by Shayla Black
More rustling, then something that sounds a lot like a male snarl. “Hey, asshole. Piss off until I say otherwise, okay? Love you, bro.”
Three beeps fill my ear, then silence.
I shake my head. I can’t not smile at Maxon’s craziness…but this mystery is bugging the hell out of me. If Britta doesn’t know about our wedding next weekend, what is she doing looking at honeymoon packages at a swanky hotel online?
With a sharp glance back toward the bathroom, I see the steam still rising. I hear the water still running.
Yeah, I’m a rat bastard when it comes to my woman. Sue me.
But I’m going to get to the bottom of this now.
Stalking back to Britta’s computer, I pry the lid open more and sink into the chair as I read her screen.
She confirmed her reservation for the honeymoon suite at the Four Seasons next Saturday night. Why? I frown. She doesn’t know she’s marrying me next weekend. Keeley just confirmed that. How does she know she needs a honeymoon suite for the night of the fifteenth?
Unless she’s still planning to marry Makaio that day, like she has been for months.
Maybe the time has come to think with my head. I need someone I can depend on. I need a family sedan, Griff. You’re a Ferrari.
The bottom falls out of my gut. No. Fuck no. She’s not serious. She can’t be. She spent all night with me. Together with me in every way. She finally told me she loves me.
Maybe, dumb ass, that was her way of saying good-bye.
My head is buzzing with shock, but I can feel anger stretching, growing, rising like the pressure of a volcano about to spew lava. No, there must be some explanation. She wouldn’t do this to me. Britta isn’t the sort of woman to lead someone on. She’s done with Makaio. She said so…
He doesn’t belong between us anymore. That’s all she murmured when I asked if she was marrying the moron.
I blink at the computer screen, stare, trying to wrap my brain around the obvious. She didn’t actually say she was done with him. She certainly didn’t confirm that she wasn’t marrying him.
So what she really said was that Makaio doesn’t belong between us anymore because she’s going to surf off into the sunset with the Hawaiian banker and leave me for good.
The water from the shower cuts off. The door opens. “Griff? I forgot to grab my towel. Can you help me?”
I stand rooted in disbelief. How did the best night of my life become the worst morning ever? I get this slippery sense of déjà vu. I’ve been here, Britta squeaky clean and dripping as I realize the enormity of her betrayal. But last time I was dead wrong. I was a flaming idiot who jumped to all kinds of conclusions.
I roll through my logic again, but it all snaps together like snug pieces of a perfectly obvious puzzle.
She never had any intention of not marrying Makaio. Oh, she took off his ring to humor me. But she refused to wear mine. She lived with me because I didn’t give her a choice. I convinced myself she had one. I assured myself there was no way she would choose that dipshit over me. And why? Because I didn’t want to believe it. Just like I didn’t want to believe she could string me along.
I never wanted to believe Julia could, either. Look where that got me.
Is this resentment? Is this her payback? Or did she just never really give a shit?
Goddamn it, I won’t be Britta’s fool.
I stomp into the bathroom and grab a towel off the counter. I toss it at her with a snarl and try not to notice how naked she is. “How fucking dare you?”
She doesn’t act at all surprised as she wraps the terrycloth around her. “You saw my computer?”
“You’re damn right I did. When were you going to tell me?” I get up in her face and scowl. “Friday night while you were packing your bags to run off and marry another man? Or did you plan to fuck me one more time, cheat on him like you did last night, then get up Saturday morning and speak your forever vows to him?”
She doesn’t say anything, just stares, lips pressed together like she can’t speak.
“Well?” I prod. “Did you enjoy it? Did you laugh? Yeah, I’ll bet you did. I made an ass out of myself. I turned both our lives upside down to be with you. I tried to open up and be romantic—all the things Keeley said you needed from me. I fucking told you things I’ve never told anyone.”
I still can’t believe it. She’s stabbing me in the heart—for real this time—and it doesn’t make any sense.
Please explain it away. Please tell me I’m wrong. Please…
“That’s what you think?” Tears well in her eyes, then fall down her freshly scrubbed face in silvery tracks.
She looks so young. Hell, so innocent. What is happening here? “What the fuck else do you want me to think? Britta…if I’m wrong, tell me I’m wrong.”
“No.”
Shouldering her way past me, she makes for the bedroom and shimmies into panties and a bra. I watch, dumbfounded. “That’s all you have to say? No, what? No, I’m wrong? Or no, you’re not going to tell me anything?”
Silence.
“Goddamn it, I’ve been fighting for us. I’ve done everything I know to make you love me again. To make you believe in us again. And this is what you do?”
