“Goddammit, Phoebe. Stop!”
His use of something as close to a curse as he’d ever issued stopped me as efficiently as a leash. I turned to him, my anger dispelled and hurt flooding in to fill the gaps.
He covered the distance between us and placed his hands on my shoulders. “What’re ya talkin’ ’bout?”
“I’m talking about you taking advantage of me. About you playing me. Using me as your bit on the side while your fiancée was no doubt at home, legs up, waiting for you to impregnate her.”
“Stop talkin’ ’bout Cass that way!” he snapped back at me. “She don’t deserve it. She wasn’t the one who strung me along, left me in the middle of the night, and then showed up in my workplace to torment me.”
I tightened the hold I had on my own waist as a ball of emotions grew in the back of my throat. “I told you from the beginning that I couldn’t stay. You pursued me, Beau. You made me love you.” My last five words each fell out of me accompanied by a sob
Tears floated in his eyes as he frowned. “Well, I didn’t know then that you enjoyed stringin’ along the poor saps who dared to feel anything for you.”
“Do you mean Angel? I’m hardly stringing her along. We both know where we stand. Which is a damn sight more than I can say for you and me.”
He clenched his teeth and balled his hands into fists. “There ain’t no you and me. Even though ya burn up my insides like no one else, there ain’t never gonna be, ’cause you’re far too casual with your affections for that.”
I stopped cold. Even my tears took a temporary break as his statement hit me. “Casual with my affections? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Ya never told me ya had a boyfriend back home the whole time we were together. Or about your woman lover ya play with for fun. Or that you were sharing the photos you’d apparently shot for ‘my eyes only’ with half the dang world.” He spat the words at me, as heat burned in his gaze. “That was the real reason you didn’t want me to stay in contact, after all, wasn’t it? Why ya didn’t want me to Google your name.”
I shrank back from him. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Stop lyin’ to me! I know. I’ve heard you on the phone with him. I saw you before with her.”
“Nothing is happening with Angel. It’s not like that between us. And there is no him. There wasn’t until Xavier.”
“Darlin’, I’ve heard you tell him ya love him enough times. Even after Xavier.” He spat the name of our workmate as a curse.
I was growing more confused by the second. “What are you talking about?”
“On the phone.”
“On the phone?” I repeated, trying to get my head around his twisted logic. “So just because I said I love you to someone on the phone, you think I must have a boyfriend? It couldn’t have been my parents? Or Angel?”
He rolled his eyes. “That ain’t the only reason. I spoke to him.”
“You—you what? When?” Who?
“Oh, ya didn’t know that, did ya. Yeah, he was real insightful ’bout the two of ya. Tellin’ me all the gory details, even knew all about your birthmark.” His eyes flicked down to the spot near my crotch where my birthmark was hiding beneath two layers of clothing. “And told me he knew all about your free and easy lifestyle. That he was just waitin’ for you to come to your senses and see he was there for ya.”
“Beau, I can honestly tell you right now I have no fucking clue what you are talking about. You’re the only one I’ve ever made love to.” The statement was probably revealing far more about my relationship with Xavier than he needed to know, but I couldn’t stop myself. “I have no idea how anyone would know about my birthmark. Outside of my family, you’re the only person who’s ever seen it. Who is this person you spoke to who’s apparently seen my birthmark?”
He rolled his eyes and ignored my question. “Why can’t ya just admit ya did wrong and let us both move on? I don’t need ya here. Not now. Not with everythin’ else I got goin’ on.”
“I’ve tried to move on, but you keep pulling me back and dragging me down. And I didn’t choose to come here. I was tricked by someone who seems to think there’s some good in you. Someone who thinks there’s some part of you that isn’t a complete bastard. Obviously she’s wrong.” I wrapped my arms around my stomach as I turned to face away from him, unable to take the way he stared at me with open contempt any longer. It was as if he thought I was lying to him. He wouldn’t give me any information in return. It all seemed too much like bullshit. “What the fuck ever. Just go back to your guests.” Back to your fiancée.
When silence filled the night, I strode forward, away from everyone. I only made it a few steps before I fell to my knees as the sorrow and rage I’d been battling ever since finding out about Cassidee, about the fact that Beau had used me, crashed down over me. The fight with Beau had brought it all to the surface. Great sobs tore at my chest, threatening to tear me apart.
“Phoebe?” Beau’s voice was soft, curious.
I’d thought he’d left, but now that the sorrow had claimed me, I couldn’t beat it back into submission.
I flinched when his hand came to rest on my shoulder. His gentle touch was enough to destroy me, but I didn’t have the strength left in me to fight him off.
He muttered something to himself, but the next second he was seated on the ground and I was in his lap. Even though it was the last thing I wanted—he was the last thing I needed—I rested my forehead against his chest and drew in a deep breath. The heady scent of him filled me and helped to calm my tears.
His arms wrapped around my back, and one of his hands found my hair. I nuzzled closer to him. The action ripped my heart in half, but I couldn’t have torn myself away from him if I’d tried. How many times had I longed to be back in his arms again even as I fought against it the whole time?
“How could I have been so stupid to think you might have wanted me here,” I murmured, more to myself.
