by S. Ann Cole
We look as if… we look like we’re in love.
The caption reads:
So, I seem to have gotten myself into a bit of a jam. I made the dumbest mistake any human could ever make. I fell in love. I fell in love with one of the most beautiful, defiant, independent, vulnerable, stubborn women I’ve ever met.
And then I did something even dumber than the dumbest thing a human could ever do. I betrayed her. (No, no, I didn’t cheat, ladies, so put the pitch forks down!)
I did my best to make it up to her, and she told me she forgave me. She even wants to be with me regardless of what I did. (Yay for me, right?)
Except the one thing she’s refusing to give me is the only thing I want. Her love.
Call me a p*s*y, but coming from a guy who used to dub every girl “Julie” because I could never remember any of their names, I NEED that validation. Call me insecure, whipped, a little bitch. I don’t give a shit. I just need this woman who makes my heart race faster than Usain Bolt to tell me she f*cking loves me.
If you believe in true love, tag @DRealSerenaBentley and tell her to #tellhimyoulovehim and end my misery.
#shestheone #amreadyforlove
#onceaplayernowasucker #needthatvalidation
What in the ever-loving hell?
That was posted twelve days ago. Every post after that is either a picture of me or a picture of the both of us looking more couple-y than we actually were. All with the same caption: #tellmeyouloveme.
The latest post, made yesterday, is another screen-shot of what he’s listening to.
The Scientist, by Coldplay.
As tears begin to burn my eyes, I turn off my phone and curl onto my side, because it’s all too much right now. I’m feeling too much all at once and I can’t handle it.
But into the darkness, I whisper so quietly that only my heart can hear, “I love you, Kholton Sharpe.”
Forty - Four - Serena
“Good luck with that. I’m a rare breed.”
The funeral is huge, which is kind of surprising, considering I’ve never seen another friend or relative aside from Kholton visit her in her last days.
All the better, though, as the crowd makes it easier for me to hide in plain sight. I lurk on the outskirts.
The service is long, but not boring. Not with the endless amount of jokes about Naan and her unfiltered antics.
At the cemetery, I hang back and skulk behind a tree, struggling to get a good view of Kholton. In the church, I’d stared at the back of his head for the better part of two hours, then skipped out before the service was over so I wouldn’t be seen.
I can barely glimpse him now from this distance. He has one arm wrapped around a dark-haired woman who’s sobbing uncontrollably into his armpit. His mother maybe?
Rising up on my tippy toes, I crane my neck to see more of him, but there are too many big floppy hats blocking the view. The skinny heels of my pumps sink into the soft earth and I wobble, almost twisting my ankle. “Dammit!”
“So,” a voice comes from behind me, “you just plan on hiding the entire time?”
Startled out of my skin, I whip around and see Natalie, sitting carefree on someone’s headstone and sipping from an old silver flask.
Jesus, this woman! Where on earth did she come from, and how long has she been there? She hadn’t been at the service, that’s for sure. Plus her black cargo pants, steel-toe boots and skin-tight black tee are not exactly funeral attire.
My shock lasts only a brief moment, though, before it transmutes to anger. I stalk right over to her and slap her across the face, hard enough that her head jerks to the side.
Lifting her hand to her cheek, she looks right at me and smile. “There you go.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demand.
She takes a sip from her flask. “Loyalty.”
“To him?” I hiss, incredulous. “We’ve been friends since we were three.”
“To the both of you,” she says. “He knows things about me that you don’t. We’ve done shit together that you can’t even fathom. He’s as much of a friend to me as you are.”
“Friends who screw each other?”
“Well, hell.” She rolls her eyes. “Khol and I had nothing-better-to-do sex a couple of times. So what? We never dated. I don’t want him and he doesn’t want me. Not to mention, this was long before he met you. What’s the big deal?”
“It’s a big deal that my ‘friend’ slept with the man I’m in love with, Natalie,” I say, irritated. “It doesn’t matter that it was before me. My heart doesn’t care about the when, it only cares that it happened at all.”
She shrugs. “Then don’t be friends with me anymore. Will that help?”
Heaving out a long-winded sigh, I plop down beside her on the headstone. “Nope. I like being jealous of you too much.”
Dramatically, she flips her hair over her shoulder. “I know. I’m a goddess, aren’t I? The Enviable Queen Natalie.”
I start to scoff, but eventually end up laughing. Unapologetically over-confident as always, this girl.
