Read Online Didn't You Promise (A Bad for You Novel) by Amber Bardan - Free Book Online Page A

him, clamping a hand over his wrist. “I’m going with you.”
    “You can’t.” He slipped free of my grasp.
    My heart clunked and rattled like a faulty clockwork. It didn’t seem to matter what I knew he had to do. Didn’t matter about his gift of energy to humanity or what he might achieve, because right then everything felt pretty damn uncomplicated. I loved Haithem. He was my future. I’d given up my life and my family for him. So if he had to take this risk, then I had earned the right to share the risk with him.
    I watched Haithem in the expanding silence of the car.
    He ran a hand down his face, but did not look at me back. He couldn’t . This man, who I’d once thought dauntless, couldn’t even look me in the eye.
    “Why didn’t you just dump me on that island if you weren’t prepared to have me to do this with you?”
    He tugged the keys from the ignition, but simply held them in his lap, glaring out the windshield. “You are doing this with me.”
    “No, I’m not.” He might not have the guts to look at me but I’d stare at him until he caught fire. “You’re chickening out and leaving me behind.”
    “Do you think this has been easy?” He turned to me, finally, his nostrils flaring, jaw bristling the way it did. “Haven’t I trusted you? Didn’t I tell you everything?”
    My teeth snapped together. My mind flashed with all the “facts” I knew. The way the prototype worked. How it was being made in parts. How there was almost no one working in his various secure factories who understood what was actually being created. How fucking fanatically Haithem and Avner had planned this entire freaking thing out.
    “I’ve put my life—other people’s lives, in your hands.” His voice was grating, yet his eyes weren’t burning as they were supposed to with the hard set of his jaw line—no his eyes were shining. “What more do you want from me, Angelina?”
    I breathed deeply— everything . More. It all.
    “I want your respect. Partnership isn’t coddling the other person, it’s trusting them to bear the burden, and face the risk with you.”
    His chin lowered and he turned away, gaze falling to the keys he jostled in his lap. “I respected my parents, when what I should have done was protect them.” His features went tight, locking me out, but not before his pain struck me a winding blow.
    My lungs burned. Deep down I’d known he blamed himself for what happened to them. But hearing—seeing him say so...
    I rubbed my aching throat. Nothing more could emerge. We sat in the car. The silence grated, excruciating.
    He touched my leg softly.
    I looked at him—Haithem, back to himself. What he’d shared with me flung back wherever he suppressed it.
    He smiled. My chest panged. For once I wished his smile could be less devastating. That there was some defense against his ability to turn me to butter.
    “Come see the views from the bedroom.” He rubbed my knee. “They’ll change you.”
    I hit the button on my seatbelt. “I think it’s safe to say, I’ve already had as much personal renovation as I can take.”
    Haithem stiffened, then opened his door and stepped outside. The door slammed shut behind him. He went to the boot and took out our bags, then stalked to the house.
    I stayed in my seat.
    So, I’d pissed him off—well this pissed me off too.
    I couldn’t pretend everything we’d been through hadn’t left its mark on me. That as much as I’d been healed by him, I’d also been damaged. Damaged by choices that plagued us both.
    Yes, we loved each other.
    But our love might be the most destructive force in our lives. So much love entangled with so much wrong. My hurts—his hurts. The hurts our relationship inflicted on others. There was a strain on us. Until we were done, until we came into the open having achieved a greater good, I’m not sure we’d ever be free of it.
    That knowledge added another layer to my concoction of hurts. It sucked that the same fate that