Best Kept Secrets: The Complete Series

by Kandi Steiner

  Blake, my ex-roommate.

  And, technically, my girlfriend.

  ***

  Charlie

  Jane’s cage door was still wide open, the two swings within it empty, and I stared at the gold-plated bars of that little prison as I waited for Cameron to return.

  He’d helped me into bed after my episode at the concert, and though I was lucky I hadn’t cracked my head like an egg backstage, I still somewhat wished I could just pass out again to skip whatever conversation was about to happen.

  I missed Jane.

  If she was in her cage, I could open the door and tickle her feathers while she nudged her little head into my hand and sang me a song assuring me everything would be fine. Then again, not even her comforting song could change the fact that my life was a royal mess at the moment.

  Still, I couldn’t stop staring at her empty cage, longing for her company.

  The sun had set long ago, well before the spring concert even started, and our room was illuminated only by the soft white glow coming from my bedside lamp. I heard Cameron’s footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hallway before he even appeared, but I still blinked when he entered, as if he’d shaken me from a dream.

  “Here,” he said, taking a seat at the foot of our bed near my ankles.

  I kept my eyes on the cage as he handed me a steaming cup of tea on a small porcelain plate. The floral aroma of it hit my nose first, and I finally glanced down at the hot liquid, letting the steam warm my face. It was a white berry tea, one of my favorites, and I hated that Cameron knew it would bring me comfort.

  I sat it on the bedside table.

  “You need to try to eat something soon,” he said softly, placing a small bowl of tea biscuits next to where I’d placed the mug. “I know you don’t want to, but you should try.”

  I nodded as my only acknowledgement, leaning back against the fort of pillows against our headboard with my eyes resting on that damn cage again.

  “Why?”

  My voice cracked a little at the first word I’d spoken all night. I tore my gaze from the cage, and Cameron’s eyes were waiting for me, steady as ever.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Because I love you,” he answered easily, as if the answer was obvious. “And I’m not losing you.”

  I stared at him, willing myself to believe the words he’d said, to feel something when he said them — but I only found rage.

  “Damn it, Cameron!” I threw the covers back, kicking them the rest of the way off until I could climb out of bed. I needed to walk, needed to be away from him.

  My hands ran back through my tangled hair, and I squeezed my eyes tight once I’d reached the far end of our room, standing right next to the cage with the door still open. I wanted to crawl out of my skin, out of the house, out of my life. It was too hard to breathe, my head swimming again like it had at the school, and I blindly felt for the handle on our window before throwing it open and letting in the freezing cold breeze.

  The shock of it stole my breath, but then it came back in a slow, comforting exhale, and I braced my hands on the windowsill, letting the cold consume me.

  “I know about you and Reese.”

  His words should have shocked me, should have crippled me with guilt and sorrow, but they only elicited a snarky laugh that had never left my lips before in my entire life. I shook my head where it hung between my shoulders, fingers still curled around the white wood of our window sill.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  And what does it matter?

  That’s what I wanted to ask, but I simply leaned against the corner of the window, letting the frame take my weight.

  “Well, then I guess there’s really nothing more to say. If you know about him, then you know what happens next.”

  Cameron was still sitting at the foot of the bed, the only change in his stance being that he’d shifted so he was looking at me instead of the pillows where I’d sat before. He was calm and collected, seemingly unfazed by the fact that his wife had slept with another man.

  “Enlighten me,” he challenged.

  I stared at my hands, folding them over one another in my lap. “It’s over, Cameron. I’m done. I’m done with the pain, with being ignored, with this sham of a relationship we call marriage.” I shook my head, finally feeling the sinking in my gut again.

  Admitting that we’d failed was the hardest part.

  “I love him,” I whispered, sealing our fate, and I closed my eyes hard with the admission.

  “No, you don’t.”

  I frowned, opening my eyes again and finally looking at Cameron. It bothered me how calm he was, how sure he seemed.

  “You don’t love him,” he repeated, his gaze hard. “You love the idea of him, the idea of what he used to be to you, and of what he never was.”

  If I wasn’t clenching my jaw so hard, it would have been on the floor.

  “You don’t know anything,” I spat, standing straight again. A black fog crept into the edges of my vision but I ignored it, floating on the adrenaline set loose by his words. “You haven’t known anything about me since we lost the boys. You haven’t even cared to know.”

  “I was trying to give you space and let you heal, Charlie.”

  “I DIDN’T NEED SPACE,” I screamed, flying toward him. I stopped just a few feet away as tears pricked the corners of my eyes. My hand flew to my chest, fisting over my heart as my face twisted with the emotion I couldn’t hold back anymore. “I needed you.”

  He flinched at that, his face finally falling from the stoic expression he’d worn since he walked in the room. His eyes fell to the floor and I shook my head, turning my back on him again. A rush of cold air from the window shocked a loud breath from my chest, and I swiped at the tears I’d let escape.

  “I know,” he said after a moment, voice low. “I realize that now, and I’m sorry. But I’m your husband, and you’re my wife. You love me, Charlie. Not him.”

