“I’m sorry, Beau. But I just can’t.”
Tears swam in his eyes as he looked up at me through his wet lashes. “Why not, darlin’?”
A hard, mirthless laugh left me. “Because you hurt me. You were a jackass. You were an absolute arsehole to me from the day you made your assumptions. I mean, telling everyone I was a slut and doing what you could to convince them of that. Sharing the photos I’d sent you. How could you do that? Given the way things were before I got on the plane to come here, I didn’t expect an easy run. But neither did I expect to be in tears almost every day. That’s not who I am, and I don’t like being that girl. Life is too short to have to be miserable.”
He was in front of me in an instant, his hands cupping my face and his breath blowing over me. The cinnamon and whiskey on his breath proved just how much he’d had to drink. “Darlin’, you have to believe me, I never shared your photos. I thought you put them on the web. That was part of the reason I thought what Max said was true.”
“You might not have put them on the Internet, but you made sure everyone knew about them and that’s not much different.” I shrugged as a sigh slipped from me. “It doesn’t really matter. It’s not like any of this changes anything.” I couldn’t meet his gaze and concentrate on what I needed to say, so I stared at the small dimple on his chin. It took an effort to hold in everything that wanted to pour out of me. “I loved you, Beau. With every piece of me. And all I got for that was a stroll through a den of hatred and a whole pile of heartbreak.”
He looked like he was going to say something, but I held up my hand to stop him. This needed to come out before we could ever truly move on.
“I know you were mad at me because of your assumptions. I can almost understand that you wanted to lash out and hurt me like you felt I’d hurt you. But you didn’t even bother to get the details from me first. Not properly. And now, well, I can’t trust you not to hurt me again. What happens next time you think I’ve done the wrong thing by you? The next time something happens between us? How do I know you won’t lash out again? How do I know you won’t find some new way to torture me? I told you once that love can destroy you if you let it, and it has, Beau.” I sobbed as my hold on the shattered pieces within me failed. “It’s broken me.”
His hold on my cheeks moved to my hair as he pressed his forehead against mine. “Please, Phoebe, don’t do this,” he whispered his words over my lips.
Finally, I lifted my eyes to his, feeling the walls construct around my heart as I did. I would be unaffected by him. I had to be. He would be a friend. Nothing more. “I refuse to let it break me again. I want safe. I want comfortable. Someone who has never hurt me. I was wrong when I said we can’t be friends. We can be. We should be. But I can’t do anything more than that. I can’t give you anything more than that, because I have nothing left to give.”
“Don’t pull away. Not now.” All of my senses were filled with him. He closed his eyes. “I need ya, darlin’.”
“I’m not doing anything different to the way things have been,” I said through the lump in my throat. “I’m telling you why you shouldn’t do anything either.”
“I wanna kiss ya. So bad.” As he said the words, his hands slid across my cheeks so he was cupping my face again. His gaze fell to my mouth and his tongue slicked over his lips. “I’ve missed ya so much.”
“What about Cassidee?”
His gaze was laser focused on me. “Every time I close my eyes, you’re there. I try to imagine myself with anyone else, even Cass, and you’re there. We ain’t even been together because of you. You accused me of torturing you, darlin’, but you tortured me first. You made it darn near impossible for me to think of anyone but you.” He pushed himself back to his knees and shifted until he was so close I could taste the whiskey on his breath. “To touch anyone but you.” His hand caressed my cheek again, running in a gentle line from my lips to my ear. “To taste anyone but you.” He moved his lips closer to mine but stopped at the last second.
He was giving me a choice. Making me be the one who made the move or not. My breath was choppy. My lungs useless. My heart pounded through my body so hard I was surprised Beau couldn’t feel my pulse with his fingertips.
“I’m scared,” I admitted. My words were a careless whisper over his lips, and he closed his eyes as my mouth moved against his.
When he opened them again, he met my gaze with blazing need. “Please?”
The word echoed every bit of pain I’d experienced since meeting him, but it also held the hope. The heartbreak, and the way to mend it. It would be so easy; there was less than a fraction of an inch between us. I could see it all. I’d close the distance, and our kiss would grow hungry. He’d invite me into his bedroom, and I’d be unable to resist him. We’d share a night together and I’d be lost in the sensations of love.
But then?
We’d end up back where we always did. And I would have cheated on Xavier, the one guy who’d had my back when no one else was there. The friend who’d picked up the pieces Beau had left me in and stitched them back together.
My eyes sank closed, and I was assaulted by all the angry stares and tear-inducing glares Beau had offered since my first day at Richards Racing. Contrasted with those were the smiles and soft words from Xavier.
I yanked my head out of Beau’s hands and scrambled up the wall, drawing myself to my feet.
Beau’s hands fell to the ground, and his head bowed. Something—either a sob or a sigh, it was impossible to tell without looking at him—left his lips.
My tears streamed down my face, uncontrollable as they left paths of salt over my cheeks. He had the power to break me with a word. With a single look he would shatter me. I couldn’t do it. Not anymore.
He stood and boxed me in against the wall. “I love ya, Phoebe.” It looked like he planned to kiss me regardless of the fact that I’d just pulled away.