She opens the closet. Her back is facing me, but I see her shaking. I hear the sobs. She’s heartbroken, but I don’t understand. I haven’t ripped us apart. She has. She wanted me to see her computer, planned it that way. Why the hell should she suddenly be verklempt?
After pulling down the first two garments in front of her, she tosses on a pair of capri pants and a T-shirt, then storms past me again, towel in hand, and heads to the bathroom. Tears stream in earnest down her face.
She’s behaving as if I’ve somehow wronged her. I don’t understand. She never intended to stay with me. She led me on. She basically admitted it. What can I possibly be missing?
I grab her arm. “Talk to me.”
“I think you’ve said enough for both of us.” Britta wrenches free from my grip, then makes her way to the bathroom woodenly, on autopilot. She shoves her hair in a wet ponytail, then grabs her suitcase from the linen closet.
My jaw drops. “You’re leaving?”
“Give me one reason not to.” She blinks at me, waiting, looking so desolate.
I’m confused as shit. Does she want me to slice my heart open and bleed for her one more time before she marries someone else?
To hell with that.
I toss my hands in the air. “I think I’m all out of them, angel. I’ve done everything I know to win you back, and apparently you’d already made up your mind. But hey, at least we had a night of great sex before you decided to fuck off.”
“So that’s what you think? And you’re done?”
What the hell? I look at her as if she suddenly spoke Greek. That’s how much I comprehend her question. “What else do you want? I can’t do it all for both of us. I sure as hell can’t keep twisting your arm to be with me. I can’t keep telling you I love you when you don’t care in return. I can’t—”
Suddenly, I choke. Emotion is closing my throat. My eyes sting. I can’t speak. I will not cry in front of this woman. I refuse to cry for her again.
“Am I a backstabbing bitch?” she challenges, eyes narrowed.
That’s what I called her three years ago before I walked out. She’s baiting me. Why? Something inside tells me not to take it, but my temper grabs my tongue. I’m so angry. I feel so fucking betrayed. How could she do this? How did I not see it? Just…how did we wind up here, again a week short of being together forever?
“Yes. Goddamn you!”
“Well, you’re a bastard, Griff.” She opens the suitcase and sweeps everything on the counter inside. Bottles and tins rattle and clink to the bottom. Then she dumps it on the ground, opens the cabinet, and tosses everything under the sink on top. I watch in disbelief as she zips it shut with angry jerks. “I believed in you this time. I did the first time, too. But you think I would have learned. Nop
e. I’m still the stupid girl who falls for the same asshole who already hurt her once. Fool me once, shame on you…” She yanks up the collapsible handle of the suitcase. “Guess I’m the one who should be ashamed this time.”
“Seriously? I hurt you? You’re the one marrying someone else. What the fuck do you think I did this time?”
“It’s not what you did. It’s what you didn’t do. You couldn’t give me the thing I needed from you most: trust. Without it, we have nothing.” She rolls her bag out the bathroom and through the bedroom.
I follow. “Trust?”
“This time, just like last time, when you saw something that looked damning, you didn’t ask me to explain. You just assumed. You accused. And you ended things between us.” She shrugs. “I’m just beating you out the door this time.”
I freeze. Tell me I didn’t fuck up again. Please tell me I didn’t make the same mistake twice.
“So you’re not marrying Makaio next Saturday?” I ask, my voice so muted I barely recognize it.
If she says she is, I’ll have been right. But it’s a small fucking consolation. If she says she’s not, I’ll have fucked up. Again. I will have to live with the fact that I screwed up in exactly the same way.
But either way, she’ll be gone.
I shut my eyes.
“I’m not,” she says finally.
Her voice is like a death knell on my heart. Her sniffle puts the final nail in the coffin I shoved the lid on with my own two hands.
I almost demand to know why she simply didn’t tell me that I was wrong, that Makaio wasn’t in the picture. But I understand the answer now. She wanted me to trust her. She needed to know that I would give her the benefit of the doubt, not automatically convict her in my mind. She needed me to believe in us.
I failed.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt. “I lost my temper. I didn’t think. I—”
“And I have no reason to think it wouldn’t happen again. That you wouldn’t simply assume the worst. If I wasn’t leaving right now, you would have beaten me to it and walked out on me again.” I open my mouth to protest, but she holds up a hand. “Don’t lie to me. Or yourself. Griff, I can’t let you break my heart anymore. And I won’t let you break Jamie’s. I’m leaving now. Don’t stop me.”
She turns away, reaching for the knob of the bedroom door.
I don’t have any illusions. Once she walks out, I will be at less than square one with Britta. I will be nothing to her.