  I choked out something between a laugh and a sob, spinning on my heels to face him. “I’m leaving you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Are you deaf?” I asked, incredulous. “I’m leaving you, Cameron. I’m done. It’s over. I want a divorce.”

  “Two months,” he said loudly, his voice booming over mine as I said the dreaded d-word. His eyes snapped to mine, the crease between his brows deep and serious.

  “What?”

  “That’s how long he’s been back in your life, right?” he probed, jaw clenched. “That’s how long it took you to realize that you love him, that you don’t want to be my wife anymore, that you want to turn your back on everything we’ve built, on everything we’ve been through, to be with him?”

  I just stared at him, mouth open to fight back, but I didn’t have words.

  “The least you can do is give me a fair playing field,” he continued, and he straightened his shoulders with his next request. “Give me two months.”

  I scoffed, pacing the room, my eyes flicking from the cage to the window to him and back again. “You’re kidding, right? There’s nothing you can do, Cameron. You’ve had the past five years,” I reminded him. “Five years since we lost our sons. Five years since you turned your back on me and left me alone in this marriage. What could you possibly do to change my mind now?”

  “Two months, Charlie.”

  A scream ripped from my throat, and I grabbed the open door of the bird cage, throwing it to the floor in a thunderous crash. I dragged my hands through my hair once it was at my feet, squeezing my eyes shut as more tears broke free.

  “I just don’t understand,” I cried. “Nothing makes sense. Why now? Why did it take losing me for you to care?”

  My hands fell to my side, exasperated, and I met his eyes with my own. Emotion tore through me like a razor blade to a healing wound, and I didn’t bother fighting against the tears anymore as I begged my husband for mercy.

  “You waited too long,” I croaked
. “And now, it’s too late. You don’t even love me, Cameron. You haven’t for years. You know you don’t love me anymore. Why can’t you let me go?” I choked on another sob, shaking my head as my vision blurred. “Please, please, just let me go.”

  I broke in the middle of our bedroom.

  My shoulders caved, knees giving out next, and I reached blindly for our bedpost to keep me standing upright as I succumbed to the flood of emotions soaring through me.

  Guilt.

  Desperation.

  Pain.

  Sorrow.

  Loss.

  All of it swirled inside me like the deadliest tornado, and all I wanted was to escape it. To escape him.

  “Come here.”

  Cameron’s voice was low, and in my peripheral, I saw his hand outstretched toward where I stood.

  “Please, come here and let me hold you.”

  “No.”

  “Just…” He sighed, hand falling to the bed before he held it up again, this time curling his fingers. “Come here.”

  I shook my head, annoyed that he wouldn’t just leave me be as I gave in to his ridiculous request. I didn’t understand why he wanted to hold me, why he wanted to comfort me only now that he’d lost me.

  But when my hand slipped into his, he tightened his grip, pulling me gently until I was in his lap. He framed my face with one hand as the other wrapped around me, pulling me flush against him, and his eyes searched mine.

  And I saw him.

  In that brief, lightning flash of a moment, I saw the man I’d married.

  I saw lazy afternoons on the beach during our honeymoon, and laughter shared over candlelit dinners, and comfort in the form of hugs after long, hard days. He brushed my cheek with his thumb, wiping away a tear, and I couldn’t fight against the urge to melt into him.

  I collapsed in his arms as he pulled me in closer, one arm pulling my legs up until I was cradled in his lap like a child. He rocked me, soothing me with his hands over my hair, my arms, my back as his lips pressed against my forehead. He didn’t kiss me, though — he just let his lips rest against the warm skin as a sigh left his chest.

  “Two months,” he whispered, still rocking me, and a new wave of tears broke loose at the sound of his voice so close to my ears. “That’s all I’m asking. Two months to prove to you that the vows I made to you still hold true, and that it’s me you’re meant to be with — not him. Please,” he begged, and emotion robbed his next words as his own tears met mine.

  I hadn’t ever seen him cry. Ever.

  Not even when we lost the boys.

  He was quiet a moment, battling against his emotion’s betrayal of the calmness he’d tried so hard to contain. When he finally found his voice again, it was quiet and raw. “Please. Just give me a chance.”

  I swallowed, closing my eyes as I leaned into his warm chest.

  “Two months?” I asked.

  “Two months.”

  Reese flashed into my mind, but he was erased in an instant with a gentle sweep of Cameron’s hand over my lower back. My husband was asking me for a chance to keep me, for a chance to fight for our love. Was he too late? Maybe. Did I think he could change my mind? If I was being honest with myself, no.

  But I owed him the chance to try.

  They say there are two sides to every story, and it was in that moment, in that dark, desperate snapshot of my life that I realized I hadn’t asked him for his.

  So, I opened my eyes again, leaning back in his arms until our eyes connected, and I offered the only word I could.

  “Okay.”

  “In the end,

  we were like ghosts

  hanging on

  to the roof of the earth.

  Halfway between worlds,

  too afraid to let go.”

  — Beau Taplin

  PROLOGUE

  * * *

  Charlie

  Left or right.

