Unbuttoned by Maisey Yates Page B

cracked in two.
    “That’s fine, Carly. Because I can’t live my whole life with a woman who doesn’t trust me.”
    “That’s not it. That’s not fair.”
    “It’s exactly it.” He let anger fuel him now. At her, at himself. At the screwed-up lives they’d both led that had brought them to this point, too broken to make things work together. “You’re so bound up in your own hurt that you don’t see it. You wanted to sleep with me, and get what you wanted, and not have to give anything back. You don’t really want freedom. You want to hang on to the past and hold it up in front of you like a shield. That’s what you want. To spend your life hiding behind your tailored suits and perfect hair, so that no one will see what a disaster you are inside.”
    “Stop it, Lucas.”
    “Why? It’s true. You want to pretend that because I had some girlfriends a few years ago, I’m somehow never going to settle down, because that suits you. Because then, it makes me off-limits to you. You wanted to take from me and not give anything back. Not emotion or trust. You’re so afraid that someone might get close to you that you have to push me away now. Because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen that under that composure of yours, under your makeup mask, you’re still just a scared little girl.”
    “I didn’t ask you to psychoanalyze me!” she spat. “You think you get relationships? What the hell would you know about a healthy relationship? How did you think the two of us would go about having one?”
    “I thought it would involve letting go of the past and embracing the future. But it’s clear to me that you can’t do that.”
    “Because this isn’t what I wanted. It’s . . .”
    “Scary,” he said, his voice thin, tight. “And you want to be safe. You want everyone to look at you and see your control, and your poise, and pat you on the back for what? For feeling nothing?”
    Carly balled her hands into fists at her sides. “I’m not going to be like my mother. I’m not doing that. I’m not making a public spectacle of myself. And this morning came way too close to that.”
    “So what other people feel matters more than what you feel?”
    “Yes,” she said, exploding. “Yes. Because how else will I know if I’m doing it right? You can’t trust your own heart, Lucas, it makes you do stupid things.”
    “Your fear is making you act a hell of a lot stupider than your heart would. Maybe the problem isn’t that you don’t trust me. It’s that you don’t trust yourself.”
    Or that he just wasn’t worth the risk. The thought sent an arrow of pure agony straight to his heart. He’d been stupid to think this could end any other way. Stupid to imagine that he was the one that would make Carly Denton want to take a chance.
    “I’m going to get dressed now,” she said. “And then I’m going to go.”
    “Great.”
    He watched her walk up the stairs and tried to ignore the stabbing pain in his chest. He wanted to beg, but he wasn’t going to do that. He’d lost enough of his pride already.
    In the end, it shouldn’t surprise him. His own mother hadn’t stayed with him. Why the hell should Carly stay?
    He gritted his teeth, tried to take a breath. Tried to keep the hot, burning emotion that was searing his heart from bringing him to his knees. This was a good thing. Good it had happened like this. Good it had happened now. It was the reminder he needed. Why he didn’t do love. Why he never had.
    It was too much work to love people who would simply never love you back.

Chapter Nine
    Life was annoying. It kept just . . . going on while Carly was trying to wallow in misery. She wanted to curl up into a little ball and wail for a week straight, but she couldn’t. She had to finalize all the details for Ride for Hope and see to a million other civic duties.
    She had to be on show, which she’d never minded before, because she’d never fully grasped just how “on show” she was. Had never truly