“Don’t. Please, just . . . don’t,” I begged. All the stoic strength I had would leave me if he did.
He dropped his head between his arms. Closing my eyes, I twisted my face away from his so the temptation of his lips didn’t call to me any longer. He let his hands fall to his sides as his emotions crashed over him.
“It’ll only make things harder,” I added in a whisper.
He nodded. “Course. Well, it’s late.” He turned and stalked away. “Ya can leave now.”
“Beau, I—”
He found a spot leaning against a chair at his dining table, all the muscles on his back and arms flexing with the pressure he exerted as he clutched the backrest. “Just go, Phoebe.”
“I’m sorry.” My voice cracked as I said the words.
I grabbed my coat and slipped it on before opening the door. Tears pricked my eyes as I glanced back at Beau one last time. He was still in the same position as before, with his fingers clenched tight around the back of the chair. His eyes were screwed shut and his lips mashed together. It would have been so easy to wipe away the pain I’d caused—I knew the exact way to do it—but I couldn’t.
Not without betraying Xavier, and making Beau betray Cassidee and his baby.
My goodbye stuck to my lips before I stepped out into the cold and pulled the door closed behind me. I fell back against it as the emotions swimming just under the surface all turned to attack me at once. Were Beau and I ever going to have a conversation again where we didn’t hurt one another? All I’d wanted to do was offer my support during his difficult time, and I’d only made things harder for him.
I wrapped my arms around myself and headed back to my hotel room. I was torn about what to do next. Would Beau still want me to hang around? Had I made a mistake rushing back to Georgia for him? Should I just go home first thing in the morning?
BY THE TIME I got back to the hotel block, I was drained and freezing. I just wanted a hot shower and to slip into bed.
As I was unlocking the door, I saw a figure coming up the hall.
“Wait, Phoebe, please?” C
assidee ambled toward me with both hands on her hips. She was pretty big. It struck me that she was probably as far along as Mum was when she’d had me.
“What do you want, Cassidee?”
“Can I come in and talk for a moment?”
I closed my eyes. I really didn’t have the patience to deal with more shit, especially not if she was going to try to do the jealous fiancée act. It wasn’t like I’d let anything happen with Beau.
“Please?” she asked again, rubbing her hand over her stomach.
Was she using sympathy to earn my agreement? If she was, it worked. I couldn’t help but picture Mum when she was pregnant with Nikki. She’d had the hardest pregnancy I could remember, but the last trimester was the worst. She’d even been put on bed rest—not that it stopped her from working.
I pushed open the door. “C’mon.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I get you a drink or anything?” Can you get to your point fast?
“No, thank you. You saw Beau tonight, didn’t ya?”
Even though I’d wanted her to avoid beating around the bush, I hadn’t expected her to come out with such a blunt question so fast. “Yeah. He asked me to go up to him.”
“I’m glad he let ya in. He wouldn’t see no one else. So, did he tell ya ’bout us?”
“What about you?” It was then that I saw both her hands were bare; the huge sparkler that had adorned her left hand over the last few months was gone. I frowned with confusion, and when I met her gaze, she sighed.
“He insists on makin’ thangs far more complicated than they need to be.”
I scrubbed my face with my palms. “What are you talking about?”
“Sit. If ya don’t know the story, ya prob’ly don’t wanna hear it standin’ up. Lord knows I can use a seat.” She rubbed her stomach again.
“Okay.” I was too proud to admit I was lost, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to follow what seemed like a reasonable instruction. I sat at one of the dining chairs, and Cassidee sat opposite me.
She wrung her hands together, her gaze following the path of her fingers rather than finding mine. “How much d’ya know about us? About Beau and me, I mean?”
It was beyond awkward having a conversation with her about Beau, knowing we’d both been with him. That she was carrying his child. That we both loved him.
“Just that you were Abby’s nurse and that’s how you met.”
She nodded and glanced up at me. “Nothin’ else?”
“That Beau broke up with you in June after he met me.”
She gave a sad smile as she nodded again and waited for me to give her more.
Tears pricked my eyes as the next fact floated into my mind. “That you’re pregnant with his child.”
Her lips turned down as she shook her head. “No. I ain’t.”
My next breath was sharp, scraping down to my lungs as it carried the shockwave that raced through me deep into my core. “What?”
“When Beau and I were together—before, I mean—we were saving ourselves for marriage. We were both madly in love and happy. I thought we were gonna be together for life. One of the couples that makes it, against all the odds. So I never thought to push more. What was a few months, or even years of celibacy in the face of a lifetime together?”
I couldn’t speak because I was still left reeling. Something Beau had said about them not being together as he’d declared his need for me not even ten minutes earlier flashed in my mind. I’d assumed he meant recently, but did he mean ever?
“Till one night in June. He called me from Sacramento and tol’ me he’d found someone else.” Her voice wavered. “I ain’t gonna lie, gettin’ that phone call hurt like nothin’ else. I saw the life we’d planned together go up in a puff of smoke.”
“What happened?”
“I went to see—” She stopped herself from saying whatever she was going to say. “A friend and, well, found comfort in his arms.”
My head was still spinning from the revelation.
