“You’ve been with himandme? You disgusting pervert.” She ran over to him and slapped him in the face.
My heart almost stopped. “You swore you weren’t sleepin’ with no one else.”
Her laughter turned my blood cold. “Are you crazy? We’ve been together for months.”
“Heather, enough. Let me talk to Cort.” Bobby came to me where I sat on the bed. “Can we talk?”
“Oh no. No, you don’t.” She pulled out her phone, and before we had a chance to move, snapped pictures. “I’m gonna tell everyone, starting with your daddy, Bobby.”
“Heather, no. Please.” Forgetting me, Bobby took her by the shoulders. “You can’t. I’ll lose everything. He’ll kick me out. I’ll have nothing left.”
Her lips curved in a chilling smile. She slid her arms around his neck and pressed her body to his. “You still got me, baby. Just tell Cort to leave and you don’t ever want to see him again. Then we’ll go to your father and let him know we’re gettin’ married.”
“And that scumbag chose her, I gather?”
“Yeah, he did. And just to make sure I was totally kicked out of his life, she went to my parents and showed them the pictures she took and said I was stalking them. That I had a crush on Bobby and wouldn’t leave him alone.”
“What a rotten bitch. And your Bobby? He did nothing? He wouldn’t stand up and defend you?”
Over a year later and the hurt of Bobby’s betrayal left me as numb as ever. And yet, retelling the story hadn’t brought the pain in my heart it used to. I could tell the story and feel…detached? Like it had happened long ago to a different person, which perhaps I was now.
“No. They married, and my mother told me they announced at church they’re expecting their first baby.”
Harlan’s hand rested on my thigh. “How sweet for them. And Bobby hasn’t tried to contact you ever? I’m surprised.”
“Well, he has. From the beginning when I first moved here, he calls me every once in a while to tell me he’s coming to New York on business and he’d like to see me.”
“I’ll bet he would.” Harlan sneered. “That bastard thinks he’ll leave the wife at home and come to the city and the two of you can pick up where you let off. Am I right?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“And did you ever take him up on his offer?” Harlan asked carefully.
“Never.” My response was swift, and Harlan blinked and expelled his breath in a rush of air. “We’re done. I’d never go back with him. Not after how he walked away from me without a second look.”
“He hurt you.”
I nodded, the first time I’d admitted it to anyone but myself. “Yeah. Ten years meant nothing to him.”
Harlan gripped my thigh hard. “I’m sorry he treated you like that, but he didn’t deserve a man like you.”
I shrugged, and he cupped my face, his palm cool against my heated skin.
“If I’d been with you for ten years, you’d know exactly how I felt about you. You aren’t nothing. You’re everything. Everything I used to dream about but never dared to allow myself to want.”
Harlan leaned in and kissed me.
Chapter Fourteen
HARLAN
Sitting on thesofa, kissing Cort, was as beautiful and wondrous as I’d remembered from all those nights in rehab when I sat awake, aching for the smoothness of his lips against mine. The sweet touch of his tongue and the comforting slide of his hand up my thigh sent prickles of awareness showering down my spine. I clung to him, spinning into a world I’d only imagined existed.
“Feel that?” I took his hand and laced our fingers together.
“What?” Cort held my gaze, his smiling lips reddened, eyes dark and hazy.
I held his hand to my thundering chest. “This. Feel it. Feel me. Feel us.”
