Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? I fucking loved every nut-blowing moment of what we did. So much so, I think subconsciously I was sort of banking on it happening again, maybe even secretly hoping that my walls would get chipped away with every orgasm we wrung out of each other.
Yeah… no way in hell am I’m ready to fuck someone else tonight, I think with total clarity.
“Cain,” Bridger barks and I startle, raising my eyes from my beer to him.
“I didn’t do anything,” I grit out. “I fucked her… she enjoyed it. I left.”
“Try again,” he commands.
“I told her I forgave her, but that there wasn’t anything between us anymore. I left right after…went back to work.”
“Well, no wonder she fucking left,” Rand says quietly.
“You’re kind of a prick,” Logan adds on. “She’s a sweet girl too. Wouldn’t have minded—”
“Say another fucking word of that thought,” I growl at Logan, “and I’ll rip your tonsils out.”
Logan’s mouth snaps shut, and he glares at me.
“And why the fuck are you all taking her side?” I grumble, my eyes coming to rest on each of their faces in turn. “She’s a snake in the grass. A liar. A betrayer.”
“Dude, you have got to get ahold of your tender sensibilities,” Bridger mocks me. “That girl came to Jackson with a serious agenda—an insatiable fire lighting her sense of justice. You ended up tilting her world in just a matter of a few days. In just that short period of time, she gave up vengeance and justice all for you and Callie. She apologized. She made it right. And if I know Sloane, and I’m betting I do, that girl probably poured her heart out to you in an effort to have you care for her again, and you left her standing in a puddle of tears. She’s got a soul made of pure gold, and you’re a fucking moron who chased it away.”
Vengeance? Justice? What the hell is he talking about?
But I can’t think about that now because guilt overwhelms me. That’s exactly what happened, and while I might have felt a twinge of it last night, it’s oppressive to me now. Still, I’m not ready to go down without a clean fight, and I need one of them to at least admit to me that I have a right to feel betrayed and angry about this.
It would really help if one of my fucking friends had my back just a tiny bit.
So I try to explain myself better. “I get that she was in a bad situation, and I get that she pretty quickly realized what she was doing was wrong. I even understand that ultimately, she made everything right, and for that, I forgive her. But I’m sorry… she should have come clean sooner, especially when I… when she… when we started having feelings. If she would have just cut the deception a little sooner, it would have been easier to bear.”
“She couldn’t,” Bridger says. “She had no choice.”
I can’t help the half-scoff, half-snort that comes out of my mouth and nose. It’s not a pleasant sound, but it makes a point. Because she most certainly had a choice, and she chose badly. That’s what I can’t let go of.
“She was being blackmailed.” The flat anger in Bridger’s voice punches deep into my gut, and I don’t doubt his words for a minute.
“Blackmailed?” I say incredulously.
“Yeah… her editor threatened to write a lurid article about her mom’s most recent hospitalization and her past suicide attempts.”
Again, I go dizzy and my confusion is like a thick puddle of goo within me. “Why in the fuck would her editor care about her mom’s suicide attempts?”
“Because her mom was married to some senator who cheated on her and used government monies to fund his affair. The scandal destroyed her mom. It was the first time she tried to commit suicide. Her editor threatened to open the story back up if she didn’t produce some type of evidence against Callie and the club.”
Vengeance? Justice? It all makes sense now.
“Son of a bitch,” I wheeze out, feeling like the air in my lungs went on hiatus. I press my fingers to my temples and squeeze my eyes shut. This is not fucking happening. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She didn’t want you to think she was making excuses. She thought just being honest about her mistake would be good enough.”
“But she told you,” I point out bitterly, opening my eyes and drilling Bridger with a heated look.
“True enough, but we’d pretty much made our peace with her before that,” he says, and my guilt starts humming again.
“If she would have just said something…” I say, and my voice drifts off.
