I shifted my gaze back to the fire, watching the flames dance and crackle. “No. I don’t need to expose how fucking stupid I am—what an utter moron I must be to have fallen for him again.”
“Rachel,” Leah said softly.
I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them to hold myself together. “I let him in. I knew I shouldn’t, and I did anyway. Being with him felt so stupidly right, and I let myself get carried away by the trip, and the way he’s always been able to get me, and the sex…God, the sex. And I let everything fool me into believing that maybe we had a shot, that we could make it.”
“I still think you can,” Penna said, picking at her cast.
“Seriously?”
“I think he’s changed. Losing you…it altered him, and I think the Landon you love now wouldn’t make that same choice.”
“He hasn’t changed.” My voice broke, and the grief I’d tucked away reared its ugly head, consuming me in one swift wave. God, it hurt. Everything hurt.
“What do you mean?”
“Your contracts are up next month, so one call to my dad and there’s even more money on the table if he’ll just walk away again.”
“You’re shitting me,” Penna said, sitting up straight.
“Nope, it’s the truth. Dad outed him. The Renegades have been in negotiations for the sponsorship for months. What convenient timing, getting me to fall back in love with him just in time to play his trump card with my father.”
“I didn’t know,” she promised softly, reaching over Leah to rest her hand on my arm. “I swear to God, I didn’t know. I never would have let that happen.”
“Oh my God, is that…is that why Pax brought you—us—on board?” Leah whispered in horror.
“I don’t know. No matter what happens with Landon, I know that Wilder loves you, Leah. That is something I would bet my life on, so no matter what, you can’t let this affect what you have. One of us deserves a happy ending.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Penna seethed.
“Please…just…I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want you to talk about it with him. Can we just have a quiet couple of weeks before we have to go back?”
“I’m glad you’re still going,” Leah said.
“He’s taken everything from me…twice, and I can’t let him take any more. I want to finish the trip, and now with all the shit going on with my parents, going to Korea feels more important than ever. So I can deal with the ship as long as Landon stays the hell away from me.”
“We’ll help you,” Penna promised. “After I kill him. Sorry, I know you love him—”
“I don’t love Landon now,” I bristled. My heart screamed at the lie, and a sharp, physical pain ran through me. My eyes fluttered shut, and I leaned my forehead on my arms as I subtly rocked. How was I going to face him? “Losing him that first time nearly killed off my heart. I still don’t know how I was able to fall for him again… How am I going to get through this?”
Leah wrapped her arm around my shoulder. “Just like we did before.”
I rolled my head onto her shoulder as the first tears fell, streaking down my face to land on her shirt. “I need to hate him, and I do.”
“I know.” She rested her temple against the top of my head.
“It hurts so much more this time,” I admitted on a sob.
“I know.” She took my hand with hers. “It’s going to be okay. All of it.”
“Why can’t I be enough for him?” I cried.
“You are. You are always enough. Once this passes, you’ll see it, you just need to get through the worst of it, and there’s no timeline for heartbreak. You of all people know that.”
“This wasn’t what I pictured, or how I planned. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. Why did I let him in again?”
She tightened her arms around me. “Because love makes us do things we swear we’ll never do.”
I dragged another stuttered breath through my lungs, shaking my chest. “I don’t want to love him.”
“I know.”
We left the rest unspoken, because uttering the words would have made me even more of an idiot. No matter how he’d hurt me, how obvious it was that I could never trust him, it didn’t change the fact that even broken, bleeding, pretty damn pulverized, my heart still belonged to him. Traitorous bitch.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rachel
At Sea
I slammed my laptop shut. Another hour and we’d be out of internet range. I wouldn’t have to worry about how to reply to Dad’s emails, because it wouldn’t be an option.
I thought I was protecting you. You shattered me.
I knew when he took the money that he’d never be good enough for you. Fair point, but would Dad have ever grown to like Landon if he’d turned it down? I’d never know.
I love you. You manipulated me.
You’re the most important person in my life. Shit, he didn’t even have Mom anymore, and that wasn’t his fault.
I never should have interfered. But you did, and now I’m broken.
Please forgive me. Maybe one day. Just not now.
Now I was back aboard the Athena.
Two weeks and three days and two hours. That was how long it had been since I’d set eyes on Landon. I was exceptionally proud of those two hours since we’d been back on board. I’d barred him from our room, which I knew could only last temporarily with all the Renegades running around.