Bobby didn’t know when she started to cry. Maybe it was when she had realized the rope was truly giving out, leaving Leandro with nothing to drive on. Maybe it was when she saw that Leandro had miraculously found a way out of it, when she had almost been convinced he was driving to his death. Or maybe it was when the entire crowd of bikers roared in approval as Leandro finished first, winning the race – and her.

All she knew was that she had to cry. She didn’t even understand why and was too tired to bother figuring it out. She just needed to cry, feeling like she would explode if she didn’t.

“Bobby, it’s time.” It was Sabastian.

She wished she could be childish and cry harder at Sabastian’s words. “I don’t want this,” she told him hoarsely as she forced herself to open her eyes, her blurry gaze finding him dusty and disheveled, his hair plastered to his head after having been kept inside the helmet throughout the race.

In the background, she saw Leandro walking away from the crowd of well-wishers that had gathered around him with tear-blurred eyes. He was taking off his helmet as he headed her way and in minutes, he would be next to her. In minutes, he would be taking her away. In minutes, he might discover the truth.

The months where she had nearly withered away in her pain came back to Bobby. She whitened, not realizing how the tears were falling faster on her face as she lost herself in her memories.

Everyone spoke of breakups so casually, of divorce and of separation like they were common. But they weren’t. When you were the one breaking up, when you were the one dumped, abandoned, and betrayed, it was the most terrible kind of death – a private hell that no one could see and rescue you from.

Everyone had seen her smiling face and thought she was okay. Everyone had seen her helping the kids at the foundation, studying in school, doing what everyone did, and they all thought she had moved on.

But she had not been okay. She had not moved on.

Leandro Christopoulos had made her believe in herself, in him, in love, and in just one night, he had destroyed her when it turned out that everything she believed in was so damn fake.

No one knew how hard it was to just sleep when she knew only nightmares waited for her, bad dreams where a sea of faces would laugh at her for daring to believe that Leandro Christopoulos loved her.

No one knew how hard it was to just breathe the same air he was breathing, to pretend that she didn’t feel like shit, that she felt like she deserved to be human because he had played her like she was a toy with no feelings.

No one knew about how their breakup – no one knew how that one fucking word had changed her life completely, leaving Bobby empty. And now Sabastian was asking her to open her world again to the man who had destroyed it so ruthlessly.

She clutched Sabastian’s shirt. “Please,” she said brokenly. “Please don’t make me do this.”

“I’m not making you do anything, Bobby. You know I’m not. I won’t force you to go with him. But if you do – then this is your chance to do it, to have that closure without losing your pride.” Sabastian’s voice became a low fierce whisper. “If I had the same chance, I’d grab it with both hands.”

“I don’t need closure,” she protested almost feverishly. “He needed a good girl to be his fake girlfriend and I was that girl. He was smart enough to know I couldn’t have played the role if I didn’t think he loved me while I was stupid enough to swallow his lies.”

Sabastian cupped her chin and made Bobby look at him. “Just take this chance, Bobby. Find out if he’s really never loved you…it’s the only way you’ll truly be free of him and start living again.”

Behind them, a voice spoke. “I believe you’re holding what’s mine.”

Bobby’s eyes begged Sabastian to say no.

Sabastian slowly released her and stepped back. Looking at Leandro and seeing the ominous expression on the other man’s face, Sabastian was almost tempted to call the entire thing off. Was he truly doing the right thing for Bobby?

If it had been him – if he had the chance to start things over again with Zee-Zee, would he have taken it? Even if it meant finding out that he had truly lost her and that she would never love him again? Or worse – that she had never loved him at all and it had purely been girlish infatuation on her part?

The answer to his questions came to him easily, an answer that had burned inside his heart for years, and it gave Sabastian the strength to look at Leandro and fall back into the role he had deliberately shouldered.

“I’m just saying this is only for today.”

Leandro’s eyes flashed. “We didn’t talk about the duration.”

