“Didn’t you hear what I said? He fucking lied to me. He cheated with a married man.”
“Yeah. I heard everything. And it sucks. I’m sorry. You’re right, and he shouldn’t have lied to you, especially since he knows how you feel about it. But he didn’t know the story with Dad until you told him recently, right?”
“No, but so what?”
“And that affair happened how many years ago, five or six?”
Sitting at that table left me trapped and restless, so I stood and paced the room. The bright morning sunlight beamed into the room, sharp as a knife, and I squinted. It shouldn’t be such a glorious blue-skied day. A malevolent mood such as mine wanted black clouds, howling winds, booming thunder, and cracks of lightning.
“Yeah, and again, so what?” I braced my hands on the window and stared at the street below, watching the people passing by. Did everyone keep secrets from the people they cared about?
“Because you’re acting irrationally. He made a mistake. He told you about it. Knowing how you felt about cheating, he still told you the truth now, instead of waiting years or for you to find out by accident. It took guts, in my mind.”
“I can’t believe you’re taking his side.” Even as I said the words I winced, hearing the petulance in my voice.
“Irrational and immature,” Ethan said, his smile irritatingly smug. “There are no sides in this. You care about him, and don’t bother to deny it because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be pouting and glaring at me at the same time.”
“I don’t pout.”
Ethan rose from his seat and joined me at the window. “How serious is it with you and Presley? Are you in love with him?”
Ignoring his second question, I forced myself to answer the first. “There is no me and Presley. Not anymore.” The words tasted like ash in my mouth.
“Nate.” I gazed down at his hand on my arm, squeezing me tight. “Please. Don’t make a rash decision.”
“You didn’t live with Mom afterward and hear her walking the floors at night. She kept a brave face, but I knew how devastated she was.”
“And yet here we are three years later, and even Mom has moved on. She’s enjoying her life now, even dating.”
“I know. I’m thrilled for her.”
“We all are. But she would hate that you’re still hung up on Dad’s affair with Jillian. Youhaveto let it go. You were so happy these past few months. I saw it even if I didn’t say anything, because I knew you’d take my head off if I dared to ask you about your personal life.”
“So you showed up one morning instead.” The memory of that day slammed into me. It was the day I knew I was falling for Press. How did it go so badly, so quickly?
“I figured you wouldn’t throw me out.” I raised a brow, but Ethan didn’t take the bait and toss out a snide comment. He did something much worse—he spoke from his heart. “Don’t chuck everything because of a bad decision Presley made years ago when he didn’t even know you, or himself, it looks like. I almost had you back. I don’t want to lose you again.” He hung his head and passed a hand over his face.
While Ethan and I hadn’t been as close as we might’ve been because of our age gap, I knew there wasn’t anyone else I could turn to who loved me more. For him to get so emotional gave me pause, and Ethan, seeing me hesitate, took that advantage and pounced.
“I watched you both that night we all had drinks at the Rainbow Room. He’s crazy about you, and you feel the same. You smile every time your eyes meet.”
I opened my mouth to say something, and he raised a hand in my face, his eyes blazing with true anger.
“Don’t lie to me and say you don’t love him. You’ve never had a problem walking away from any other guy before. How long are you going to let Dad’s life rule and ruin yours?”
I didn’t have an answer for him, so I did what I do best.
I walked away.
Chapter Twenty-One
Two weeks after Nate and I broke up, I floated through the days like a zombie. With the city in the grips of the rainy days of Spring, endless, heavy clouds hung over glowering skies, and the bare trees reminded me of bones reaching upward, searching for any kiss of warmth. It perfectly matched my mood.
I opened the store, and without taking off my coat, sat down in one of my antique love seats and began to shake. I thought by this time I would’ve heard from him. What the hell did I do now? I couldn’t go on like this. I could barely function. Hell, I could hardly breathe. The pain of losing Nate’s trust, of never seeing his face again, twisted as if a knife plunged into my stomach. The days found me stumbling into work at odd hours, uncaring that I hadn’t had a single customer in a week.
Frisco had predicted it. I should’ve listened to him. With him being away in Paris, I would come home and sit and stare at the walls. I wouldn’t bother him while he was in Europe at some annual culinary thing he loved attending, and I’d been ignoring his pictures of delicious-looking meals and men.
Today I couldn’t stop obsessing that Nate had found someone else. Was he kissing him? Touching him? I missed lying next to him on the couch in front of the fire at his house while his fingers played with my hair.…
