His nostrils flared. He opened his mouth, his expression saying he was about to argue more.

But then I added, "I'm too hurt." And if he couldn’t see how wounded I was, how absolutely heartbroken, then he was blind.

He looked at me a moment, and his shoulders sagged. "Fine. John can take you. I'll take one of my father's cars.”

Good. It was what I had wanted.

And not what I wanted too. Part of me wished he'd have put his foot down and said he was coming with me. Wished he would prove to me the truth he wanted me to know. Everything hurt and I wanted it to stop. I wanted to bury my face in his sweater and sob. I wanted him to make it better like he always did in his crazy Donovan ways.

How ironic that I still wanted that? That the cause of my pain and the source of my balm could be one and the same?

But we were done talking. No more words were exchanged, none with meaning anyway. There could be no comfort. There could be no balm. He didn’t try very hard, and I couldn’t let him give it to me.

I refused his help in putting on my coat. I turned away from him as I waited for the car to pull up. But while John put my bag in the trunk, I snuck a peek in Donovan's direction and caught his eye accidentally.

Immediately, I turned my head away, but he’d already seen me.

He took that look as an invitation, and rushed to get my door.

"This isn't over, Sabrina," he said holding it open for me. "You can take whatever time you need to be angry with me. We can fight. We can be silent. But you and I are not over. I think we can agree that I've already proven myself a patient man."

I pursed my lips together, unwilling to give him anything—not a scowl, not a pout. Definitely not hope. I climbed into the back seat and refused to watch out the window as he became a tiny figure in the distance.

* * *

Donovan's driver was a professional. He was trained not to react to what happened in the backseat of the car, whether it was sex or a woman crying her eyes out all the way from Washington, Connecticut to Hell’s Kitchen.

I was thankful for that. It gave me the quiet I needed to think. To mourn.

Maybe mourn was dramatic. But was it?

I wasn't a teenager involved in my first real relationship. I didn't assume that the first fight equaled the end. I was mature enough to understand that even the most aggrieved wrongdoings could be forgiven. That even the most horrendous betrayals could be overcome.

But this thing with Donovan was so complicated and multifaceted. It wasn't just about whether or not I could forgive him. It was also about whether or not we could move on from this. Whether there was a decent enough foundation.

And one thing I did know about relationships was that people never changed. How could I ask him to be a different person? Someone who understood how to really love someone else. Someone who could truly put my needs and wants before his own self-defeating behavior. Was it even possible?

I couldn't think about any of it right now. I couldn't even think about talking to him. I was in too much pain. Too heartbroken. And too angry.

I got to my apartment building around eight thirty that night, exhausted and worn down. John offered to help with my bag, but I insisted I’d take it myself. It wasn’t heavy and I didn’t want to deal with a hassle.

I was alone on the elevator, and when I got off, the hall was quiet except for a deliveryman standing at my neighbor’s closed door. His ski hat was pulled low, his head bent and hidden by the white paper sack filled with something that smelled like curry. I trudged past him to my door with my suitcase and fished in my purse for my keys.

I must've been too distracted by my thoughts, by the avalanche of emotions that had buried me, because I didn't notice the deliveryman slip up behind me as I slid the key into the lock.

I didn't notice him until his hand was on my hip and the knife was at my throat and his mouth was at my ear.

"Hello again, Sabrina," Theo Sheridan said. "Did you miss me?"