Okay. Fair enough.
"You were in love with her."
If she thought he looked angry before, it was nothing compared to how he looked now. It made her heart sink to her stomach. If ever there was a time she didn't want to be right, it was now and about Gwyneth. Merina had believed he'd confided in her the night at his father's house when she'd asked about his past, but he'd been hiding from her the whole time.
"Why did you let me believe she was just a girl you dated for a handful of months?" She was angry now, the questions coming at a rapid-fire pace. "Did she live here with you? Is that why you never came back to the mansion? Did she sleep with you in the bedroom you refuse to talk about?" She pointed to the room where sliding patio doors overlooked the pool.
"I see that you're under the assumption we're talking about this." Reese stood from the chair, scraping the legs on the concrete as he did. She didn't like when the cold crept in, when his shutters slammed down. When he refused to deal with messy feelings, namely hers.
"Why won't you tell me the truth? What is it you're so desperate to hide?" She stood also, fists curling at her sides. She'd kept her cool in an effort to do as Penelope had suggested since this was supposed to be "rolling off her back." Well, fuck that. Gwyneth wasn't rolling off her back.
"I'm not hiding anything from you. I just don't want to talk about it." His tone was so controlled. Did he not regret lying to her?
"Why don't you trust me? I'm sleeping with you for God's sake…" Then she laughed, a humorless sound, and added, "Not that sex means anything to you."
His expression went from angry to borderline hurt.
"Silly me to have thought things changed since the night at your father's. Since the night in your office. Since—"
"I'm broken, Merina! Okay? Is that what you want to hear?" Reese was shouting but the hurt still brimmed in his dark blue eyes.
It took her a moment to digest those words. The truest words he'd ever said.
"Yes. I do want to hear it. I want to know."
"You want to know," he repeated with a grunt. "There is a reason I had to draw up a contract to force someone to marry me for show. I'm not equipped to do it for real."
She blinked, half stunned he admitted as much and half disappointed he couldn't see how wrong he was. Couldn't he see what they had was so much more than a "contract"?
"That's not true—" she started.
"It's true," he clipped. "After Gwyneth, I vowed never to stay at this house. She made me look like a grade A jackass. Humiliated me in front of my father, my coworkers, and anyone who suspected she'd dropped me for Hayes. It's not an easy thing to recover from."
"Reese—"
"Have you forgotten the purpose of that ring being on your hand?" He stalked over to her and captured her wrist. Her blood iced at his frigid tone.
"The deal: My being appointed to CEO in exchange for not tearing your family's hotel to the studs. It never included more."
But they'd been more, at least to her they had.
"Do you know what I told your father at the cookout?"
She didn't. Reese never told her. She didn't like the idea of him telling her now when he was this upset.
I'm broken.
She didn't want him to be broken.
You can't fix him. That sensible voice in her head kept her quiet. She wouldn't take on Reese as a project.
"I told Mark I was giving you control of the Van Heusen as a surprise," he said. "That's what he asked me at the cookout. If I was planning on continuing the remodel, or if I'd give you control of the hotel."
"That took some nerve," she mumbled, not liking that her father hadn't come to her.
"The papers are ready," Reese said. "It's a done deal once you sign."
"I thought…the Van Heusen was part of the divorce settlement…"
"Surprise."
But this wasn't a playful, celebratory surprise. This was him shoving her away.
"Hey." She tugged his tie, looking up at his face. Her Reese was under that rigid exterior. Somewhere. "Talk to me."
"There's nothing else to say."
"There is." She hadn't told him about Corbin, and in a way that made her as guilty as Reese. She'd been holding back, protecting herself. "I had an ex-boyfriend who…well, he lived with me in my parents' house."
Reese's mouth compressed, looking unhappy. About her living with a guy before him or because she was continuing this discussion, it was hard to say.
"I told myself I loved him, and I guess in a way I did. He took advantage of me. He used me. Emptied my bank account and left with my money."
Eyes downcast, he took her hand. "I can replace the cash."
"You could." This was his way of empathizing, but couldn't he see he was more to her than a means to an end? "I don't care about the cash. I did, but I don't now. He made off with my pride, and that's hard to find once you've lost it. I understand what Gwyneth put you through." She gave his hand a squeeze. "I've been there."
"Why do people do that?" His cheeks tightened, lip curling in disgust. He dropped her hand. "Pretend they understand what you're going through. Like when someone dies."
Like his mother? Her heart crushed.
"You don't know what it was like, Merina. You aren't a man who strived to be great and had a setback that could cost him his destiny."
"Excuse me?" She almost laughed. "You took my destiny!"
"I bought it. And now you have it back. You're whole."
And he was an idiot.
"You know why no one 'understands' you, Crane? Because you don't bother sharing. If you opened your mouth to do something other than get me off, we might have the occasional conversation and understand each other!" She was shouting now, fists at her sides. "Your pain doesn't outweigh mine because you can't talk about it."
"Fine. You want to talk? You want to devolve what we have into messy relationship territory? I'll talk." Reese said, his voice raised again. "I was in love with her, okay? I found out she was fucking my best friend, and for the second time in my life, my thoughts bordered on suicidal. The only time I ever felt that way was when my mother died. I thought I'd outgrown it, yet here I was in a big house I owned, the weight of a future company on my shoulders. In an instant"—he leaned in, his fingers pressed together to make his point—"I was fifteen again. Unsure. Scared. Desperate."