No, dammit, she was not ok. She would never be ok again because the idiot that she was had mistakenly given her heart to this man knowing that he just didn’t want it. She suddenly whirled on him.
“I want it back!” she cried out, tears streaming from her eyes no matter how hard she tried to hold them back.
“Want what back?” Tag looked confused, and she wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time.
“My heart,” she told him with as much conviction as she could. “I want it all back. Every single minute I spent with you, every single kiss I shared with you. I want them all back. You don’t deserve them.”
Tag didn’t move, and McKenna felt like an overemotional lunatic, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“You need to go.” Finally, something that made sense. “You need to leave, and I don’t want your help. I can take care of myself.”
She turned away from him, sobbing like a baby with her face in her hands. When she heard the door click shut behind him, McKenna crumbled to the floor.
~*~*~
Tag sat in his car, staring at his house. He couldn’t bring himself to get out of the car just yet because he still wasn’t sure why he was here. He was half tempted to turn around, go back to McKenna’s, pull her into his arms and tell her all of the things he knew she wanted to hear.
Watching her heart break because of him was the worst thing he could have possibly imagined. And the worst part of it all, he did care about her. Hell, he would almost venture to say he had fallen for her, but he didn’t quite believe it.
How? How could he possibly have fallen for her?
What they had was nothing more than an extremely passionate case of lust. That’s all it was. He hadn’t known her long enough for it to be anything more. Right?
There was no such thing as love at first sight, and he wasn’t capable of giving a woman all of the things his father had given. His entire life. His happiness, his sense of self. All of those things his father had given his mother and the day that she died, Tag watched his father damn near die right along with her.
He wasn’t the man who would be able to give to one woman because then there would be nothing left for anyone else. Just like how his parents were. He knew they loved him because he was their son. But the love they had for one another blinded them to anyone and everyone else.
It might have taken years, but his father somehow found another woman that he would devote his entire life to, which in the long run, left Tag without. Cole had never understood Tag’s issues because his mother still, to this day, doted on him and loved him the way a mother should, even if their relationship was rocky.
Tag didn’t have it in him. He couldn’t give everything away. Where would that leave him? Who would that make him? He would no longer be the man he had worked so hard to be.
Instead, he would be nothing.
Except, when he thought about McKenna, he sensed that there was something he was missing. When it came to her, even in the short amount of time he had known her, he knew that she had changed him. And instead of losing himself, he seemed to understand more what he was capable of.
Putting his forehead against the steering wheel, Tag wanted to curse himself for being such a jackass. He could come up with more excuses, but it only went to prove one thing.
McKenna Thorne scared the shit out of him.
Why? Because he felt too damn much for her.
Ever since their eyes met that very first time, he knew there was something about her. And each and every encounter since then only proved that she was the one woman who could so easily take his heart and smash it like glass beneath a jackhammer.
He couldn’t afford to care for someone like McKenna. She was too outspoken, too ornery, too funny and cute and smart. She was too everything that he wanted but didn’t know whether he could actually have.
Tag wished like hell he had a sad story to tell, one that would explain why he feared commitment the way he did, but from the outside looking in, even his parents’ love for one another didn’t seem like a sad story. Since Tag had refused to ever allow a lover to get close, he couldn’t even blame a broken heart for the fear that consumed him.
Forcing himself out of his car, Tag went inside his house heading right for the shower. It was high time he got his act together because this was not the man he was. And he didn’t have time to contemplate love.
Because he had already decided... it wasn’t for him.
Tag walked into the club a couple of hours later, wanting nothing more than a couple of hours where he didn’t have to think about anyone or anything. The second he spotted Luke, he knew he’d come to the wrong place.
“What’s up?” Luke greeted with a handshake when he approached.