She passes the flask to me and I see that it’s one I’m very familiar with. A lion’s face is engraved on the front, the initials D.F engraved on the back. It’s her late father’s. A piece of him that she refuses to let go of. You’ll never not find this flask on her person.
Taking a sip of its contents, I make an ugly face as the potent liquid slides down my throat.
“So, you’re in love with him, huh?” she muses.
I almost choke on the alcohol. “I didn’t say that.” I stiffen, panicked. “Did I?”
“You know,” she begins, gazing ahead at the mourning crowd. “You blamed Max for the demise of your relationship. You called him weak and a coward for not standing up to Aaron. But he wasn’t the weak one. He wasn’t the coward. You were. You know what Max was? In the dark. If you’d simply opened your mouth and let that man know how you truly felt about him, he would’ve taken the bullet for you.”
Snagging the flask from me, she takes another swig. “Men need assurance just as much as women do. Tough and macho on the outside, yeah, but at heart, men are really just furry little puppies who love having that spot between their ears rubbed—their ego. Don’t let another good man slip through your fingers all because you’re too proud and too scared to say the words.”
She settles her stare straight at me now. “Say the damn words, Serena. He needs them.”
I feel so attacked. But Natalie has never been one to hold back.
Her words ring real and true. But, I’m a Miranda. Where most women proudly declare themselves a Carrie, I have always been a Miranda.
Admitting weakness, that I love a man other than my father, is just not me. Not in my DNA.
Crazy, considering Aaron is all about love and vulnerability.
I am not my father’s daughter.
Yet I am my father’s daughter.
I’m carrying the DNA of a man who possesses so little love and care for his child that he suffers no qualms abducting her and trading her for a ransom. A man who looked at me as though I were a stranger and not his own flesh and blood.
That’s who I am. That’s whose daughter I am.
Maybe that’s why I’m such a selfish screw-up. If only I had Aaron’s blood in my veins.
When the crowd begins to disperse, Natalie gets to her feet. “I have to go,” she says. “If anyone asks, I was never here.”
“What?” I, too, get to my feet, dusting off the back of my dress. “Where are you going and, come to think of it, why are you back here and not up there?”
Handing me the flask, she dusts grave dirt off her backside. “Because…” She trails off and narrows her gaze contemplatively at the thinning crowd. “You’re not the only one hiding from love.”
Before I can question her words, she’s gone, jumping over gravestones as if they’re mere puddles. I watch her disappear. That woman has been my friend since we were three and I still have no idea who she is.
>
Something wet plops onto my face. Wiping it away, I look up at the sky and squint. The sun is still shining, but dark clouds are rapidly shifting across the vast expanse of blue, dulling its glow.
I glance back at the scattering crowd. Kholton is no longer in sight. Someone else is, though. And he’s staring straight at me.
Brock.
How can he even see me back here?
As he starts in my direction, I begin to back up. When fat drops of rain start plonking onto my head like walnuts, I turn and break into a jog. I weave around graves, disrupting the dead. But before I know it, strong fingers grab my forearm in a tight grip.
I whip around in defense but crash right into his formidable chest.
“Christ, woman,” he growls. “The hell you running for? What do you think I’m gonna do to you?”
“I’m not running from you,” I lie. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s raining.”
“Chill, Serena.” He moves briskly with me to get out of the rain. “Saw you here by yourself and just wanted to make sure you’re okay. That’s all. Where’s your driver?”
Annoyed at being caught, I answer sulkily, “I drove myself.”
“Where did you park?”
“Down there.” I try to shrug him off. “But I’m fine, Brock. Really. I just need to get out of the rain.”
He ignores me and doffs his jacket, draping it over my head as the rain comes harder. When I lift my hands to help, he goes wooden, his face turning to granite.
“What?” I half-shout over the rain.
Wrestling the flask from out of my hand, he glares down at it and then me. “Where is she?” he barks. “Where the fuck is she?”
What? Where’s who? And why the heck is he yelling at me? “Where’s who?”
“Natalie!” He shakes the flask in my face. “She’s here. Where did she go?”
Ohhhhh. Holy crap, so Brock’s who she was hiding from? What on earth did she do to piss him off this much?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I wrench free of him and he’s so distracted that he lets me. “I’m wet and cold and need to get out of the rain.”
With that, I turn and hurry off in the direction of my car. He doesn’t follow me. When I toss a glance back over my shoulder to check again, he’s still standing in the pouring rain, glowering down at the flask.
Natalie and Brock? Huh.
Squinting through the rain, Brock’s jacket over my head, I locate my nondescript rental parked far from all the other vehicles. Pressing the worn key fob, I wrench open the door and duck inside, shutting out the downpour as quick as I can.
