She hung up and dug through her suitcases looking for some running clothes, not wanting to go back upstairs. She changed and then left a note for Ethan on the kitchen chalkboard, telling him where she was and left the house.
As she walked to Luke’s house, thoughts swirled through her mind. The way they’d had sex, it was like he wasn’t having it with her. It wasn’t like their sex life was boring, far from it, but there were certain things Ethan always did without fail. He’d done none of those tonight. He hadn’t smiled, not once. He hadn’t cuddled afterwards. Hell, he’d seemed to want to get as far away from her as possible after they were done. And he hadn’t told her that he loved her. He’d seemed angry but she didn’t know why. He hadn’t said much at all. And when he had, he’d been short with her. Maybe he was just tired as he’d said. But …
Was she wrong to expect more from him? It had been four weeks since she’d seen him last. She expected relief, happiness … not what she’d gotten. When she had left for Europe, things had been good between them … now, it seemed anything but.
Up ahead, she saw Luke step out of his house. He was still her best friend after all these years. Still the one she knew that would always be honest with her. The one reason why she ignored him at times. But right now, she needed him to tell her nothing was going on with Ethan, that she was just imagining things.
“Hi,” she said as she walked up the path.
“Hi, sweets,” he said, jogging down to meet her. He wrapped her in a quick embrace. “Talk first or run?”
“Run,” she said. She needed to clear her mind, try to gain some perspective. They jogged side by side in silence for about thirty minutes. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and it worked, until it didn’t. Because the thought that kept crossing her mind was that Ethan was cheating on her.
She stopped running, and bent over and rested her hands on her knees. Luke jogged back to her. “So, my Mia, what’s wrong?”
She stood up and gazed into his hazel eyes. She was going to play the “I-knew-you-first” card and it scared her. Would Luke choose her? Or Ethan?
“I need you to be my best friend now, not Ethan’s. Can you do that?”
He smiled at her, reassuring her. “Yes, of course I can, sweets.”
She thought about how she could tell him, but none of it felt as right as what she was thinking, so she just said it. “I think Ethan is having an affair.”
“What?” Luke exclaimed, taking a step back from her. “How can you even say that? He loves you!”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said quietly, finally admitting her well-kept secret to him. She’d never told any of their friends about what Ethan had done during her second tour, how instead of making an effort to visit her after not seeing her for weeks, he’d chosen not to and had dinner with Kristen Ostermann, and for dessert, he made out with her.
“Talk. Now,” Luke ordered tersely, and she did, going into detail about that time before she called for the break. When she mentioned Kristen, she saw the anger cross his face. He knew how upset she had been while they were in Denver. They had talked through him way too much. And this woman had been the reason.
“Kristen?”
“Yes. Her. He didn’t sleep with her then, but the intent was there as was a whole lot of semi-naked making out from what I understand. Anyway, I was upset. He chose her over me, his fiancée who he hadn’t seen in over six weeks. I made a bad choice the next night …”
“The drugs. That’s why?”
“Pretty much. But it gets worse. I went out with Todd that night. We were both high and we went dancing …”
“Mia, what did you do?”
“Todd and I kissed a lot at the club,” she confessed, her head down, her eyes focused on the road in front of her as she worried her hands. “And we went back to my room, Ethan was there waiting for me. Ethan never knew what happened between Todd and I until Ethan and I got back together. At that time, I also told him what happened that night I OD’d at Todd’s.”
“What did happen that night?” he asked, his curiosity easy to see.
She sighed, kind of surprised that Allie had never told him. He deserved to know how royally fucked up she was.
“So, I’ll give you a quick summary. First I did coke, felt very turned on, then Todd gave me some ecstasy. There was a lot of making out and orgasms following that. After that, we shared a joint and then there was more making out, more orgasms, and finally the decision to actually have sex. That’s when we both took one more line of coke and that’s when the shit hit the fan. Marty and Allie found us, both half naked. God, even telling you now, I still feel the humiliation of them finding me like that. Of Allie putting my clothes back on because I was so fucking high, so fucking out of it, I couldn’t move.”
She paused, rubbing her forehead, her eyes crinkling in disgust at herself. She’d hated herself back then, hated what she’d done, hated that she was just telling Luke this. She’d never wanted him to know about this, to see her in this kind of light.
“Anyway, we so got off course there.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?”
“Shame, humiliation, and then you and Ethan became so much closer. I didn’t want to ruin that. I wasn’t there and I wanted you guys to have each other. I had such guilt about everything. I needed to do something. So yeah … that’s why I was pretty distant those years.”
“So, why do you think he’s having an affair now?”
“He went from the husband who teased and flirted with his wife to the complete opposite. He was distant. Cold. Despite that I was so excited to get home, to be with him, my sons. I had Allie make arrangements so I could get home sooner. I needed all three of my guys. I got home, kissed my little boys and went to see Ethan. That’s when it got strange.”
She stopped, wondering how detailed she should get with him. Should she tell him all of it? She really didn’t want to, but she needed his advice and to get that, she knew she had to tell him everything.
“What I’m going to tell you next is, uh, going to be pretty graphic.”