Air freezes in my lungs. My thoughts race. What can I do? What can I say? How can I stop this shattering of my heart?
My hand shakes as I reach out, drop my palm on her shoulder. “Please. Don’t go.”
Nothing else comes out. I’ve told her I love her. I’ve said I’m sorry. I’ve tried to explain.
Too little, too late.
“Griff…” She shakes off my touch.
I need to keep her talking. I need to understand.
I drag in a deep breath, and my temper finally downshifts. Logic kicks in. “When did you decide you weren’t going to marry Makaio?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does. Help me understand.”
She hesitates, then glances at me over her shoulder. “In the beginning, I didn’t think you could do or say anything to change my mind. I was so angry at you for barging into my life and trying to screw it up again. But you explained Tiffanii and your failure to acknowledge Jamie. Then you caught him at the park. And you kissed me. God, after that I was so furious at you for making me think about you and want you again. But I couldn’t seem to fight it, no matter how hard I tried.” She clenches her fists. “But then, I caught bronchitis and Makaio refused to take care of me. He left me to cope. Left Jamie exposed to my germs. And I kept thinking, if we’re going to be married, doesn’t ‘in sickness and in heath’ mean anything? And if that vow is meaningless to him, what else will he shrug off?”
“You were having second thoughts eight weeks ago?”
She turns to me finally and nods. “I was still undecided, teetering, but you kept pursuing me. You wanted me—and Jamie. You wouldn’t take no for an answer. You seemed so different, like the man I needed you to be all along.”
“Then what?” I rasp.
“When you proposed, I was shocked that you actually did love me back then. I never knew. I wanted and hoped… And I’m so touched that you held on to that ring, like you subconsciously hoped you would marry me someday. That night, I knew I had to stop resisting you simply to protect myself. That night, I knew I couldn’t marry Makaio.”
Her voice is shaking, and I want to touch her again so badly. I didn’t see any of this. Why was I so fucking stupid?
“Then you kept being wonderful, helpful, understanding. And okay, ruthless. It probably sounds weird, but you forcing me to move in with you reinforced how much you wanted to be with me. The night you didn’t touch me in the tub told me you were really trying to be good for me. I know that was hard.”
“Not to touch you? Torture.”
“But you respected my feelings.”
I sigh, my shoulders falling with my breath. “I wanted to be a better man for you.”
She doesn’t acknowledge my comment. It’s silent subtext that I failed. “The following Monday, I had lunch with Makaio—”
“You were crying.” Suddenly everything makes sense. “You ended the engagement. You gave him back his ring.”
“I did. We haven’t been engaged for weeks.”
Incredulity roars through me. Elation followed by despair crashes in next. Finally, confusion settles in. “Why didn’t you tell me then? Or anytime since?”
“Before I could completely commit, I needed to know if you really, truly had changed…or if you were simply a smoother talker than you were before. I needed you to understand how it felt to wonder if I loved you, even after you gave your all. Even when we lived and worked together as a couple. I needed you to let all your barriers go and give yourself wholly, without exception or hesitation.” She casts her stare to the ceiling, and I know she’s fighting fresh tears. “I needed you to know how I felt three years ago so you wouldn’t do it to me again. So you wouldn’t hurt your own son. And you passed every test, one after the other, so I let myself hope. So I gave you every bit of myself last night and went to bed praying that—”
She breaks into a sob and hides her face in her hands.
I bend to her, wrap her in my arms. “Britta, angel…”
“No!” She surges away from me. “No. Keeley told me last night that I should plan something special for us next Saturday night, so I did. But I woke up this morning so in love…and with so many niggling doubts. What if I was wrong? What if you left me again? So I left my laptop lid up to see what you would do.” She chokes on a sob. “Now I know.”
Her eyes look so bleak, inconsolable. Her world is falling apart. She didn’t see it coming. She believed in me.
God, I hate what I’ve done. Who I am right now. I won’t ask what the fuck is wrong with me. I know the answer.
I don’t know what to say to Britta, but I know that saying I’m sorry won’t mean a damn thing. I can’t unbreak her heart.
So what can I say? A thousand thoughts blaze across my brain. I’ll be better. I’ll try harder. I’ll love you more than any man ever will.
Right now, with her emotions shattered all over the floor, none of that will matter to her.
“I’m going to grab Jamie and go. I’ll make arrangements to get the rest of my things later. I’ll call Maxon tomorrow and tell him I’ve resigned. Tell your sister and Keeley I said good-bye. Have my lawyer call yours to work out visitation.” More tears fall down her cheeks. “I hope someday you come to terms with whatever’s haunting you.”
By the time I blink back a sting of wetness from my eyes, she’s gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN