I watched as her gray eyes filled with tears, and I wanted to die.

I’d been looking for any kind of emotion since Cassidy had left. I’d searched for it in so many women. This girl . . . for so many reasons she shouldn’t have been the one to start evoking all these feelings again—and yet, she had been. My best friends’ little sister. My neighbor. The girl next door. Everything cliché and everything I had overlooked for years. I wondered for the hundredth time tonight why I couldn’t have actually seen Maci years before.

Another sob tore from her chest, and I wanted to take her in my arms and brush away the tears that had just started falling down her face. I wanted to tell her that she had all of this backwards. She owned me. But I couldn’t do this to her. Not only would her brothers never allow it, especially after tonight, but they were right . . . I would ruin her.

I had fears she couldn’t understand, a life that she’d had no idea about, and too many secrets I wasn’t willing to taint her world with. I would ruin her and our future family, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself when that happened.

My body was shaking, and I tried to focus on anything other than the way her expression was breaking my heart. I’ll destroy her. I’ll ruin her. I continued to chant those words and focused on the fact that I could never be the type of man that she needed.

Swallowing past the tightness in my throat, I scoffed. Scoffing was good. It made me sound like that much more of an ass**le. “You can’t start crying every time you aren’t getting your way, Maci. You’re an adult, start acting like one.”

“Connor!” she cried when I turned to leave. “Why are you doing this to us? I know you, I know you want to be with me too. Is it Dakota and Dylan, did they find out? Are they making you do this?”

I stopped walking when I reached her door, but couldn’t look back at her when I said, “You don’t know anything about me. The fact that you somehow made yourself believe there was an us is proof of that. There is no us.”

“How can you sa—”

“Because we f**ked, Maci, that’s all we did!” I turned to look at her beautiful face, filled with pain. “It’s not my fault you let yourself believe we could be something. It’s not my goddamn fault you don’t know how to keep your feelings and your needs separate.”

Her head shook slowly back and forth, and her hand came up to cover her mouth as a strangled sob left her. “You’re lying,” she choked out. “Please don’t do this!”

“Goodbye, Maci.”

“Connor!” she sobbed when I shut her door behind me.

I hurried into my apartment and threw the can of beer at the wall, suppressing an agonized roar as I stormed into my bedroom. For the rest of the night, I stood with my forehead and palms pressed against the wall that connected our bedrooms, and listened to her sobs. And for the first time since I was last beaten at seven years old, I cried.

Chapter Eleven

Maci

“UP! COME ON, get up!” Amber yelled as she charged into the room we were sharing.

Glancing over at her when she jumped on my bed, I looked back up at the ceiling and suppressed a sigh. “I think I’m going to call it an early night. I’m exhausted from traveling up here.”

“Bullshit you are! You’re moping and being all stupid depressed because Connor turned out to be a dick!”

My chest ached, hearing his name. “Amber . . . please, just let me be upset about this for a while.”

“Nope, no. Not going to happen. As your best friend, it is my duty to make sure you get back to being all happy happy because it’s almost Christmas, have an awesome f**king vacation, and get laid by some random hot ski instructor.”

I actually cracked a smile. “Ski instructor? Really now . . .”

“Yes, and it will be perfect. It will take your mind off the ass**le, you won’t have to see the guy again until next year—if you even see him again.”

“Ahh . . . no thanks. But, really, have at it.”

Standing up, she grabbed my ankles and started dragging me down the bed.

“Holy shit! You’re such a f**king bitch. Oh God!” I wheezed when my back hit the floor with a hard thud.

“I’m your bitch, and it’s why you love me. So let’s slut it up, hit a few bars and—”

We both looked toward the hallway when one of my brothers yelled my name.

“Why do I feel like I’m about to be in trouble?” I whispered to Amber when she helped me up off the floor.

“Maci, get the f**k up here!” one of the boys yelled seconds before I heard him pounding down the stairs.

We stood there frozen as we waited, and I jumped when my door was thrown open so hard, I was sure it left a dent in the wall.

“Jesus, Dyl—”

“Shut the f**k up and get your ass upstairs. Now.”

“Excuse me? Don’t be f**king rude! Get out of my damn room, you son of a bitch!”

“Maci!” Came another voice from upstairs. Seconds later, Craig was standing behind Dylan. “You might want to come upstairs.” It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command, and he sounded just as pissed as Dylan.

I looked up at my ceiling when I heard my dad yell, “Calm down, Dakota! Let the man talk.”

Connor. My heart raced and ached at the same time. My stomach started churning, and I was afraid I was about to lose what little of dinner I’d actually eaten. I didn’t want to see him, but why would he be here and upsetting my brothers if it weren’t for me?