No, wait… that’s not exactly right. If I look at this whole shit storm with an unjaundiced eye, it makes perfect sense Sloane didn’t tell me. She’s the type of person who owns up to her mistakes and she takes responsibility. I’ve always admired her integrity, and maybe that’s why it hurt so much when I realized it might have been lacking. But yeah… I could see Sloane not bothering to tell me the entire situation, wanting me to forgive her on the merits of her personal remorsefulness for hurting me, not because someone was forcing her to do something bad.
“Christ,” I mutter, pressing harder into my temples, my brain on overdrive. “Has that asshole editor run the story? Is that why she left to go home?”
“No, she left to go home because you’re a moron who’s a little slow on the uptake,” Bridger says, his tone full of sarcasm. But then his eyes take on a wicked gleam, and he almost chortles when he says, “But that punk-ass won’t be running it. I’ve managed to convince him otherwise.”
I blink stupidly at Bridger. “How’s that?”
“It’s amazing what about five thousand will buy you in the way of a good investigator. Within two days of Sloane telling me about this prick, I’d found out that he had a secret young piece on the side and his wife had no clue.”
“He was having an affair?” Rand asks with a laugh.
“With a man… a young congressional aide,” Bridger says with glee. “I have the pictures to prove it, and what do you know? He backed right off Sloane.”
That should make me happy. However, for some reason, it makes darkness well inside of me.
That Bridger was the one who protected her.
Saved her.
Believed in her.
Fuck… was everything I apparently was not, and it sickens me to my core over how stupid I’ve been.
I push up from the bar stool, pull my wallet out, and throw money on the bar for my beer and a tip. Bridger’s eyebrows shoot up in a brief moment of surprise, which is odd because it’s practically impossible to surprise him.
But then, he knowingly smiles at me and says, “Have a nice flight.”
Chapter 32
Sloane
I pull the back of my hand across my forehead, wipe the sweat and layer of dust off, and huff out a hot breath. I’m not sure what possessed me to come up to my mom’s attic and rummage through some of my old college boxes, but here I sit in my pajamas in a room that boasts at least a ninety-five-degree temperature and suffer while I work.
I suppose I’m filled with a displaced sense of nostalgia. Maybe a desire to look at things that took me back to a happier place in my life. That would be the summer between my sophomore and junior years at the University of Tennessee.
Before my dad got caught sticking his dick somewhere else.
Before our family got tied up in national scandal.
Before my mom tried to kill herself.
Those were the good days and so I’m reaching back out to them, desperately searching for some old photographs of my college buds and me, more than a few highlighting my skill at keg stands at various frat parties, but still… it was before my pure bubble of naivety and happiness was burst, and before I was set on a path that led me directly to Jackson, Wyoming and perhaps the biggest heartbreak of my life.
I also figured I’d pull out some old photos, maybe some knickknacks that provide good memories, and place them in the spare bedroom of my mom’s house where I’m crashing for the moment. Of course, Mom
has told me to stay as long as I want—well, her word was forever actually—but the point is… I have to figure out what to do with myself.
Don’t get me wrong… I love Tennessee. It’s my home state, and there is an innate level of comfort here. While this isn’t my childhood home, this is where my mom has lived since she and my dad separated, and so it is now my home too. It would not be unrealistic of me to stay here, look for a job locally, and try to regroup.
But I love D.C. too. The hustle and bustle, the culture, a decent group of friends I made who weren’t exactly besties but with whom I could go out and have a great time on the weekends. It was a good life. Granted, the career was apparently a shit decision, but I could see making D.C. my home. There’s certainly more job opportunities there if I want to stay in journalism, although the notion of that is soured a bit for me. At this moment, I’m jaded enough to believe the media may actually be more evil than my father.