“What? Ain’t ya here to take on the US racing scene?”
I laughed without any mirth. “I couldn’t give two shits about the US racing scene. I was quite content to take on the Aussie one. At least I’d have my family at my side there. I’m here because I thought you wanted me, Beau. Because by the time I saw that you didn’t, it was too late to back out. Do you have any idea how much it’s killed me watching you parade around with another woman on your arm?” I was sure my words would give him some sort of delight. It was clear he enjoyed torturing me after all. “How much I would rather have fallen into your embrace when I arrived rather than Xavier’s?”
“What—” He cut himself off as a shiver ran through me. With a sigh, he shifted me, climbed to his feet and then helped me to mine. “Come. It’s too cold out here away from the fire, and I think we have some things to talk about.” He headed in the direction of his house.
My mind screamed at me, warning me it was just another of his games, but my heart was already skipping back in his direction—a sucker for another round of hurt.
“What about your guests?” It wasn’t the question I wanted to ask, but it was the safest I could think of.
“Joe and Mitch can watch them.”
WITHIN FIVE MINUTES, we were in the kitchen of his house with the door locked. I took a stool at the breakfast bar while he got to work with some mugs and milk. I didn’t ask what he was doing, didn’t ask any of the questions twisting through my mind. Instead, I just took the moment to watch him.
Fuck, I still loved him.
As hard as I’d tried to fight it, everything I felt danced just beneath my skin. Always waiting for the right moment to remind me of the hurt he could inflict.
When he finished, he placed a mug of cocoa in front of me before leaning against the counter to watch me.
I nodded in thanks and wrapped my hands around the mug, trying to infuse some of the heat into me. I hadn’t even realised just how cold my fingers had been until the ache set in as the warmth brought them b
ack to life.
“There’s somethin’ I think I need to tell ya,” Beau said looking into his mug rather than at me.
“Okay,” I said, cautious about where it might go.
“Cass used to be one of Abby’s nurses. We met around two and a half years ago, and I fell in love with her heart and her compassion as I watched her care for my sister.”
As soon as he’d said the words, I wanted to flee. Was I right? Had he dragged me in from the cold just to torment me more? I should have fucking known that’s all it was. I bit my lip as my eyes flooded with the tears that had never really cleared.
“Or at least, I thought I did.” His eyes lifted, meeting mine, and the depth of the pain hidden in them was enough to stop my heart.
My breath hitched as I saw the implication of his words and that look.
“The night I met you, I was still with Cass. But it was also the night things changed. After our trip up into the hills, I couldn’t be with her no more. She was comfortable, familiar, but you made me want excitement. What I felt for her after a year together was nothing compared to the way you churned up my insides within just a few minutes. I didn’t think it was fair to her or me to pretend it was. I broke up with her before I bought the phone to try to keep in touch with you.”
Comfortable. Familiar. Words I’d used to describe Xavier. “But—”
He silenced me with a pleading look. Obviously he wanted to get his story out before the questions started.
“I know I should’ve told ya, darlin’, but I was caught in a whirlwind when it came to you.” He gave a watery smile as his gaze dropped back to his own hot chocolate. “You were like a burst of colour into my life. I meant every single word I said to ya every time we spoke or texted. And darn it if I didn’t fall more in love with you all the time. By the time we hit the Ferris wheel, it made everything I thought I felt for everyone in the past seem childish by comparison. In the year that Cass and I were together, I never once questioned my choice to wait until we were married.”
My hope swelled as his words pruned the thorns away from the vines that strangled my heart. Could I believe him though? After all, he was still with Cassidee. She was still pregnant with a ring on her finger.
“Then ya ran, and it was more painful than I coulda imagined. It’s like your friend Angel said. It’s like standing too close to the sun and gettin’ burned.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, poking at the marshmallows in my drink to sink them into the rich chocolatey milk.
“Honestly, I can understand why ya did. It wasn’t gonna be easy saying goodbye face-to-face. I still have the note ya left.” He pulled out his wallet and drew the note from within, holding it up between two fingers. “I loved ya, darlin’.”
Unable to fight the choking sensation that came from his use of past tense I tried to drown it with a sip of the cocoa.
“When we spoke ag’in, I thought it was all gonna be all right. But then your boyfriend, Max, and I had our little chat—”
“Max?” The word ripped from me and I surprised myself with the volume it had when it left me. I dropped the cup back to the counter. When the base hit the bench, some of the hot chocolate splashed out of the cup and spilled across the surface. Despite the mess, I leapt from my chair and stalked a few steps away. I needed to keep moving. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have survived the impact of that information smashing into my brain.
I wheeled around and met Beau’s shocked expression.
“You think Max was my boyfriend?”
“He made it pretty clear that he was.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him.” I screeched the words at the ceiling. “No, I’m going to call Aunt Eden and get her to fucking kill him for me because she’ll get to him sooner. How could he do this to me?” I spun back to Beau. “To us.”
“I ain’t gonna lie, I feel like I’m missin’ something here,” he admitted.
“Max isn’t my boyfriend. God, he wishes he was, but he’s not.”
