Copyright (C) 2018 Kandi Steiner
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1986732673
ISBN-10: 1986732673
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written consent of the author except where permitted by law.
The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Kandi Steiner
Edited by Elaine York/Allusion Graphics, LLC/ Publishing & Book Formatting
Cover Photography by Perrywinkle Photography
Cover Design by Kandi Steiner
Formatting by Elaine York/Allusion Graphics, LLC/ Publishing & Book Formatting
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Reader Group
Acknowledgements
A Love Letter to Whiskey Preview
More from Kandi Steiner
About the Author
This is book two in the What He Doesn’t Know Duet, and it picks up right where the first book left off.
You can read the first book here.
“In the end,
we were like ghosts
hanging on
to the roof of the earth.
Halfway between worlds,
too afraid to let go.”
— Beau Taplin
Charlie
Left or right.
It was as simple as that, except it wasn’t simple at all.
If I went left, the road would eventually lead me to the house on the east side of Mount Lebanon — to the man I promised my life to, the one I’d imagined building a family with, the one who’d done everything in his power to try to keep me.
If I went right, the road would take me to a house not so familiar — to the man I used to only know as a boy, the man who came back unannounced, the man I loved first, before I even knew what love was.
I didn’t have any more tears to shed. They were all dried on my face, inky lines of mascara marring each cheek like scars. I was at the fork I knew I’d eventually get to all along, the decision I never wanted to make between two choices I never knew I had before two months ago.
The truth was simple.
I loved them both.
My heart was forever severed, destined to exist in two equal halves — one with each man. But one half beat stronger, one half had the vein that ran deepest, and one half held my choice in silence well before I ever admitted it out loud.
The other half would always be a part of me, but in a softer way — a more subdued beating, a quieter presence, a different kind of life support.
A different kind of love.
My chest ached with the realization of what I had to do, of the words I had to say, the heart I had to break. Though the snow had cleared and spring was beginning to paint the earth green all around me, I still felt the harsh bite of winter nipping at my heels as I fled from it — from the cold, from the hurt, to a new beginning, to a new me.
Left or right.
It may not have been a simple choice, but I knew with every beat of my severed heart it was the right one.
So, I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turned the wheel.
Two months earlier
Charlie
The first thing I noticed when I came to the morning after the spring concert was the splitting headache.
My ears rang, loud and shrill, and I creaked one eye open first before the other. When I tried to sit up, a sledgehammer smacked me back down. I groaned, massaging my temples as I laid back into the pillow.
The reality of what had happened the night before filtered in slowly through the waves of my headache, seeping in like frigid ice to my veins. I pressed into my temples, and then I saw a flash of Reese in the closet at school. I pinched the bridge of my nose, and then I saw Cameron’s glossed eyes as he begged me to stay.
It was a nightmare, one I’d agreed to subject myself to for two more months.
I was giving Cameron the chance to keep me, but it was Reese who held my heart now.
“Hey.”
I opened my eyes again, finding Cameron standing in the doorway of our bedroom. He was already fully dressed for work, his jaw clean shaven, tie fastened at his neck and dark hair styled neat. He balanced a steaming cup of tea on a tiny saucer plate, and when he crossed to sit on the edge of the bed next to me, I saw two small pills next to the mug.
“Ibuprofen,” he said, handing me those first. “Figured you might need these.”
My eyes were heavy from crying, heart heavy from fighting, and I pushed to sit up as slowly as I could before tossing the coated pills in my mouth. I swallowed, shaking my head when Cameron offered me the tea to help wash them down. He set the mug on our nightstand, exactly where the cup he’d brought me the night before had gone cold.
“How are you feeling?”
Cameron’s hand reached forward for mine, cupping over my fingers, and I stared at that point of contact as another sharp pain ripped through my head.
“Tired,” I answered. It was the best word I had to wrap up everything I felt. I was exhausted — from the night, from the past couple of months, from the last five years. I wanted to sleep until my nightmare was over. I wanted to cry at just the thought of what I had yet to endure, at the fact that I couldn’t just wake up to a new, brighter day where life was simple again.
Cameron squeezed my hand.
“Maybe you should stay home today.”
I shook my head before he’d even finished his sentence, throwing the covers back. “No. I want to go.”
“I think everyone would understand after last night if you—“
“I want to go, Cameron.”
I said the words with finality, and his brows bent together. He knew why I wanted to go, or rather, whom I wanted to go to. But he didn’t let me see his heart break as that truth settled in.
“Okay,” he said with a slight nod.