“Really?” he asked her, stopping their progress back to his house.
“Yeah, and before I start, I need to say he didn’t hurt me.”
She glanced up and saw the anger cover his face, his jaw clenching and unclenching. “Talk,” he spat out. Yep, he was definitely tipping the angry scales right now.
“When he spoke to me, he didn’t sound happy. There was no ‘suga,’ no smiles, no love. It was rough. He grabbed me by my arms and yanked me to him,” she said and as she spoke she touched them where he had held her, remembering the roughness of his hands around her arms.
“Holy shit, Mia! How hard did he grab you? I can see where his fingers left bruises,” he exclaimed. Her gaze followed his fingers as they hovered over the dark marks littering her arm. She hadn’t noticed those.
Then his hands slid lower, his gaze locked on her hands. “Your wrists, too.”
She glanced down at them. Her mind didn’t know how to process this. Bruises on her body caused by her husband. Her hands started to shake but she went on, telling her story to Luke.
“His kiss was so different. He had never kissed me like that before. It was hard, forceful, unfeeling.”
“Unfeeling” described the whole incident. His kiss, the way he’d touched her, the way he’d fucked her.
“His touch was just as rough as his kiss. He pushed me to the bed, face first. I tried to turn, tried to move, but he stopped me, and then he was inside of me. We have never had sex like that—we always look at each other.”
“Mia, I’m finding it hard to believe you when you say he didn’t hurt you. It almost sounds like he forced you.”
No. He hadn’t forced her. She had wanted sex with him.
“I came twice,” she said, trying to justify Ethan’s actions. “I enjoyed my husband inside of me.”
And when it had turned rough, she’d still wanted it.
Despite it all, she had orgasmed—surprisingly hard. But she hadn’t enjoyed the way he’d treated her after they were done, nor did she understand it.
“And afterwards, it was like he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. That’s not how he greets me. It’s not how he acts,” she paused, remembering the way he’d glared at her, like he was angry at her. “It was like he didn’t have sex with me. That’s not how we do this. Something is going on, right?”
“Yes.”
As much as she felt it in her gut, his confirmation of her fears shocked her.
“Shit! Why is he acting like this?” she spoke quietly. She glanced around, taking in their surroundings, and saw that they were almost back to his house. She looked up at Luke. “How did he act towards you guys? Was he any different?”
“I didn’t see much of him while you were gone. We went on vacation the first two weeks you were on tour. Though, I did see him last week at my office before we took a long weekend away. We talked briefly about an interview he was doing that weekend.” He stopped talking abruptly. “Oh, man!”
He started walking up the drive towards his house. She raced to catch up with him and grabbed his forearm to stop him. “Who was the interview with, Luke?”
Even before she asked the question, she knew it was with Kristen. She worried her hands as she waited for Luke to confirm that and when he did, her face crumpled.
“No, don’t cry, sweets,” he said, wrapping her in his arms. “You know nothing concrete.”
“But there is something and it involves Kristen,” she bawled through her tears. Dammit, she couldn’t breathe. She backed away from him and scratched at her collar, feeling constricted by the fabric, pulling it away from her skin. Luke’s hand stopped her and he tugged down her shirt some more.
“Why are there bruises here? Did he … did he choke you?” he forced out the words through clenched teeth.
“No, he held me down,” she said automatically but immediately wished she hadn’t.
“I’m gonna kick his ass,” he yelled. His face was red and hard. She had no doubt that he would go after Ethan the next time he saw him. She was undecided if she would stop Luke or not.
They stopped outside his front door. “Come in. I’ll drive you home in a few minutes.”
He let her in and she grabbed his arm in a panic. “Luke, what am I going to do?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said, wrapping her in his embrace and kissing her forehead. “Let me think. Sit down,” he said, motioning towards the stools at the island. “I’ll be right back.”
She sat down at the kitchen island, resting her head on the cool granite surface. She fought the tears that threatened to fall, and in doing so, her mind went blank. Numb.
Her body twitched with the sound of footsteps coming into the room. She looked up and saw that Luke had returned and he’d brought Allie down with him. She sat up and gave Allie a weak smile.
“Show her,” Luke ordered immediately.
“Luke …” she said uncomfortably. He ignored her objection and lifted up her sleeves, displaying her bruised arms to Allie. Mia breathed through the threatening tears, not able to make eye contact with either of her best friends. Luke moved aside so Allie could see. Mia swallowed hard when Allie gasped.
“Show her the other ones.”
With tears in her eyes, she lowered the collar on her shirt, revealing the large fingertip-shaped bruises along her chest.
“Goddamn it!” Allie yelled, moving closer and examining Mia. “Ethan did this to you?”
She could hear the doubt in Allie’s voice. It wasn’t that she doubted what Mia said; she doubted that Ethan, of all people, could do this to his wife, the woman he claimed to love so much.
“Allie, did you know anything about Ethan’s interview with Kristen Ostermann last week?”
She shook her head before she responded. “No. Had no clue. I didn’t talk to him much while you were in Europe. Just yesterday to tell him about the changes to your travel plans.”