“But I’m sure you won’t be holding her against her will if she proves to find you irresistible after today, won’t you?”

The way Bobby still hadn’t turned to face him, the way she was still clutching the other man’s shirt even though Sabastian had already released her made Leandro feel like he was fighting a losing battle. But pride and, more than that, his love for Bobby, prevented him from giving up.

Once, he had found a way to own her heart. Surely there was a way he could do it again.

Looking back at Sabastian, he snapped, “Today then. But don’t hold your breath.”

Sabastian smirked, knowing exactly what to do and say to get under the other man’s skin. He wanted Leandro wild with jealousy because it would make him more prone to speak the truth once he had Bobby alone with him. “I don’t need to hold my breath, Christopoulos. I know my Bobby---”

Leandro stiffened.

“---and I know at the end of the day, she’ll choose me.”

Sabastian looked down, and the sight of Bobby’s curled fist against his shirt pained him. It was even more painful to force her to let go, to feel her resist against letting go. “You will choose me in the end, won’t you, moro mou?”

Bobby didn’t answer.

And the fact that she didn’t gave both men hope.

* * *

Bobby remained stiff and quiet, seated next to Leandro in his car. She didn’t ask where they were going – she was too afraid of what she would say or do if she found out about his plans.

Her silence gnawed at Leandro and for the thousandth time, he questioned himself. Bobby, he thought broodingly, had shown all signs of being over him. She had in fact kissed another man in front of him when the thought of kissing another woman had never even occurred to him.

“How long have you known Gabris?”

The harshly spoken words took Bobby completely by surprise, and she asked blankly, “Why do you care?”

“Because I want to know, dammit!”

“You don’t have a right to ask.”

The car screeched to a stop as Leandro made a sharp turn at the side of the road, causing Bobby to slam hard against the side of her door. “Are you crazy?” she shrieked as her heart galloped in fear. After this morning’s race, she didn’t think she could ever manage riding in anything that could go faster than 20 miles per hour.

“You’re driving me crazy,” Leandro raked back at her. “What do I need to tell you to make you listen to me?”

“Nothing! Nothing will make me believe a word you say anymore! I don’t care about you---”

“Is that why you screamed when you saw the rope bridge giving out?”

Bobby whitened.

“Is it better for you to see me die? Because just say the word, mégaira,” he grated out, “and I can easily go back and this time I won’t do a thing to stop me from---”

“NO.” The word was torn out of her. It was too much, the memory of Leandro falling in the sky too vivid and raw to keep her from reacting to the threat in his words. If Leandro had died, if Leandro had died ---

She started to cry, pummeling his chest with her fists. “No!” The word came out as a sob and a scream. “It won’t be better for me, damn you. I wish it was but it won’t!”

Leandro hauled her into his lap, easily restraining her as she tried to pull away. It was a tight fit inside his sports car, and when Bobby realized that there was no way she could squirm away from him, she cried harder and beat his chest again. “I hate you. I hate you so much.”

“I welcome your hatred, mégaira,” he said grimly. “It is better than having you indifferent.”

She cried harder at his words, wishing there was a way to make her deaf to the sincerity in his voice. He sounded like he meant it, but he couldn’t. It was impossible he did. “I hate you.”

“And I love you.”

“Stop saying that!”

His hands cupped her face, forcing him to look at her. “I’ll never stop saying what’s true---”

Her eyes blazed in hurt accusation, the pain in it so deep it cut him to pieces. Only now was he beginning to see how much he had hurt her that night. Only now was he beginning to understand that such pain was only possible because Bobby had also loved him so much.

“Listen to me,” he said rawly. “Just this once, let me tell you everything.”

She tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let her. “Don’t you ever run out of lies?” Bobby demanded painfully. She was so damn tired of running away from the past, from him and all the stupid lies he had made her believe.

“I’ll never lie to you again,” he grated out. “I swear it on my father’s grave, Bobby. I swear it on the name of Orion Christopoulos. I won’t lie to you again.”

