It’s barely a word, more air than sound coming from his mouth, but from the despair in it, I know he’s guessed at the truth of what I had to do to earn those pills.

Dread slithers through my insides and wraps around my sinking heart like a python, threatening to squeeze the life out of it. “I didn’t know what else to do. I was so ashamed. When I didn’t die, it was easier to let everyone think the overdose was accidental. By that time they’d figured out I was pregnant.” I blow out a bitter laugh. “Hell, I was already starting to show, so there was no hiding it. At first, Mallory wanted me to get an abortion, but then . . . I don’t know . . . I guess I was already, like, four months or something, so . . .” I shrug, still hiding my face, feeling more vulnerable than I ever have in my life. I wait for the better part of the rest of my life for him to say something. When he doesn’t, I lift my face and look at him. “I’m sorry, Alessandro.”

Rage flickers in those charcoal eyes that have always been so soft and patient, and stiffens his body to stone, his fists clenched at his sides. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me this?”

“No, that’s not it!” Panic chokes the words in my throat. “I swear, Alessandro, I was going to tell you, but then Mom died . . . and . . . I was trying to work out what to say.” I swallow the lump in my throat, my face scrunching with doubt. What if he doesn’t believe me? “I was going to tell you tonight.”

His expression softens, and I’m so relieved he believes me that warmth floods my frozen heart . . . until I realize what I see in his eyes isn’t understanding. It’s his endless guilt resurfacing.

For the last two weeks, when I’ve looked into those beautiful gray eyes, they’ve be clear; all the anguish over the wrongs he’s believed he did me, finally gone. But I threw it back in his face just now, blaming him for leaving me when he promised he’d stay, and he’s all too willing to shoulder all that guilt again. Only, now it’s compounded by the knowledge of what he left me to. “Tell me what happened . . . with Eric.”

My lungs stall for a breath, and my head’s shaking an adamant no before I realize I’m doing it. I swallow the acid rising in my throat. “I can’t.”

As I watch, his expression makes the subtle shift from guilt to pity, and it pushes me over the edge. I’m not going to be anyone’s pity project.

I stand from the couch. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Despite my warning, his expression doesn’t change as he steps away from the door and folds me into his arms. I wanted this. Just a minute ago, I was wishing for him to hold me and tell me everything was okay. But his embrace feels different. Careful. “Let’s finish this conversation tomorrow,” he says, kissing my forehead.

And that’s when I know my nightmares of him running weren’t the worst thing that could happen.

If he stays out of pity, that would be much, much worse.

My head spins as he tows me down the hall to my room, and my heart pounds hard into my ribs. He closes the door, and the second he turns, I plaster him to the back of it and crush my mouth to his. I put everything I have into the kiss, because I need him to feel it in his bones. I need him remember us. I need him to stop looking at me like I’m some broken, pathetic thing that needs to be fixed.

I peel his clothes off as we kiss, and when he doesn’t do the same to me, I start on my own.

A minute later, we’re on the bed, doing what we’ve done dozens of times over the last few weeks. But it’s not the same. His hands aren’t sure and his kiss isn’t hungry. The whole thing feels cold and detached; more like what sex with anyone other than him has always been.

I move underneath him, willing him to feel me in his soul. Praying to see the fire ignite inside him again.

But it’s not there. Instead of the passion I want to see in those deep gray eyes, all I see is pity. He’ll never be able to get past it. Whatever trust we’ve built is gone.

I push him off and stare at the cracks in the ceiling, fighting the tears that are threatening to break through the dam. The bedsprings whine, and I turn my head to find him sitting on the edge, dressing.

“You’re leaving?”

He spares me a quick glance over his shoulder. “I’ve got an early morning at the youth center.”

I prop myself on an elbow and hold the sheets against my chest, my heart slamming into my hand. “You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”

He scoops his shirt off the floor, shrugging it on and starting on the buttons. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

I drop back into the pillows. “If you say so.”

“Do you have everything you need?” he asks without turning around.

“What do you mean?”

He glances at me as he stands and steps into his boots near the door, kneeling to tie them. “I could help with the rent, or . . . anything you need for Henri.”

My heart scrunches into a hard knot as I slide up and lean against the headboard. “Alessandro, stop,” I say, unable to contain the panic swirling into a hurricane inside me. “Nothing has changed. Don’t make me sorry I told you.”

