Chapter 10

"Andrew," my voice was terrifyingly calm, "I've already died once in those waters. Consider Morgan—the woman who loved you—truly dead in that sea. Let's both move on with our separate lives." "No!" He suddenly grabbed my wrist, his grip desperate and painful, tight enough that I frowned from the pressure. "You can hate me, curse me, even kill me if it would make you feel better—But don't make me live in a world without you." My chest suddenly shot with sharp, familiar pain. The mate bond—even with blocking agents, even with all my attempts to sever the connection, it remained frustratingly strong. "What you wanted was never me," I said, prying his fingers away from my wrist one by one with deliberate precision. "Our entire relationship was built on a mistake, a lie." Andrew suddenly lunged forward, pinning me against the wall with desperate strength: "Look at me! Really look at me!" He forced me to meet his eyes, and I saw genuine anguish there, not the practiced manipulation I e