I can’t talk. I can barely breathe.
All I can do is stare at him in shock.
His silver stubble glistens with wetness. He runs his tongue over his lower lip like he’s savoring the taste of me. Then he lifts the length of his tie and mops up the drops from his chin.
The silk is stained, ruined.
“I might damn well frame it,” he rasps, arching a brow at the way I’m staring at him.
He leans back in his chair, eyes swimming with tenderness again, just like they were last night.
Before Rory showed up.
“I don’t… I thought you were mad. You told me to leave. You?—”
“I said you two needed to talk. I never told you to leave. I wouldnevertell you to leave.”
He tugs me into his lap so I’m sitting sideways with my legs draped over his.
“I—”
“I’ve been wanting to taste you on my desk since that first night we kissed.”
His lips travel to my neck, and he kisses beneath my ear, murmuring about how good I smell.
“I… thought you were angry.”
“I am.” He looks me dead in the eye. “I’m angry at myself for not preventing the look on your face when you saw him.” He cups my jaw, tilting my face toward his. “You looked so worried.”
Shame and guilt attach themselves to me like a million tiny parasites, the way they do whenever I think about Vegas.
“My parents don’t know. I planned to tell them, but it was the first anniversary of losing Jenny, and Rory talked me out of it. He said they’d be ashamed, and I’d break their hearts. He said I’d completely wrecked everything she believed in. And he was right. I was so drunk I married someone I don’t even like.”
A sob bursts out of me, and I press a hand to my mouth.
“Jenny believed in love and soulmates. She’s the one who gave me my faith in it too. And yet, I didthat.”
Sterling holds me as I break into ugly hiccups and sobs.
“You were grieving, Hallie. We do stupid things when we feel like we’ve lost everything.”
He looks at me with such love and understanding that my chest splinters into ragged breaths and more tears fall.
“I don’t even remember it. I didn’t think I’d had that much to drink. Rory said I was the one who… the one w-who suggested we do it.” I cover my face with both hands. “I’m a f-fraud. I vow to find people true love. And I married on a drunken whim like it was n-nothing.”
Light filters through my eyelids as Sterling eases my hands from my face.
“Rory told you all of that?”
His eyes are narrowed, pinned on me as I peel my lids apart. If I thought there was rage in them before, then it’s nothing compared to the murderous intent that’s there now.
I wipe beneath my eyes. “He’s right. I will never forgive myself.”
“No. He’s a cockroach who’s been manipulating your grief. How long has he been calling you every day?”
I falter. “It can be weeks. Months, even, without a word from him. But it always starts again when he wants something.”
I feel so pathetic admitting it. I run my own successful business, but I can’t get a guy like Rory to leave me alone.
