Delilah’s judgmental expression fades and her eyes soften. “What? Seriously?”
“His bags were packed when I came home from work. He said he wanted out. And I didn’t try to stop him.”
She takes my trembling hand and sandwiches it between hers.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Her head tilts, her voice just a smidgeon whiny.
“I didn’t think anyone would believe me. I mean, look at the timing.” My throat constricts. “And you love Brooks so much. You’re so excited about the wedding.”
“I believe you, Demi.”
“You . . . you do?”
Delilah nods. “I know you’d never make something up like this.”
“Yeah, but you’re my sister. You know me. All those people who don’t know me—you think they’d believe me?”
She shakes her head. “Probably not. Timing does seem suspect.”
“See?” I almost start to feel vindicated, like I’m not crazy for carrying on this little façade this past week. “But that’s not all.”
“Okay.” Delilah squares her shoulders.
“When he left, he was going to her.”
“Her?”
“He was seeing someone on the side.” It seems so polite to say it that way. Seeing someone on the side. Sounds a hell of a lot nicer than saying he was fucking another woman with his dick while also fucking me with his dick and I had no idea.
Delilah heaves, her hand flying to her lips. “How do you know?”
“Royal told me.”
Her sympathy fades in an instant. “Seriously? Royal told you all this? Okay. I see what’s happening here.”
My brows furrow. “I’m not following.”
“Royal’s manipulating you. He wants you back, and what better way to get you to think Brooks was a cheater?”
I laugh. “No, it’s not like that at all.”
“He’s totally manipulating you, and you don’t even see it. He won’t tell you what happened until you spend more time with him, right? And he wants to make sure you won’t ever go back to Brooks, right? Don’t you see? It’s clear as day, Demi.”
I refuse to believe. And she doesn’t know him like I do.
“Have you been spending more time with him lately?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“So he’s getting what he wants from you. And what are you getting out of all of this?” Delilah’s hands flail when she speaks. She’s always had a penchant for speaking with her hands when she really wants to get a point across. “You’re right back in his web, Demi. He set a trap, and you walked right in.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“Do you have proof of this alleged affair?”
I glance to my left, thinking. Racking. Remembering.
“No,” I say a moment later. “No proof.”
“So you’re making life decisions based on Royal’s allegations?”
“What do you mean, life decisions? Brooks ended the engagement. That was his decision, not mine. Don’t you think there had to have been someone else, Delilah? Brooks was crazy about me. Everything was fine in the days leading up to that night. Nothing was out of the ordinary. And then he left.”
She tugs on her bottom lip, staring at the numbers on the radio.
“Yeah, obviously he had a reason for calling it off. But you can’t take Royal’s word for it. You have to find out from Brooks.”
“Royal said he saw Brooks with another woman in Glidden,” I say. “And he said he went up to him, told him he was a friend of mine, and threatened to tell me unless Brooks made a choice. And Brooks obviously chose her, so . . .”
“Okay, assuming Royal’s not full of shit and that really did happen,” she says. “Who is this mystery woman? Did he describe her to you?”
“I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know at the time.” My chest deflates, and I sink against the back of the driver’s seat. “All I know is that she lives in Glidden.”
Delilah rolls her eyes. “Girls from Glidden were always bitches.”
“I know this sounds completely insane, Delilah, but I just have this gut feeling that it’s Afton.”
Her eyes narrow and then grow round. “Afton? Like the reporter from the Herald?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you think that?”
I rake my fingers through my hair and catch the grease and metal scent of Royal, quickly remembering how my hands were all over him just a mere hour ago.
I don’t know why I went there or why I did what I did. The last place I need to be is on my knees before the only man who broke me. Seeing Brooks this morning made me so numb that I just wanted to feel something.
“I don’t know.” I sigh. “I guess it’s silly. And random. I have no proof it’s Afton.”
“That asshole.” Delilah smacks the dash, lips pursed. “If he really cheated on you, so help me . . .”
“What are you going to do about it, huh?” I half-chuckle. My car grows silent, each of us lost in our own thoughts or maybe wrapping our heads around how screwed up this situation is. “We should probably head to the hospital.”
Delilah buckles up. “Yeah. Guess so.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Demi
“There’s our girl.” Brenda Abbott’s face lights when I step into Brooks’s new room. They moved him today, while I was gone. He’s down the hall from the ICU now, into a larger room better equipped for his recovery. The windows are bigger, and several bouquets of flowers and balloons line the ledge.
Brenda rises and takes my hand, and Delilah and I exchange looks. My sister gives me a reassuring half-smile, a silent promise that the later’s going to be okay if I can just get through the now.
“We missed you today, sweetheart.” Brenda’s voice is loud, and she speaks slowly, enunciating each syllable.
Is Brooks hearing impaired now? Is his mental capacity diminished?
“Hi.” I stare into Brooks’s familiar eyes when I get to his bedside. Feels like I’m looking at a stranger. My nerves tingle through to my fingertips, and my heart trots.
