Between Never and Forever: Dex and Keelani’s Fake Engagement Story (Hardy Billionaires)

“Fuck you,” she ground out.

She had always fought fire with fire. I deserved her swearing at me, but I didn’t care, not after what she’d done, not after she’d left me for ruin. And then she asked for a last time. Didn’t she know we’d never even really gotten started?

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“I’m not going to fuck you here, Kee. You only get my hand. Want to know why?” I picked up the pace, and her hips rocked with me. Her body still knew what it needed from me, and I wasn’t above giving her that.

We stared into each other’s eyes until I saw hers drifting shut. “Just tell me, Dex. Get it over with.”

“Because you don’t deserve that part of me when you can’t give me all of you.”

“I want to, Dex. I’ve always wanted to,” she whimpered.

“Look at me when you say that. I want to know you mean it.”

Her eyes shot open, and her deep-brown irises were filled with pain. “I’ve only ever meant it for you, Dex.”

“Is that so? Is this all for me too?”

And then I pushed her clit in and rolled it fast as I pumped my fingers into her again and again. It was the perfect rhythm. I saw how her skin started to glisten, how her breath hitched, how her whole body clenched in anticipation. Her pussy tightened on me, too, as she screamed out my name. Over and over.

It wasn’t enough to heal the pain she’d inflicted, but the anger and the turmoil stopped flowing through my veins for a second. She was here with me, and it was all I really wanted. I loved the girl even if she didn’t love me enough to stay.

Her gaze turned hazy as she sat up and reached for my belt buckle fast, her movements jerky. “I want all of you here, where we always did everything. I want this memory with you.”

Another memory. Not a present or a future, just a past. Did she realize it felt like a dagger every time she talked about us this way?

I stood up and stepped back away from her.

She looked ravished in the sun’s setting rays that poured in through the trees. Her long hair had fallen from its bun, and tendrils of it floated in the wind while all the birds chirped around us. The lilacs brought out a hint of violet in her eyes even though they looked devastated as she realized what was happening.

“I don’t want to fuck you in the middle of a garden, Kee.”

“Dex—”

“I don’t really want to fuck with you at all anymore.” I said the words aloud so we could both believe them.

“I want to talk. I can explain—”

“There’s nothing to explain. Neither of us lives here anymore. You’re not a part of my life. And I never want you to be.”

“Dex.” Her body shuddered at my words, and then she wrapped her arms around her chest.

Fuck, I wanted to hold her. I wanted to tell her we’d be all right. I took a deep breath and grabbed the strings of her bikini instead. I tied them back around her neck as I knelt down to look her in her eyes. “Stop calling me. Go live that glitzy life you always wanted.” I needed this closure, and so did she.

“But that’s not why I’m doing this—”

“I don’t care why you’re doing it, pretty girl. I just don’t want any part of it. It’s why I don’t pick up when you call, why I don’t text back. I barely even read the texts, Kee. I’m living my life.”

Yeah, I’d ignored all sixty-five texts. I hadn’t read them each twenty-five times over. I hadn’t figured out a way to ping where they were coming from. I certainly wasn’t obsessed with her twenty-four-seven. That would have been unhealthy.

“How can you say that?” One tear fell from each eye, but she swiped them both away.

How could I keep the cycle of our hell going? We were broken, and we kept breaking each other. One of us had to stop.

“I’m letting go of a childhood love, heartbreaker.”

“Don’t call me that.” She said it with venom but the nickname fit.

“Whatever, Kee. We went through trauma together, but it doesn’t mean we can’t move on.”

“That’s what you think it was? Just some childhood crush?” Her eyes narrowed now as I sat back on my haunches.

“What else would it be?” A love so profound that I’d never get over it, but I couldn’t share that. My pride had already been lost to her once. Now, I was graduating college, getting opportunities of a lifetime to work on patented software. And she was soaring in her career.

“And what are we now?”

“Well, you seem to be settled into that pop star status, huh? I’m just working on getting through college.”

“I want whatever I can have with you.”

“You can’t have anything now,” I said and stood back up. “You look pretty in a garden, Keelani. You should tell your record label you want a garden on your next album cover.”

“Is that all you think I care about?” The question was uttered in pain.

I lifted a brow. “Isn’t it?”

The way she looked at me with dejection, I swear it made the air shift around us. That garden would haunt me for years to come. “Do you really think I don’t love you?”

What she didn’t understand was that this whole town had turned on me. Even my parents questioned how much I’d given her to drink that night. And her parents, well, I couldn’t face them after the PR stunt that was pulled. I distanced myself completely, compartmentalizing it all in order to survive. I came home, I engaged with my family, and then I left.

Kyle’s death, Gabriella’s injury, and Keelani’s safety were all on me. My heart was calloused over after years of the town’s questioning, after years of interrogating myself also. Never again would I lose control like that and let love steer me into something that wasn’t right.

So, I shut her down. “I don’t know, Kee. All I know is that you said you didn’t love me once.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

I stepped back and away from her. “Yes, well, I mean it when I say I don’t love you now.”

I didn’t mean it either.