The large trees surrounding the garden seem to be closing in on me, making me feel claustrophobic. I begin to walk faster toward the warm light of the house, a light that promises temporary shelter from all the darkness surrounding me. For a brief moment, I hope that my feet will carry me to a place where binding memories don’t exist, where I can be free of my past. But then again, running away, or wanting to escape, won’t solve a thing. It’s not my past that holds me prisoner. It’s my fucking heart.

I pause when I spot Lawrence. Sorrow for him, for us, fills me. My feet feel as though they are stuck to the ground. I take a few moments to compose myself and try to hide the tempest raging inside me behind the perfect façade. He lifts his head and smiles that rare, earth-shattering smile of his as his gaze connects with mine. When I can’t return the gesture, his disappears.

I’m so sorry, Lawrence. So sorry. I told you I was not worthy of anything good. I’m poison.

I look away from Lawrence, afraid that he will see through me. That’s when I observe Ronan walking back from the garden. His face is set in a hard line but he remains as beautiful as ever, maybe even more so now because I know he isn’t mine. I’m not the only woman in the room who notices him, either. Far from it actually. Desirous eyes everywhere follow his trajectory. His step is easy and sensual and so different from before. My mind tells me that he’s the same man that made me believe in summertime and sunshine but as I stare at him, I know that man is gone and has been replaced by this stranger.

I want to scratch my eyes out when he wraps an arm around his companion’s waist possessively and brings their bodies close together. The intimate gesture suggests that he knows every inch of her, and well. And the way she’s watching him shows that she is, too, blinded by his light and everything that he is. My head spins while my chest contracts with such incapacitating pain that I find it hard to breathe.

Ronan …

Yeah, babe?

What happens when this ends?

It won’t.

It will. Everything ends.

I know it won’t, and you know why?

I don’t, but tell me. Make me believe, Ronan.

He takes my hand in his, uncurls my fingers, and places my palm on his chest. You feel this, Blaire? It’s yours and it will always be. That’s why.

Feeling faint, I place a hand on the wall next to me for support as the realization that I drove him away and into the arms of someone else assails me. It serves me right that he’s moved on.

“You’re making a fool of yourself. Stop staring at him,” I hear Lawrence hiss angrily in my ear as he wraps his hand around my upper arm, his fingers constricting.

“Go away, Lawrence,” I beg. “Please leave me alone.”

“He came with someone else, Blaire. Let him go.”

I watch Ronan and the blonde woman disappear in the crowd, draining the room of color. Crestfallen, I turn to face Lawrence, his expression unreadable once more. “What would you have me do? Deny my own heart?” I shake my head, laughing madly. “I can’t. Not tonight.”

He grabs me by the arms, his touch turning painful, fury flaring in his gaze. “I don’t give a fuck what you want or what you do, but I won’t be made a fool of.”

“But you are a fool, Lawrence.”

“Get your things. We’re leaving now,” he says quietly, a deadly tone in his voice.

I shake my head. “No.”

“What are you going to do, Blaire? Go to that boy and beg him to take you back? And if he does, how long before his love for you chokes the life out of you? Before you feel trapped in his arms again? Sooner or later you’ll come back to me, begging me to fuck you and offering me your body for my money.” He pauses. “We’ve been there already, haven’t we?”