Chapter 53

• “Don’t you dare try to explain yourself now, Cole,” I snapped, my voice sharper than I intended. The tension between us was suffocating. I had thought that nothing could shake me more than what I had already learned, but as the words left his lips, my disbelief melted into something darker—something far more dangerous.
• Cole’s face was a mixture of guilt and desperation, his eyes pleading with me as if he could somehow undo what had already been done. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even look at him without feeling sick.
• “You need to leave,” I said, my voice trembling with the weight of everything I was holding in. Every single part of me wanted to push him away, to shut the door on the man who had torn my heart apart. But still, some part of me, a small part, wanted to believe him. To trust him again. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.