While Allie continued to talk about what she had said to Ethan, there was a knock on the door. Luke excused himself and went to answer it.
Mia’s eyes bulged when she heard the sickening sound of something hard slamming into flesh. When the loud thud of something hitting the floor reached her ears, she raced to the front of the house and skidded to a stop when she saw Ethan sprawled out on his back.
“What the fuck, man?” Ethan said, scrambling up from the floor. He stepped towards Luke, his golden eyes on fire. Mia ran between the two men, her hands feebly pushing against Ethan’s chest, trying to hold him back.
“That was for your wife because she sure as hell won’t do it, but it needed to be done!” Luke spat at him. Shock crossed Ethan’s face before the anger turned it red.
“Move, Mia,” Ethan ordered, grabbing her arms, making her wince in pain when his fingers connected with the bruises he’d made earlier. Luke punched him again. She didn’t even see his fist fly through the air, and neither did Ethan as it connected with his cheekbone.
Allie went to Luke, pushing him away from Mia and Ethan and then wrapped her arms around his chest. “Stop this now!” she ordered her husband.
“You lay a hand on her like that again, I’ll fucking kick your ass!” Luke yelled over Allie’s shoulder.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ethan asked. While he waited for the answer, he opened and closed his jaw.
“Take a look at her arms, her wrists, her fucking chest!” Luke shouted at Ethan. “Look what you did to her!”
Mia did not want this happening here. Or at all. She removed her hands from her husband’s hard chest and quickly made her escape out the open front door and started running as fast as she could. She heard her name being called out, but she kept on running, sprinting the entire way home. She knew no one could catch her … well, on foot anyway.
She entered the house and hurried up the stairs to the master suite where she locked herself in the bathroom. Ripping off her clothes, she stood in front of the large full-length mirror, needing to see for herself the bruises that had both Allie and Luke cringing.
Despite that need, she had a hard time opening her eyes to actually look at them. After a few moments of prepping herself, she opened her eyes and regarded herself in the mirror. Her mouth dropped open when she saw the dark reddish purple marks littering her body. She traced the bruises his hands had left on her, easily making out the shape of his fingers. When she turned around, she was shocked to see even more bruises on her hips and ass.
Her husband did this to her. He put those marks on her body. Fuck! What the hell was going on? How was this even happening?
She walked into the shower, turned it on, and stepped under the hot spray, hoping the water would wash this all away, but knowing it wouldn’t. This hadn’t been what she’d expected when she’d come home. She expected tears of happiness not the fearful tears she’d shed in abundance already today.
Unless Luke and Allie stopped him, Ethan should be home any minute now. She showered quickly, being careful as she washed around the sore spots. When she stepped out of the shower, she heard the rumble of Ethan’s feet coming up the stairs. “Mia!” he called out, his voice panicky.
She quickly threw on her robe as her husband pounded on the bathroom door. She stood there, frozen to the spot, a small shiver of fear shuddering through her. “Mia! Please come out!”
When she didn’t do as he said, he called out again. “Please!” he begged, agony in his voice.
Making her way to the double doors that led into the sitting area of their master suite, her hand hovered over the lock. She wanted to run. She didn’t want to face this. Yet she knew she needed to find out what was going on with Ethan, find out if what she thought was actually true.
She turned the lock but didn’t open the doors yet. With a deep breath, she opened the doors and found a miserable looking Ethan waiting for her. He strode to her and without asking, undid her robe. Another time, t
his would be really hot, but now all she wanted to do was hide from his eyes.
His breath caught at the sight of the chest bruises. He pushed the robe the rest of the way off so she stood naked before him. Holding out his hand, he hovered above her bruised arm and then letting it fall to her hip. He fell to his knees, hugging her to him, his face against her stomach, and cried.
“I’m so sorry, Mia.”
She could count on one hand how many times she had seen her husband cry, and each of those times had been a momentous event—getting back together after three years apart and the birth of their sons.
Needing to see his golden eyes, she lifted his head. He resisted for a moment before acquiescing and showing her the pain he held in his eyes.
“Ethan, what’s going on? Talk to me. Make me understand. Please!”
When he didn’t answer, she decided to throw it all out there. She had to see how he’d respond. “What’s going on with Kristen?”
His eyes shot open wide before he quickly shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Ethan …”
Stop lying to me.
“Nothing is going on,” he insisted again but his eyes fell from hers and she knew.
“Explain earlier to me. What was that? Was she on your mind, because you certainly weren’t making love to me? I don’t mind passion, but that wasn’t it. It was like you wanted to hurt me.”
His arms dropped from her waist and he pushed himself to his full height, towering over her. “I wanted Kristen out of my mind.”
“What happened, Ethan?” she asked, her voice quivering with fear. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, staring off at the floor in front of her.
“While you were in Europe, Kristen called me to do an interview. I didn’t see the big deal. I always knew I would be interviewed by her at some point in the future,” he paused, deep in his own thoughts for a few moments before he continued. “Anyway, fast forward to the day of the interview. She kissed me and I didn’t stop it.”
The shock of his words held her immobile. Okay, so she kissed him. Mia could understand why Kristen would do that. But …
Never Over You Page 23
