I didn't remember grabbing my purse.
I didn't remember pushing the restaurant door open again.
All I remembered was the sound of my own heartbeat violent, frantic, completely out of control.
Edward caught up to me halfway across the parking lot.
"Leah wait!"
I spun around, my voice cracking. "He's… your father?"
The words tasted wrong. Like poison.
Like something that should NEVER have existed between us.
Edward slowed his steps, palms out like approaching a frightened animal. "Leah, please. Don't run from me."
"Don't run?" I laughed, breath shaking. "I just found out I slept with my ex-husband's son. What exactly do you want me to do celebrate?"
"That's not fair," he muttered.
"What's not fair is you knowing and still touching me." My voice trembled violently. "Still taking me home. Still letting me God!"
I couldn't breathe.
Edward stepped closer. I stepped back.
"Leah," he said softly, "just talk to me."
"Talk?" I shot back. "Edward, I can barely THINK."
Behind him, I could still see Frank and Vivian standing in the doorway watching, judging, drinking in every second of my humiliation.
Edward followed my gaze and instantly moved to block my view with his body, shielding me from them.
"Don't look at them," he said fiercely. "Look at me."
"I can't," I whispered.
"Why not?"
"Because you're… him." My voice cracked again. "You're connected to him. Tied to him. Blood of him."
Edward's jaw clenched. "I am nothing like him."
"It doesn't matter," I choked out. "You're still his son."
"Barely." Edward shook his head, eyes burning. "You don't know what our relationship is like. You don't know what he's done. You don't know what he took from me."
I swallowed hard. "You should have told me."
"I was going to."
"When?" I snapped. "Before or after you made me fall for you?"
The moment the words slipped out, I froze.
Edward stopped breathing.
"You fell for me?" he whispered.
I went cold. "Forget I said that."
"No." He moved toward me again, slower this time, voice barely a breath. "Don't take that back."
"Edward"
"I fell first." His eyes didn't leave mine. "I fell the moment you walked up to me in that bar and kissed me like you owned the world."
My chest tightened painfully.
"Stop." I pressed a hand to my forehead. "Just stop. I can't hear this right now."
"Why? Because you want to pretend we were just sleeping together?"
"We WERE," I insisted, even though we both knew it was a lie.
"You're shaking," he murmured. "You're hurting."
"Of course I'm hurting! My entire life just turned into a nightmare."
Edward softened. "Not because of me."
"Because of EVERYTHING," I exhaled shakily. "Because this is sick. Messy. Complicated."
He swallowed hard. "But not wrong."
"Not wrong?" My voice went sharp. "Edward, do you even understand what this looks like? People will call me disgusting. They'll call YOU disgusting. They will"
"They can say whatever they want," he cut in. "I don't care what anyone thinks. I care about you."
His words hit me like a punch.
He meant them.
Every syllable.
And that terrified me more than anything else.
I shook my head, stepping away again. My voice came out small. Broken.
"I have to leave."
Edward's heart dropped into his expression. "Leah"
"Don't follow me." My throat tightened painfully as I forced the words out. "Please. Just… let me go."
For the first time since I met him…
He stopped moving.
Stopped pushing.
Stopped reaching.
But his voice God, his voice was soft enough to shatter me.
"I'll give you time," he said, chest rising and falling unevenly. "But I'm not giving up."
A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it.
I turned away.
I walked fast.
Then faster.
Every step felt like ripping out another piece of myself.
Behind me, I heard his voice quiet, cracked, full of a heartbreak that mirrored my own.
"I meant everything, Leah."
I didn't look back.
If I did, I wouldn't have been able to walk away at all.