Bobby knew that with those words, she couldn’t doubt him. But her heart veered away from completely believing him. If she made herself believe, then she might as well have invited Leandro to play Russian roulette with her life all over again.

It goddamn hurt for Bobby not to believe in him even after swearing on his father’s name, but Leandro knew her distrust was more than well-deserved. “Bobby, when I first saw you, I thought you were a bitch.”

Her eyes widened, and she choked out, “This is your way of not telling a lie? By insulting me instead?”

“You were a bitch that day, mégaira, and you know it. I just received news of my father’s illness taking a turn for the worse that day. I’m afraid it made me less patient than usual when I found myself confronted by a shrew.”

A warm light entered Leandro’s eyes, and Bobby desperately called on all her defenses to keep herself from being affected by it. Whatever he told her now, it was all about closure – nothing more. It couldn’t be anything else. Please God, please make her strong enough to not let herself fall for him again.

“Then the night of the award ceremony happened and I realized you were the perfect girl to take the role of my girlfriend.” Leandro saw the flash of pain on Bobby’s face, and it slashed his heart. “Yes,” he said harshly, “I picked you to be my girlfriend with no thoughts of how you would feel if you found out I had ulterior motives.”

“When I came back from Greece, I had decided not to pursue you – I learned how badly you were treated when everyone thought I had dumped you, and I thought it would be better if I didn’t mess up your life. But then we kissed again – every damn touch, every damn kiss, every damn moment I spent with you made me realize that I couldn’t let you go. I had to make you mine. When my cousin Priscilla suggested that I pretend…”

“You don’t have to explain that part,” she choked out, wanting to cry again as a rush of humiliation struck her. “You must have been laughing at me, thinking how stupid I was to think you were a different person just because you wore glasses.”

“I never thought that,” Leandro gritted out. “All I thought back then, when you allowed me back into your life, was that I’d fucking ruin my eyesight for real if it meant I’d be able to be with you always. I needed you. I wanted you. And I fell for you---”

He felt her stiffen and he almost wanted to shake her when he saw the distrust in Bobby’s eyes. “I fell in love with you, Bobby. You were the most amazing girl I had ever met – someone strong and soft, someone who loved so generously I was humbled by it. And God, I was so fucking terrified that one day you’d find out how it all started between us. I knew I had to tell you the truth one day, but I was scared of losing you – of you not believing me…”

“Because there’s nothing to believe---”

“There’s everything to believe! It’s all here, Bobby!” He snatched her hand and pressed it to his chest so she could feel for herself how fast and hard it was beating, for her to know that every beat was for her. “I went out of my mind with jealousy when I saw you with your half-brother. I know I was stupid to believe Valerie’s lies, but I had never been in love before and seeing you with another man hurt – it goddamn hurt and all I wanted then was to hurt you.”

“By telling me the truth---”

“By not telling you the truth! I wanted to protect myself, my pride – I didn’t want you or anyone to know that I had fallen so hard for you, a part of me was already thinking of ways I could chain you to my side and prevent you from going to another man even if you didn’t love me.”

His hand tightened over hers, and he pressed it harder against his chest, wishing there was a way his heartbeat could spell out the words inside him and show Bobby how all he had to survive was his love. “I have a hard time making myself believe that I can be loved, Bobby,” he whispered hoarsely. “All my life, I knew I was adopted and although my parents did their best to make me feel loved, other people made me doubt it. They made me feel that I was simply someone they picked from the streets because they needed an heir. It was only…it was only when I lost you that I realized I could be loved…I just wished…” He struggled to make Bobby understand just how much losing her had changed him completely. “I just fucking wished it didn’t take losing you to make me realize how much you loved me…and how much I loved you.”

He looked into her eyes. “And I still do. I never stopped, Bobby. I don’t care if you and…if you and Gabris had been together. I love you, and I would do anything to have you back.”

He waited for her to say something. An eternity passed, and still he waited but she didn’t speak, only staring at him with eyes filled with pain it was almost like it was indelible.