I wish we were alone.
I wish I could ask him my questions and he could give me his answers.
“Demi.” He says my name, though it comes out like scratched air. And then he smiles.
“Here, take my seat, dear.” Brenda points before pushing up a chair to her son’s bedside.
His fingers curl into a half-opened fist, like they’re stuck that way. And he’s propped up with a half-dozen pillows. His hair has been washed since this morning. I can tell, because it’s shiny and blond and neatly combed. With the exception of the fading bruises on his face, he looks more like himself now than he did this morning.
Brooks’s fingers twitch, and he uses all of his strength to reach for me.
I oblige, our gazes locked.
“I’m . . . sorry.” His apology is breathy and slow. Brooks’s green eyes search mine, blinking slowly.
I’m not exactly sure what he’s apologizing for. For leaving me? For the accident? For the credit cards? For the cheating?
I pat his hand the way a friend might, and I bite my tongue when the urge to tell him not to worry about it floats through my mind. It’s like an auto-response. Someone apologizes, and I tell them not to worry about it.
But it’s not like that now.
What Brooks did was beyond . . .
And I won’t brush it off, even if he does look helpless and remorseful and like he’s two seconds from crying.
I’ve never seen Brooks cry before. Four years together, and I never saw a single tear. He came close once, after an intense golf game with my brother.
He blinks, and a fat tear slides from the corner of his eye.
“I’m . . . sorry,” he breathes again.
Brenda doesn’t see any of this. She’s talking to Delilah in the corner, and they seem to be chatting about this weekend’s fundraiser—which I completely forgot about until now.
They stop chattin
g when Brenda turns to watch us and sees me looking at her.
“Everything okay over there?” she smiles and strides back over. Placing her hand on her son’s knee, she leans down. “Guess what, Brooks? Demi’s quitting her job so she can take care of you full-time. How wonderful is that? I always knew you were marrying a keeper. She’s a good girl, Brooks. Never left your side once. Except today.”
I see Delilah cock her head out of the corner of my eye.
Why Brenda would lie to him to make me look good is beyond me, but her little dig was one hundred percent intentional.
Brooks looks my way and mouths, “Thank you.”
Heat creeps up my neck.
Really?
He’s just going to pretend like we never broke up?
The weight of a warm palm on my back and Delilah’s chin on my shoulder grounds me for a moment.
“Hey, Brooks,” she says. “How’re you feeling?”
We all laugh, and I know exactly what she’s doing. She’s taking the heat off me, lightening the mood, and putting on a good face. But I know my sister, and inside she’s cursing his name.
He smiles, his face pained, and gives her a thumbs-up.
“Delilah, what do you say we grab ourselves some coffee and give our love birds some time alone together?” Brenda slicks a palm over her black bob.
My sister looks at me, and I give her my blessing. The second they’re gone, I shut the door and return to his bedside, perching on the edge of the mattress. His hand lifts, falling in my lap, his fingers touching mine.
He wants me to hold his hand.
I place mine on top of his, but I don’t hold it. I don’t interlace our fingers or give him any kind of indication that the past is water under the bridge.
“Demi.” He says my name again, like he’s starving and it’s nourishment. His other hand goes to his chest, slowly, and then points to me. No, to my heart. He’s saying he loves me.
“You . . . you love me?” I ask.
He nods, his eyes slowly closing and reopening.
“Brooks.” I pat his hand. “You left me. Remember?”
Brooks’s green eyes furrow. He’s confused.
“The night of your accident, you ended our engagement.”
He shakes his head from side to side in silent disagreement.
“Yes,” I say. “You did. You left me. Your bags were packed, you said you didn’t want to marry me, and you got in your car and drove away.”
He squints, glancing to the right and back, and then shakes his head again.
The doctors warned this could happen. Short-term memory loss is a highly common occurrence among victims of brain trauma.
“Do you remember anything about that night?” I ask. “Anything at all?”
Brooks’s eyes study mine, and his fingers twitch and attempt to uncurl beneath mine. He moves them enough to hook his pinky into mine.
And then he shakes his head no.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Royal
She answers her door, and relief swallows me whole. It’s Saturday night, and there’s no place I’d rather be than with Demi Rosewood.
“What are you doing here?” Her face is pinched, and she has a good grip on her front door.
“Haven’t heard from you in a few days,” I say. “Coming by to check on you.”
I glance over her shoulder.
“You alone?” I ask.
She glances over mine. “Yeah. Come in.”
“You’re all dressed up. Going somewhere?”
She runs her hands along the black fabric of a modest dress that covers her curved frame. Her hair is combed back into some kind of fancy contraption, and her lips are redder than the beat up Porsche in her garage. Polished nails fidget with a dainty diamond bracelet on her left wrist, and she smells like a flower shop.
“I have a charity thing tonight,” she says.
“For Brooks?”
She nods. “Don’t want to go. Just making a quick appearance. Brenda’s running the show.”
“Been worried about you,” I say. “Ever since the other day.”