A sharp stab of longing courses through me as I regretfully consider Jackson, Wyoming. This past week, I had envisioned myself living there. Figured I’d quit Revealed magazine, somehow salvage a relationship with Cain that was started on lies, and possibly get a job on the quaint local newspaper staff. There’s no doubt Wyoming is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been, and I could totally see myself living there permanently. I mean… I wasn’t completely sure about the winter, but figured it wouldn’t be so bad being holed up with Cain during the cold and snowy times.
My pipe dreams were huge; my optimism unparalleled.
I was an idiot to think something so good that started with dishonesty could ever last. Why I even thought I should stay behind after my plot was exposed and try to “fix” things with Cain is beyond me. There’s no way a man like Cain with his hard lines and bitter past would ever have let me back in. Not with someone like Rachel in his past who secretly aborted their baby and charged it off on an already overextended credit card, knowing that one day he’d learn the truth.
Evil, evil bitch and her actions were a big part of the reason I could never gain purchase with Cain after my betrayal.
The attic stairs creak and I can hear my mom climbing them. Her head pops up through the rectangular entrance in the floor, and she smiles at me. “What in the world are you doing?”
“Just going through some of my old college boxes,” I tell her as I pull out a stack of old notebooks filled with scribbles commemorating boring lectures.
She climbs the rest of the way through, turns, and sits her butt on the wooden floor, legs dangling over the edge. My mom is a beautiful woman, and I’m not sure why my dad felt the need to go younger with bigger boobs. Maybe it was Fernanda’s exotic accent or the fact she wears a belly button piercing, or maybe she just gives great head… who knows, but as much as I will admit my stepmom—and I gag when I think of her in that context—is a stunning woman, she just can’t compare to my mother’s graceful beauty. She’s like a southern belle Grace Kelly with fine bone structure, luminescent blue eyes that I inherited, and a magnetism that always seemed to draw every person’s gaze when she’s in a crowded room. On the outside, she’s funny, witty, charming, and bright. She can hold a conversation with any stranger, and her kindness and generosity knows no bounds.
On the inside, sure, she may be an emotional wreck, but unless she gets to her very dark place, you’d never know she has demons that randomly torture her. There’s not a doubt in my mind that she was successful for the most part in keeping those demons at bay, but with the combination of the prescription pain pills, which she was using to self-medicate her emotional weaknesses, and my father’s very public betrayal and subsequent scandal, she simply couldn’t keep it together anymore. Now she has her good days and her bad, and I’m happy to say that since my return yesterday afternoon, her smile seems genuinely joyous and content.
Maybe I should just stay here and give life in a small, southern town a shot again.
“Feeling the need for a trip down memory lane?” she asks, leaning back on one arm and turning her body slightly to watch me. My mom is still in great shape, petite and luminescent. Maybe she’ll find love again one day. Although, I hope she doesn’t settle for it, hoping it will make her whole. That’s no reason to be with someone.
I shrug. “Maybe just a few things that will help me remember a more peaceful time in my life.”
“Ain’t that the fucking truth?” she says with a grimace, and my eyes snap up from my notebook for a class I took called Crafting a Story in the Digital Market.
“Mom,” I say in a drawled-out, admonishing tone.
She raises her eyebrows and looks at me innocently. “What?”
“You said the ‘F’ word.”
“Fucking right I did,” she says with a grin. “I’m an adult. I’m allowed to.”
“But not to your daughter,” I point out. “There are some things you just don’t do as a mother.”
“Oh, seriously, Sloane. Quit thinking of your mom as a prude,” she says with a laugh. “Now… I’m going to go take a walk with Chester Cheetah. Want to come?”
Chester Cheetah is her three-pound Chihuahua. No clue where that name came from, but she loves that dog more than anything and spoils him just as much.
“I’m good,” I tell her as I put the notebooks back in the box, not finding anything that provides me with company. Just some now-wonky feelings about getting a degree that may be quite useless to me. “I think I’m going to go get a shower and maybe fix some eggs and bacon. Want some?”
She shakes her head. “I ate breakfast about seven hours ago. It will be dinner time soon.”