He stood first, holding out his hand to help me up. I wobbled a little, my head swimming, but Cameron held onto me and kept me steady. When the dizziness passed, I opened my eyes and took him in. My husband. The man I’d promised forever to.
The promise I wasn’t sure I could keep anymore.
Cameron pulled his phone from his pocket, tapping a few buttons on the screen before setting it gently beside my tea on the nightstand. A soft, slow melody filled the room, a song I wasn’t familiar with, and Cameron pulled me into his arms just as the first verse began.
He swayed me gently, but I was stiff in his arms, my eyes catching on the clock. I needed to get ready.
“I should get dressed,” I said, but Cameron still swayed, his hand on the small of my back rubbing gently.
“Just one dance.”
“You’re going to be late for work.”
“They’ll live.”
I looked at him then, just as the chorus swept over us, and I tried to remember the last time he put me before work. When was the last time he said work could wait, and I was priority number one?
I couldn’t remember.
And now, it only felt like he was doing so because he knew he’d lost me.
It was too late, and only now was he waking up.
“Cameron, about last night…”
He shook his head firmly, pulling me closer until my head rested on his chest. He wrapped me up tighter, like that embrace would make me stay, like he could be the anchor that would keep me home.
“We don’t need to talk about that right now,” he whispered. “I know it was a lot of me to ask, and a lot for you to give. And I know it doesn’t mean anything will change.” Cameron swallowed then, stopping our dance long enough to pull back and look me in the eyes. “But I won’t waste this chance, Charlie. I won’t let you go without doing everything in my power to make you want to stay.”
He looked younger then, in that morning light. Like the man I fell in love with.
“All I’m asking is that you try, that you let me in again. Just… give me this time with your heart before you decide to give it all to him.”
The pain that had reverberated in my head all morning zipped down through my chest, and my next breath was haggard and harsh. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to feel about the fact that he wanted me.
It wasn’t long ago that I would have fallen into his arms overwhelmed with joy at his proclamation. I would have sobbed, would have sighed with relief at him finally coming back to me.
But now, I only felt pain — and anger.
Because it wasn’t until he’d lost me, until I’d found comfort in Reese’s arms that Cameron had noticed me again.
Cameron pulled me back into him, resting his chin on my head as we swayed, my left hand in his right, my ear to his chest. I closed my eyes, listening to his heart beat, and the longer the song played, the more I felt him. My breaths came a little lighter, the pain in my chest receding, and I sighed.
I still loved him.
I knew that last night. I knew it all weekend, even when I was with Reese, even when I knew I would leave Cameron I also knew I still loved him. I wasn’t sure that would ever change, no matter what happened next.
He was the father of my children, the stealer of my heart, the comforter of my soul. He was my family. He was my home.
I just didn’t know if that was enough.
As the song ended, Cameron hugged me tight to him, and I blinked away the tears threatening to fall.
“I need to get ready,” I said after a moment, my voice low.
It must have killed him, to hear those words when I was in his arms, to know I would get dressed and go to another man. But Cameron just nodded, kissing my forehead before letting me go.
“Okay. Can I make you something for breakfast?”
I shook my head. “The tea is fine.”
Cameron’s gaze swept over our nightstand.
“I promise I’ll drink it,” I added, hoping to ease at least that part of his worry. “And I’ll eat at lunch. I just need to let my stomach stabilize a little.”
He forced a smile, but it fell quickly, and he straightened his tie with a look of resignation. “Okay. I’ll see you tonight?”
I forced a smile back. “Mm-hmm.”
“Okay.” He nodded, hands sliding in the pockets of his slacks. He looked around like he didn’t know what to do next before leaning in for a kiss.
My lips met his briefly, just a peck, and then I skirted behind him to our closet.
A few minutes later, I heard the front door close.
I ripped the first blouse I saw from the hanger, throwing it on haphazardly before pairing it with a simple navy skirt. My hair was back in a bun in the next breath, and I didn’t even check the mirror to assess my tired eyes. I knew they were puffy and underlined with deep purple skin, but it didn’t matter.
I needed to get to Reese.
As tough as the night had been for me, I knew it must have been torturous for him. He had no idea what happened when I got home, no idea what I was thinking, or feeling, or what would happen next.
He would be angry when he found out, that much I knew. He’d be hurt. I’d promised Cameron a chance. I’d given him my word that, at least for the next two months, I’d stay.
And where did that leave Reese?
That was the question he’d have for me, and I only had the ten-minute drive to school to figure out the answer.