Betrayal and anger flare in his eyes, and it’s suddenly clear the cool façade is his wall. “You didn’t tell me. I had to sort it on my own.”

I throw my hands in the air. “It’s not like you’ve been an open book either! You go all broody and cryptic anytime I ask you about what you did that was so terrible you have to beat yourself up over it for the rest of your life. You won’t open up and let me help you. You’d rather just shut me out and hate yourself.”

The storm of emotions he’s been working so hard to hide passes over his features in the next heartbeat: anger, fear, frustration, finally settling on anguish. He rubs a hand down his face, his deep charcoal eyes more tortured than I’ve ever seen them. “Damn it! Don’t you see, Hilary! You nearly took your own life, and Henri’s too, because of what Lorenzo and I did to you, and you’re not the only one. We ruined countless lives. But this . . .” He waves an arm between us. “You and Henri are my chance to finally do something right, if you’ll let me help you.”

It’s like someone just threw my heart into a meat grinder. I can’t breathe.

He thinks he loves me, and maybe he does, but I don’t think love can survive if it’s born of guilt. If we’re always questioning it, it will die a slow, ugly death.

And I’m not sure I’ll survive it this time.

The mortar sets on the walls I’ve raised around my heart, with Alessandro firmly on the outside. I’m not going to be anyone’s pity project. I’m not going to be weak. “Henri and I are fine,” I say, feeling my heart shrivel a little inside its fortress. “We don’t need any help.”

He closes his eyes and rubs his forehead as if it hurts. When he opens them again, his façade is back in place; everything he doesn’t want me to see hidden behind it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

“Why not?”

The pity in his eyes as they lift to mine kills me inside. “Because I don’t want to upset you.”

“Why not?” I repeat, my voice harder. “Do you think I’m weak? That I can’t handle whatever you’re feeling?”

He blows out a weary sigh as he crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed. “There’s a psychologist that volunteers at the youth center. I think you should talk to her.”

I lower my head into my hands and grab fistfuls of my hair, fighting to keep from screaming at him. “So now I’m crazy?”

“I didn’t say that.”

I lift my head and glare at him. “Then what are you saying?”

The edges of his wall are staring to crumble, and his eyes betray his fear. “I don’t know. I’m guess I’m saying, maybe you need help.”

“I need help? Me?”

He throws his hands in the air. “I don’t know what you want from me, Hilary!”

“I want you to look at me the way you did before you knew. I want us to be how we were! I want you to tell me what you’re feeling so we can deal with it!”

He’s working so hard to keep the wall in place, but his breathing is erratic, and his eyes are wild. “This is how I deal with it.”

“By keeping everything inside. I know! Why won’t you talk to me?”

“This isn’t about me!” I see the panic hiding just beneath the surface, and that’s when I know. It is about him. As long as he thinks I’m broken, he’s going to keep trying to “fix” me. And he’ll never trust me to help him.

My heart contracts into a hard ball as everything I thought we had crashes and burns all around me. I fist my hands in my hair, trying to hold myself together. I wanted this too much. I let myself believe I could have it. My chest is so tight I can hardly get enough air to say, “Get out.”

He goes pale and his hand shakes as he lays it on my thigh. “Don’t push me away, Hilary. Let me help you.”

I slap his hand away. “You are such a hypocrite! I’m not the one who needs help!”

“It’s okay to drop your defenses and be vulnerable.” He rakes the hand I slapped through his hair. “I know how hard you try to be strong, but inside, you’re still that scared girl. It’s okay to ask for help. You don’t have to keep up this act.”

Oh, God. I can’t stop the frustrated tear that courses down my cheek, and I don’t move to wipe it away. “So, you do think I’m weak. Huh. That’s funny, because all along I’ve been thinking that you were the pathetic one . . . worshiping Lorenzo, wishing you could be half the man he was. I really hope Lorenzo is Henri’s father. At least that way, he’ll grow up to have a backbone.”

In this instant, all I care about is hurting him, and I know I have when I watch my words hit the mark. His shoulders sag, his face crumples, and a rush of air leaves his lungs, as if he’s been sucker punched. The determined set to his jaw dissolves into a pained grimace as he stands and backs toward the door. “I’ll go.”