“Okay, but why—”
There were so many ways the question could end. Why did he know about my birthmark? Why did he answer my phone? Why would he tell such an awful goddamn lie? All questions I wanted the answer to myself. “He’s like family. Or he used to be. His mum is one of my dad’s biggest allies and best friends, so he’s always been part of my life.” I buried my face in my hands and blew out my irritation with a groan. “Apparently he found a new appreciation for me right around hitting puberty, if you know what I mean.”
“He had a crush on ya?”
A hard, humourless laugh left me before I met Beau’s eye. “He started getting himself off to pictures of me.”
“Oh.”
“When he found out about you, he was a little cold about it, but I never thought . . .” I trailed off as something worse struck me. “How could you believe him?”
“How could I not? He knew about your birthmark. He told me about the photos goin’ online, and when I googled them, they were there.”
“Did you stop to think that he might have stolen my photos? Or that he might have seen the birthmark when we were kids? Besides, it’s not exactly a state secret in our house. But that’s not my point.”
“What’s your point?”
“How could you believe him without talking to me first?” I stared at him with my hands on my hips, a clear challenge in my expression.
Beau dipped his head and gave me a sheepish look. “He was in your room. He answered your phone.”
“Not good enough. You should have asked me. Since I met you, the only other person I’ve let anywhere near my heart is Xavier.”
He opened his mouth to argue again before shutting it again. “But I did ask ya.”
“What?”
“The last time we were on Skype, I asked ya where it was going and you told me there were others.”
I tugged at the end of my ponytail. How had it gotten so fucked up? “No.” I frowned as I tried to recall the conversation. Shaking my head, I walked away from him. “No,” I said more firmly. “You were telling me there were others for you. You were the one with a guest making baked goods at all hours of the night, after all.”
“Heh, yeah, Cass had pregnancy cravings.” The way he said it made it sound like the most obvious and innocent thing in the world, and yet he didn’t deny he’d been with her. “I wish I woulda known this sooner, darlin’. It mighta saved some heartbreak.”
My lip curled up and tears pricked at my eyes again. How could he be so casual talking about her and the baby? “Yeah, you sure look heartbroken every time you walk around with your arms around your future wife. You remember, the one carrying your baby.”
“Ya really came to the States to be with me?”
I shook my head, before nodding. “Initially that was the plan.” I didn’t know why I was admitting the truth, why I wasn’t keeping it hidden so he couldn’t use it against me, but I couldn’t stop the words rushing from me. “But I couldn’t tell you until everything was set because I didn’t want to get your hopes up. By the time the contracts came, it’d all changed. It was in the works for so long and I couldn’t let Mum and Dad throw away their hard work for nothing. Although, I guess part of me hoped that if we were face-to-face, I’d be able to find out where it all went wrong.”
“Aw, darlin’, I’m so sorry.” He fell silent as his expression deepened into a frown. A tic ran through his features a second later, no doubt at some thought or another. I wondered if he was turning every conversation we’d had over in his head like I was. “I said some stupid things when I thought ya betrayed me. I must have seemed so callous to ya.”
I scoffed. “You were the biggest arse. And that’s probably one of the nicer words I could come up with.”
“So ya really don’t have a boyfriend back home?”
With a shake of my head, I wrapped my arms around myself and found my way back to the stool.
He gave me another of his slow smiles. It had been so long since I’d
seen it, and yet it still made my heart flutter like the first time. My own lips curled upward in response. He reached toward me, and I saw his intention almost immediately—the slow trace of my lips with his knuckle that always stirred up the butterflies in my stomach.
“But I do have a boyfriend now.” I pulled away because the move was too intimate. I couldn’t deal with it. Maybe he’d thought I had a boyfriend and that was why he’d said some of the things he had. Maybe he genuinely had been broken up with Cassidee when we’d had our few nights together, but he was with her again now. And I was with Xavier.
A frown dipped his brow. “But—”
“Nothing’s changed, Beau.”
“Course it has. Everythin’s different. Ya didn’t just seduce me for some holiday fun.”
I rubbed my hand over my brow. “I never did. That was your assumption and I can’t be held responsible for that.”
“No, you can’t, but this still changes everythin’.”
“No, it doesn’t. You still have a fiancée, Beau. And a baby on the way. Even if you two were broken up when you and I were together, you’re still having a baby with her. I’m not going to be involved in that situation. And it’s not fair for you to ask that of me. If you knew all the details about my past, you’d know why.”
“Phoebe, I—”
“Besides,” I cut him off. “I have Xavier now.”
He went to say something more but was interrupted by a pounding on the door and someone screaming, “Beau!”
His shoulders slumped and he blew out a frustrated breath before crossing the room and yanking open the door. “What is it?”
“It’s Abby.”
I didn’t turn to watch the conversation because if I did, it would just reveal the tears that had started again to Beau. Dammit, this wasn’t who I was supposed to be. I wasn’t the girl who fell apart. Especially not over a guy who’d been an arsehole to me. Not when I had someone sweet at home. Before I could second-guess my decision, or have any more awkward conversation, I made my retreat.
“Excuse me,” I said as I ducked around Mitch.
Phobic (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #2) Page 23