  It was as simple as that, except it wasn’t simple at all.

  If I went left, the road would eventually lead me to the house on the east side of Mount Lebanon — to the man I promised my life to, the one I’d imagined building a family with, the one who’d done everything in his power to try to keep me.

  If I went right, the road would take me to a house not so familiar — to the man I used to only know as a boy, the man who came back unannounced, the man I loved first, before I even knew what love was.

  I didn’t have any more tears to shed. They were all dried on my face, inky lines of mascara marring each cheek like scars. I was at the fork I knew I’d eventually get to all along, the decision I never wanted to make between two choices I never knew I had before two months ago.

  The truth was simple.

  I loved them both.

  My heart was forever severed, destined to exist in two equal halves — one with each man. But one half beat stronger, one half had the vein that ran deepest, and one half held my choice in silence well before I ever admitted it out loud.

  The other half would always be a part of me, but in a softer way — a more subdued beating, a quieter presence, a different kind of life support.

  A different kind of love.

  My chest ached with the realization of what I had to do, of the words I had to say, the heart I had to break. Though the snow had cleared and spring was beginning to paint the earth green all around me, I still felt the harsh bite of winter nipping at my heels as I fled from it — from the cold, from the hurt, to a new beginning, to a new me.

  Left or right.

  It may not have been a simple choice, but I knew with every beat of my severed heart it was the right one.

  So, I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turned the wheel.

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  Two months earlier

  Charlie

  The first thing I noticed when I came to the morning after the spring concert was the splitting headache.

  My ears rang, loud and shrill, and I creaked one eye open first before the other. When I tried to sit up, a sledgehammer smacked me back down. I groaned, massaging my temples as I laid back into the pillow.

  The reality of what had happened the night before filtered in slowly through the waves of my headache, seeping in like frigid ice to my veins. I pressed into my temples, and then I saw a flash of Reese in the closet at school. I pinched the bridge of my nose, and then I saw Cameron’s glossed eyes as he begged me to stay.

  It was a nightmare, one I’d agreed to subject myself to for two more months.

  I was giving Cameron the chance to keep me, but it was Reese who held my heart now.

  “Hey.”

  I opened my eyes again, finding Cameron standing in the doorway of our bedroom. He was already fully dressed for work, his jaw clean shaven, tie fastened at his neck and dark hair styled neat. He balanced a steaming cup of tea on a tiny saucer plate, and when he crossed to sit on the edge of the bed next to me, I saw two small pills next to the mug.

  “Ibuprofen,” he said, handing me those first. “Figured you might need these.”

  My eyes were heavy from crying, heart heavy from fighting, and I pushed to sit up as slowly as I could before tossing the coated pills in my mouth. I swallowed, shaking my head when Cameron offered me the tea to help wash them down. He set the mug on our nightstand, exactly where the cup he’d brought me the night before had gone cold.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Cameron’s hand reached forward for mine, cupping over my fingers, and I stared at that point of contact as another sharp pain ripped through my head.

  “Tired,” I answered. It was the best word I had to wrap up everything I felt. I was exhausted — from the night, from the past couple of months, from the last five years. I wanted to sleep until my nightmare was over. I wanted to cry at just the thought of what I had yet to endure, at the fact that I couldn’t just wake up to a new, brighter day where life was simple again.

  Cameron squeezed my hand.

  “M
aybe you should stay home today.”

  I shook my head before he’d even finished his sentence, throwing the covers back. “No. I want to go.”

  “I think everyone would understand after last night if you—“

  “I want to go, Cameron.”

  I said the words with finality, and his brows bent together. He knew why I wanted to go, or rather, whom I wanted to go to. But he didn’t let me see his heart break as that truth settled in.

  “Okay,” he said with a slight nod.

  He stood first, holding out his hand to help me up. I wobbled a little, my head swimming, but Cameron held onto me and kept me steady. When the dizziness passed, I opened my eyes and took him in. My husband. The man I’d promised forever to.

  The promise I wasn’t sure I could keep anymore.

  Cameron pulled his phone from his pocket, tapping a few buttons on the screen before setting it gently beside my tea on the nightstand. A soft, slow melody filled the room, a song I wasn’t familiar with, and Cameron pulled me into his arms just as the first verse began.

  He swayed me gently, but I was stiff in his arms, my eyes catching on the clock. I needed to get ready.

  “I should get dressed,” I said, but Cameron still swayed, his hand on the small of my back rubbing gently.

  “Just one dance.”

  “You’re going to be late for work.”

  “They’ll live.”

  I looked at him then, just as the chorus swept over us, and I tried to remember the last time he put me before work. When was the last time he said work could wait, and I was priority number one?

  I couldn’t remember.

  And now, it only felt like he was doing so because he knew he’d lost me.

  It was too late, and only now was he waking up.

  “Cameron, about last night…”

  He shook his head firmly, pulling me closer until my head rested on his chest. He wrapped me up tighter, like that embrace would make me stay, like he could be the anchor that would keep me home.