“Yeah, well, I slept through that obviously,” I say with a grin and push the box aside. “I had some catching up to do.”
It’s true. I slept until about three o’clock this afternoon. When I rolled out of bed, I felt a pressing need to hide myself away in the attic, searching for something to make me feel better.
I follow my mom back down the stairs, and she helps me fold the attic ladder back into place. She gives me a kiss on my dusty, sweat-covered cheek and heads back downstairs to take Chester for a walk. I head back into my bedroom, gather my clothes and toiletries out of my still-packed suitcase, and then take a much-needed shower.
My stomach rumbles as I take the effort and time to polish myself after my shower. That means drying my hair and even swiping on a bit of mascara, because no matter how crappy I feel on the outside, I always feel infinitely better if I can make myself slightly pretty on the outside.
Gathering up my clothes, I exit the bathroom and pad down the short hallway to the spare bedroom I’m occupying. While this house is nice, it’s a lot smaller than our upscale house in Nashville that we lived in when my father wasn’t in session. It definitely doesn’t have the fine appointments of the townhome they had in Washington when he was in session. But still, it’s perfect for my mom right now and she enjoys being back in her hometown.
Perhaps this is where I should be too. Maybe. It feels a little right, but that’s probably the comfort of being with my mom. As I enter into my room, I think maybe it would help to even decorate this more to my tastes—
I give a piercing shriek as I realize there’s someone sitting on my bed when I walk in. A hulking figure so large it depresses the mattress in at steep angles.
“Hello, Sloane,” the deep voice says, and my heart refuses to stop its mad gallop when I realize it’s Cain in my room. Blood racing like mad not only because he scared the shit out of me, but also because Cain is sitting in my room.
Cain.
Gorgeous, scarred, sexy Cain who, although he says he’s forgiven me, still has no regard for what we had.
“What are you doing here?” I ask as I press a hand holding my panties to my breastbone, giving a rub to try to calm the unsteady beat underneath.
His eyes pierce into me as he sits hunched over, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped between. Face so serious… somber, and quite possibly even apologetic. “You le
ft without saying goodbye.”
I turn from him, walk over to the closet, and throw my dirty clothes on the floor. I’ll need to go out and buy a laundry basket at some point. Keeping my back to him, I say, “I thought we said our goodbyes the night before last.”
“No, I said goodbye,” he points out. “You didn’t seem quite willing to accept it, last I recall.”
Spinning to face him, I let a little anger come through. Whoa… didn’t know I was really all that angry until right this moment. “You fucked me against the wall of a sex club and told me quite clearly that I wasn’t enough for you. Then you left. Why would I ever bother saying goodbye to you at that point?”
“I was wrong,” he says ever so simply. Like that is the answer to all of our problems.
Is it?
“How do you figure?” I ask skeptically, because the one thing I’ve learned about Cain in our time together… he is brutally honest. He doesn’t hold with punches, even when he knows they’re going to hurt like a son of a bitch.
“Your mom seems really nice,” he says, completely ignoring my question. “Granted… she was apparently on her way out to take some little rat-looking dog for a walk, but in the five minutes we spoke, I totally understand now.”
“Understand what?” I’m thoroughly confused.
“That you were trying to protect her. Why the blackmail your editor held over your head was so powerful. I think about if that was my mom, and I would have done the same damn thing.” He looks at me without judgment, his eyes sympathetic. He stands from the bed, towering tall, and walks to me. His hand comes out and he strokes his knuckles across my cheek, murmuring when he says, “You should have told me.”
I close my eyes briefly, relishing his touch. When I open them back up, I tell him with naked honesty, “I didn’t want you to think there was a valid excuse for my actions. That blackmail wasn’t over my head at first. I came here and started things with you under very a dishonest and wrong purpose. The blackmail came later.”
The Wicked Horse Boxed Set (The Wicked Horse Series) Page 46