“For two weeks, I was with . . . him as I tried to come to terms with my ex-boyfriend chasing some tourist across the country. I was so mad, and hurt. Especially when Rosie called me and told me Beau had brought ya to see Abby.”
Rosie . . .? It took me a second to connect it. Nurse Rosemary. She must have been Cassidee’s friend as well as Abby’s nurse. No wonder she’d been so cold toward me.
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what I was apologising for in particular, but I felt as though my presence had caused more issues than it was worth. If Beau and I had never met, all of our lives would be so different.
“I can’t lie. I was bitter. I wanted Beau. Until I saw him again. Until he tol’ me about ya and I watched him light up in a way he never had before. Then I realized I could never compete. That I didn’t wanna try.”
“But if the baby isn’t Beau’s . . .” I let the end of my question hang in the air.
“This one’s daddy and I were never serious.” She rubbed her stomach as she said the words. “We had our fun and agreed to go back to being friends. He ain’t exactly daddy material. When I found out, I was scared. Alone. I turned up here lookin’ for Beau and he invited me in. My cravin’s were somethang severe, and I was hankerin’ for some chocolate, so he suggested we make brownies. All the while, he couldn’t stop talkin’ about ya and how you’d won some race. But the sight of the raw egg . . .” She swallowed and I guessed at her meaning. I’d seen Mum suffer morning sickness enough times. “In my hurry to get away from the food, I knocked the bowl over Beau. It was when he was in the shower ya called. I had to answer it ’cause I needed to see the girl who stole him away from me. To speak to her and make sure she was worthy of him.”
I remembered that, when she’d answered the Skype call on Beau’s computer. She’d been bright and bubbly. A stark contrast to the next Skype call.
“Beau’s the sorta guy ya can depend on when it all goes downhill, ya know?”
I bit my lip to stop my tears as I shook my head. “I wish I did.”
“He’s a good guy, Phoebe. The sort who’d marry a friend just to make sure her baby don’t grow up without a daddy. Thangs just got a might complicated from there.”
“Complicated how exactly? You two got back together again obviously. Why not stay that way? Why bring me back into it?”
“He only asked me to marry him ’cause he thought you were playin’ ’round on him. We both figured it was better to give the li’l un a good daddy and stable life than to wait for somethang more. Ya have to believe me, if I’d a known then what I do now, I wouldn’t a ever agreed to marry him. We both thought comfortable was better than nothin’.”
Wasn’t that what I’d thought about Xavier? It struck like a punch to my stomach how much of my own truths were echoed in her words. Just like Beau’s a few days prior.
“When ya turned up here in the States like ya did, I hated ya. I thought you were tryin’ ta torment him. Tryin’ ta get an edge. I see now that my part in all this prob’ly made the whole thang more than it mighta been. Maybe y’all woulda found each other again sooner if we hadn’t been together.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “I’ve got Xavier now.”
“If ya want my opinion, you need to see where things might go with Beau. The one thing I know outta all of this is that I love Beau, more than I can say, and I want him to be happy. Happy for him is you. And after seein’ the two of ya together, I understand. He loves you, Phoebe.”
I stared at my hands. “Beau’s been in love plenty of times. He’ll find it again.”
“Not like he has with you. That’s the reason we both called off the engagement. I can’t compete with that, and I don’t wanna. I don’t wanna settle for second best. One day, maybe I’ll find someone who’ll love me like he loves you, Phoebe. That’s the most anyone can ask outta life.”
She reached out and put her hand over mine.
“I wanna find someone who looks at me like he loo
ks at you.”
I slipped my hand away from hers and walked over to the glass wall to stare out at the lake beyond. “I hear what you’re saying, but you have to listen to me too. I can’t do it again. You saw what it was like when I first got here. Who’s to say we won’t end up back there?”
She followed me and stood beside me. Because the lights were on, I saw her reflection clearer than the scenery I was trying to focus on to avoid being present in the room.
“There ain’t no promises in life, sweetie. But his happy is with you. I know that. Don’t ya think it’s worth tryin’ if you even think the opposite might be true?”
I didn’t turn to acknowledge her. “If I could believe that it was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d still be back in his house now.”
“I can’t tell you how to live your life. I’m just lookin’ out for a friend and the woman he loves. And maybe the one who loves him back.”
The conversation should have filled me with relief and possibly hope, but it didn’t. It just left me heartbroken all over again. Not only was I suffering, now I knew Beau and Cassidee were too, and had been for months.
“It would have been better if I’d never come to the States,” I muttered.
“I don’t think so. If everythin’ hadn’t happened how it did, I wouldn’t have this blessin’. And despite facin’ it alone, I do think this li’l un will be a blessin’.”
I glanced at her. “If Beau truly is the way you say he is, I doubt you’ll ever be completely alone.”
“No. Of course not. He’d never allow that. I’ve always got plenty of folks round. Joe. Mitch. Cash.” She cleared her throat. “But it’s different, ya know?”
When she shifted her gaze from the window to meet mine, I saw the fear in her eyes. It was probably something she would have preferred to keep hidden.
“I won’t have no one to back me up when I make a mess o’ thangs.”
Phobic (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #2) Page 26