“Really? What for?”
“You weren’t yourself.” I reach for her face, unable to resist the urge to touch her a minute longer, but she pushes my hand to the side. “And the way you left . . .”
Taking a step back, she says, “Everything is just so complicated right now, and I’m just trying to deal with one thing at a time. I don’t know where you fit into all this, and to be honest, I don’t have the energy to deal with us right now, so . . .”
“So what are you saying? That’s it? You’re going to focus on Brooks now? So long, Royal?”
Her arms loop across her chest and pull tight. “This isn’t about me choosing one or the other.”
“But it kind of is.” I step toward her. She steps back. “You can’t be with fucking Brooks, Demi. You can’t. I won’t let you. You don’t have to pick me, but for the love of God, do not pick him.”
“I’m not picking either of you.”
Her words follow with staunch silence.
I’m trapped in her gaze, watching the quiver of her lower lip and using all the strength I have not to bite it with a kiss.
“Brooks doesn’t remember leaving me,” she says, placing her palm on my face because she knows what I’m about to say. “So for now, for the foreseeable future, I have to play the part.”
“You don’t have to play anything.” I scoff at her ridiculous declaration. “Did you ask him about his mistress? About the fucking credit cards?”
“No, Royal. I didn’t.” Her pretty blue eyes roll. “I haven’t exactly had the opportunity, and the man just woke up from a week-long coma. I’m not about to take him to trial over his crimes. There’s an art to war.”
“But look at you, all loyal, right by his side like nothing happened.” I knock the heel of my palm against my forehead and then glide my fingers through my hair, tugging handfuls at the roots.
I feel it.
I feel her slipping away.
I’m losing her all over again, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
This.
This is hell.
This is my own personal, living nightmare.
“You have it all wrong.” She bites her lip, shaking her head hard enough that a tendril of hair comes loose. “I have no loyalty to him. I’m just waiting for the right time to exit this whole thing gracefully.”
“Ha.” My hands hook my hips. “Of course you are. And by that time, he’ll have weaseled his way back into your heart, you’ll have forgiven him, and you’ll be honeymooning in Italy.”
The room goes dark for a fraction of a second, and a hot sting radiates from my cheek.
Demi retracts her palm, taking a step away from me. Judging by the way her mouth hangs, she’s just as shocked by the slap as I am.
I rub the tender spot for a quick second and let it go.
She doesn’t apologize, and I’m not angry with her for the slap. It’s a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to do that.” Her words are low and steady. “You deserved it, Royal. For so many reasons. Reasons I don’t have time to get into right now, because I’m running late.”
The clock on the wall catches her eye, and she pushes past me to grab a coat from the closet in the foyer.
“We’re not finished.” I mean it in every sense of the word.
“We are.” Demi slips the coat over her delicate shoulders, disappearing into a wrap of blackness.
“So this is it?”
Her tongue slicks across the seam of her lips and she shrugs.
“For now.”
“Then what was the other day? At my place? What did that mean?”
“I wish I knew.” Demi shrugs. “On second thought, maybe I know, and maybe you’re just not ready to hear the answer.”
“Oh, we’re going to play that game now?” I huff. “You going to h
old me hostage until I tell you what you want to hear?”
“It really, really blows, doesn’t it, Royal? To need an answer to something so badly that it damn near kills you, and to know that the one person who could heal that pain refuses to give it to you?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“You said that before, and I still disagree with you.”
I step into her space, resting my hands on the curve of her hip and guiding her closer to me. Inhaling her sweet scent, I lock eyes with her.
“Don’t push me away, Demi.” I lower my lips to hers, but I don’t kiss her. Not yet. Our mouths graze, and she breathes me in, harboring the air and refusing to release it. My right hand cups the base of her neck, slinking up to her jaw and feeling the wild palpitations of her heart. “I still love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone. And I’m not giving up on us. We deserve that happiness that was stolen from us seven years ago.”
She glances away, but I guide her back, meeting her glassy gaze.
“Because it was stolen,” I say. “No matter what anyone says, I didn’t do it, Demi. I didn’t do it.”
I’m overcome with a choke in my voice, so I kiss her before she senses I’m two seconds from falling apart. Men don’t fall apart. Men don’t cry. Men don’t get sad or weak. They brush it off and move on and pretend the parts that hurt don’t exist. If something becomes too painful, we fucking amputate that shit and don’t give it a second thought.
But I never could. Not with her.
Her lips warm mine, our tongues seeking one another’s. Demi’s skin is soft as silk beneath my fingertips, and I’m tempted to yank her hair out of that perfect little bun just so I can run my hands through it again.
My eyes burn, but I force it away.
I need to go before she asks more questions. I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her everything, because I know she has one foot out the door already, and if this is my only chance to come clean, I’ll do what I have to do.
But I want her undivided attention, because this isn’t the kind of thing you tell someone in passing. I don’t want her dressed to the nines, on her way out the door to some charity benefit for Brooks fucking Abbott.
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