“Why did you ask me to marry you?” She knew the answer, but wanted to hear it from him.
“When I met you, I was already gambling pretty frequently. I didn’t have nearly as much debt as I do now, but I was in pretty heavy. There were a couple of games, though, that I lost big on. And a couple more after that. I kept thinking I could make just one good bet and cover all my losses.” He gave a small laugh. “I just kept digging a deeper hole.
“Then I found out who your grandmother is and it seemed like the answer to my problems. Here you were with a big inheritance you didn’t even use. If we were married, I’d have access to it, and everything would be okay.” He shook his head a couple of times. “I know it’s stupid. I know it wasn’t fair to you, but I was in a panic. I knew if I asked at your grandmother’s party, you wouldn’t say no. To be honest, I never saw us together long-term.”
He twisted his glass on the table, running his fingers through the condensation. “You’re a lot. You’ve traveled the world. You’ve been to war. You have millions, but you work and lead a really low-key life. You intimidate me. I was surprised you let the engagement go for a week, much more a month.”
One corner of her mouth rose. “I decided the next day to tell you I wasn’t going to marry you, but you went out of town, and there just didn’t seem to be a right time. I didn’t want to be a bitch and do it over text.”
He glanced at her quickly, a small smile on his face. “You should have. Maybe I would have gotten my shit together earlier.”
“Why are you apologizing now?”
He took a deep breath and blew it out. “I don’t like that guy – the guy I became. My behavior, my lifestyle, it was all out of whack. Everything just kind of blew up on me all at once. I lost a couple of freelance contracts when it came out I was gambling on the games I was covering. A couple of my editors agreed to keep me on, but only if I got help. It was hard to admit – hard to face – but I realized I have a problem. So, I joined Gamblers Anonymous.”
“Good for you.”
“Yeah. It has been. It works on a twelve-step program like other anonymous groups, and one of the steps is apologizing to the people you’ve hurt. So, I’m…well…you know.”
“Apologizing?” A small smile played at her lips.
“Yeah.” His own smile answered hers.
“Isn’t it kind of early in the process? I thought apologizing was one of the later steps.”
“It is, but I talked to my sponsor about everything that’s happened. We agreed it would be good for me to do it now.”
Bree nodded, still unsure what he wanted to get from all this. She needed to let it go. Move on and get Chad out of her life. “It wasn’t exactly fair of me, either. I shouldn’t have said yes when you asked, and I shouldn’t have let things drag on for a day, never mind a month.”
“I knew you didn’t want to marry me. Hell, I knew you were planning on breaking up with me. But I was an asshole. So caught up in the gambling and trying to breakeven; you were like my Hail Mary. I can’t help but think if I had been a better person, Jaelyn and Patty would still be alive.”
“The killer is the only person to blame.”
“Intellectually, I know you’re right, but it’s still hard to accept they died because they were with me.”
“You need to try.”
He nodded and took another sip of his tea. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”
“Okay…”
“I’m seeing someone. Well, someone I want to see, but she won’t go out with me unless I come clean with you.”
Bree’s eyebrows raised again. “Uh, who?”
“It’s Katherine.”
“Who’s Katherine?”
“She was the one you caught me with. She cut me off after you found us.” He scratched the back of his neck. “A few weeks ago, I ran into her at a coffee shop near where I attend meetings, and I apologized. We started talking. She turned me down the first couple of times I asked her out. I almost didn’t ask her again, but something told me I should give it one more shot. She agreed, but on the condition that I tell you and you’re okay with it.”
Her eyebrows raised. “She told you you had to get my blessing?”
“Basically, yeah.”
Really? It was hard to reconcile the image of the woman she had caught with Chad with a woman who would demand her blessing. But hell, why not? “I don’t think I really have a say one way or the other about whom either of you date, but if it’s important to you — to her, then you have it.”
“Thank you. She said with the way things went down before, she needed to know you’d be okay with it.”
