Love Arranged (Lakefront Billionaires, #3)(97)

His words hit me straight in the chest, like an emotional, battering ram threatening to shatter my heart into a thousand pieces.

“But...” What about us?

I don’t realize I said the words aloud until Lorenzo looks up from his clenched fists.

“I like you.” But not love. “I really do, but not enough to change my mind.”

How does this even happen?

I believed that he was the one for me. That yes, while our story wasn’t conventional, it was special in a way that no one could ever compare.

Maybe to you, but never to him.

Lake Wisteria is my home, but Lorenzo…he is my heart. I don’t want to have to choose between one or the other.

“But I want to spend the rest of my life here.”

“I know. But if I lose, I won’t.” He sounds completely drained.

I fail to notice the tears streaming down my face until Lorenzo wipes them away. Seeking comfort in his touch feels like I’m pouring salt in an open wound, so I pull back and wrap my arms around myself.

Pain flashes behind his eyes, but I refuse to think twice about it. He doesn’t get to hurt me like this and feel bad about it afterward.

“Why am I not good enough for you to stay?” The question comes out as a sob, and I hate myself for being vulnerable.

“No. This has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

I’d like to believe him, but I’ve seen this movie. Heard the same line from men I’ve dated before. Quite a few times actually, and the ending is even shittier this time around.

I try to laugh it off, but with my heart breaking, it comes out wrong. “I appreciate the attempt to make me feel better, but your decision does have to do with me. Because if you loved me, you’d stay. You wouldn’t run away like Trevor suggested because you’re supposed to be loyal to me, not an election.”

His scowl deepens. “It’s…complicated.”

“Not when you love someone, it isn’t.”

He says nothing, and somehow that feels infinitely worse. Because I can’t believe I read him wrong. So wrong in fact, I came up with an entire plan centered around helping him realize his true feelings toward me.

Feelings and actions I mistook for love.

If he truly loved me, then wouldn’t he be trying harder to fight for us, to fight for the town?

He wouldn’t give up because of one bad debate. He’d be figuring out how to show the town how wrong Trevor was about him.

Un Mu?oz nunca se rinde…and neither should the person they choose to fall in love with.

It kills me to think of Lorenzo as anything but a strong, capable man willing to do anything to protect me, but it kills me more to see him quitting on me.

“I thought I could do it,” he whispers.

“But you’d rather walk away. You’d rather quit.”

“Yeah, I would. I’d much rather walk away with dignity than stay in this town for nothing,” he snaps back, his voice sharper than a whip.

I flinch. “I’m not nothing.”

He immediately jumps into apologizing. “Scusami, amore mio. I didn’t mean it like that. You know that, right?”

Now I’m really crying, and there is nothing I can do to delay the tears once they start falling. He pulls me into a hug, and I don’t fight him on it. Instead I melt into his embrace because it’ll never be the same after tonight.

I won’t allow it to be.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he says, filling the silence when I don’t speak. “I’m…distraught. Tomorrow we can regroup and come up with a new plan, and by next week we’ll have the polls and post-debate data to review too. I…” He shakes his head. “It’s no excuse, but my anxiety got the best of me, and I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I don’t ease his worries. I don’t rush to make him feel better. I don’t do anything but stand there in silence, processing how we got to this point.

He tilts my head back so he can get a better look at me. “Lily?” he asks, a crease forming between his brows.

“Yes?”

“Tell me you’re still in this with me.”

I look away and close my eyes. “Until the end of the election, yes.”

“What?”

“You and me…we’re done.”

“Done how?” Each word is punctuated with a pause.

“I plan on following through with our original agreement.” Even if it’s one of the hardest things I have to do. “We can keep up with our public appearances, but if you don’t plan on staying here if you lose, then everything else between us has to stop.”

Tell me you’ve changed your mind, I beg one last time.

Fight for me as hard as you’ve fought for this election.

Whatever flame of hope I carried is snuffed out when he shakes his head. “I won’t make you a promise I can’t keep.”

I want to curl into a ball and cry, because how can he look me in the eyes after everything that’s happened between us and act like it doesn’t matter?

“I see.”

Maybe we were always doomed because neither of us is willing to sacrifice for the other. I won’t leave, and he won’t stay.

It’s a tragedy that would make Shakespeare proud, and one I don’t fully understand.