Reese
Blake sat at my kitchen bar, one foot propped under her on the stool while the other hung below her. Her bright blonde hair was piled in a messy bun on top of her head, a few strands hanging down to frame her face. That same hair had been sprawled over my chest when we woke that morning, and all I could think when my eyes opened and I saw it there was that it was the wrong color.
She shoved another bite of cereal in her mouth, her eyes on the fort in the living room.
“Do you mind if I clean that up today?” she asked, nodding to where the sheets hung from the fort Charlie and I had built. “I’ll wash all those sheets and get this place looking somewhat decent. I figured you hadn’t hung a single thing on the wall,” she added with a chuckle. “I’ll spend the day making a plan and I can start shopping tomorrow, start making this place feel more like a home.”
“That’s fine,” I answered, though my fists curled at the thought of her touching the fort. Still, I knew she needed something to do, something to fix. That was who she was. And I was one of her favorite projects.
“Great. I was thinking plum, white, and gray for the bedroom. Just a dash of plum, though. Nothing too dark. And for the living room, I’ll get some throw pillows to brighten up that dark couch. What do you think of mint?”
She kept talking, but I couldn’t register a single word. I just nodded along, giving her permission she wasn’t really even asking for. I needed a cigarette like I needed blood in my veins, but I’d promised Charlie I’d try to quit. That was when she was still in my home, in our fort, in my arms.
Now, she was gone, and Blake was in her place.
I still couldn’t believe she was here, in Pennsylvania, in the house I’d had Charlie in just hours before Blake had shown up on my front porch.
She was New York. She was bright city lights and lonely broken nights. She was a chapter I’d already read, one I’d turned the page on when I left the city. It didn’t feel right that she was here, in a place she never existed to me.
But I couldn’t be mad she’d shown up. Not really.
Because we’d never technically ended our relationship when I left.
I met Blake a couple of years before my family died. I was piss ass drunk at a dive bar on the lower east side, causing trouble with one of my buddies from Juilliard.
It was a normal night for me — play piano at the restaurant all night for rich people who didn’t hear me anyway, meet up with Ben at his place, hammer down some whiskey and stumble into the first bar we found. Crashing karaoke bars was our favorite, because we could make fun of other drunk assholes and feel a little better about the fact that we were thirty years old and still partying like we were twenty-one.
Neither of us were in a relationship, neither of us had kids, and neither of us had plans. We were the perfect pair.
But on that particular Friday night, Blake had stumbled into the same bar with a group of her girlfriends. She’d gone on stage solo and sang the most beautiful version of Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams I’d ever heard in my life, and I’d declared on a stomach full of whiskey that I’d marry her one day.
We went on our first date a week later.
Blake had never really been my girlfriend. She was more of a friend who liked to get naked as much as I did. We’d meet up every now and then, sometimes going months between seeing each other, and every time we got together, we lost ourselves in each other. There were long nights
spent in my apartment, smoking cigarettes and making out between stories. She’d always be gone the next morning before I woke up, and I never really knew when I’d see her again. I just knew that I would.
But when my family died, everything changed.
Blake had been there for me. She was the only one. She’d helped me with everything — the funeral, the will, the reporters, my bills, my job. There was so much to do, to handle, and I could barely get out of bed in the morning. In fact, on most days, I didn’t. But Blake was there, handling all of it. She’d even tried to save me from myself when I was blowing through my inheritance, begging me for a small portion of it to invest.
That was all that was left of it now.
She hadn’t just been there to handle the paperwork, either. She’d been there on the long, torturous nights where I’d break down into tears and drink myself stupid trying to mourn my loss. It was in that time that I realized those nights we’d slept together, the nights she’d shared my bed, we’d also shared a deeper part of ourselves.
She loved me. She loved me enough to be there for me in one of the darkest times of my life. And in that time, I realized I loved her, too.
Blake moved in with me a few weeks after my family passed just to make sure I wouldn’t hurt myself. She took care of me like a mother, like a sister, like a friend, and like a wife.
So, I made her my girlfriend.
But when it came to moving, I hadn’t thought twice about her. It was shitty, and I hated to admit it out loud. But that was just the way we were. She had never told me she loved me, and I never told her. She was there when I needed her, and I was there when she needed me. But she was busy with her own life just as I was with mine, and though we lived together, it was almost more as roommates than anything.
Sure, we had the title, but it didn’t feel like anything had changed between us. We were still the same boy and girl who slept together and didn’t talk for months at a time, except now we still shared a bed.
What He Always Knew (What He Doesn't Know Duet Book 2) Page 1