As I remove Brock’s jacket from off my head and shift around to throw it in the back, I damn near jump out of my skin. “Jesus Christ!”
Kholton.
Here.
In the passenger seat.
Dry. Untouched. Patient.
“W-What are you d-doing in here?” I stammer.
A raised eyebrow. “Is that a serious question?”
“I…” I want to touch him. I want to touch him so bad. I want to hug him and kiss him and hold him tight to me and never let go. He’s everything.
Everything.
My heart is a bloody, dripping mess in my chest. He owns it. It’s his. He owns me.
He’s staring at me. Waiting. Patient and sad. Hopeful and determined.
Through a hoarse whisper, I ask, “Can… Can I touch you?”
“No.”
Yikes. Burned by his refusal, I drop my gaze to the soaked jacket in my hands. “How are you doing, with…” I trail off and gesture outside the windshield to indicate the funeral, Naan’s death.
“I’m not here for chit-chat, Serena.”
Right. He’s here for the truth. The truth that I’m unable to admit. “Okay.”
His tone is soft when he urges, “Serena, look at me.”
I’m slow to do so, but I manage to meet his gaze. I open my mouth to give him what he wants, but the words don’t come.
“It was the gloves,” he says cryptically.
Huh? “What?”
“I got home and you were cleaning in disposable gloves,” he expounds. “You’re supposed to be allergic to latex, remember?”
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
How had I not even realized at the time that I was wearing latex in front of him? What a colossal screw up!
I can’t tell what my face looks like at this juncture, but he’s nodding at it. “Figured it out then—what you were after. Broke my heart, I’m not gonna lie. I stole from you, sure, but I never lied to you. Everything you experienced with me was real. Can I say the same for you, Serena?”
“Of course you can!” I reach across the console and grab his hand. “I wanted a baby, but I also wanted you. I always wanted you. That wasn’t a lie.”
“I don’t believe you.” He’s stoic. His stare daggering through me. “Convince me.”
“Wha—I don’t—Jesus Christ, Khol, I’ve been chasing you for months?!” I let go of his hand and grip a handful of my own hair. “Me. I have been chasing you. Not the other way around. Would I be chasing you if I didn’t—”
“If you didn’t what?” he prods when I stop short.
I pull back. “Nothing.”
“No.” He shakes his head at me. “You chasing me doesn’t mean shit. You chased me in the beginning, too, remember? You were just as relentless and determined. And was it because you gave a shit about me? No, it was all for you. So why should I believe this chase is any different? You know, considering you didn’t get what you came after me for.”
I hate him.
I love him.
“I’m not chasing you anymore, am I?”
“Heard you’ve been going on dates again,” he taunts. “Trying to find another me to knock you up?” He scoffs. “Good luck with that. I’m a rare breed.”
“Screw you.”
He laughs. “Oh, you wish you could right now, don’t you?”
I look away from him.
I hate him.
I love him.
“Serena,” he whispers, “just tell me. Even if it’s a lie, just tell me.”
With a bemused frown, I meet his gaze again. “Why would you want me to lie to you?”
“Because a lie would mean you at least care enough to not want to hurt my feelings.” He shoves his fingers back through his hair. “But not saying it at all…”
Means I’m a selfish, evil bitch.
I avert my gaze again. I can’t even lie, because the lie would be a lie.
Quiet descends, disturbed only by the torrential rain beating down relentlessly on the roof of the car.
“Fuck you, Serena,” he curses before he jerks open the car door and slams out into the downpour.
I don’t look up to watch him go. I need to just let him go. As much as it hurts to do so. I can’t see much through these fogged-up windows anyway.
I toss Brock’s jacket in the backseat and start up the car. I’m about to flip on the windshield wipers when the passenger door yanks open again.
Kholton. Soaked and dripping wet.
He bends at the waist and leans in so his face is leveled with mine. “This is how easy it is, Serena: I love you. Scratch that, I’m in love with you. And I know exactly when it happened, too.
“I fell in love with you the night I stood with you in your kitchen and helped you do the dishes. In that very hour, I knew without a doubt that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. You barged into my life and turned my world on its axis.
“Nothing before you matters. You’ve embedded yourself in all the corners and crevices of my heart. I love you so much it hurts not to be with you, it hurts not to give in and let you stomp all over me, take whatever I can get.
“But I also love you too much to settle for less than all of you. Sounds cheesy? I don’t give a shit.” He stabs a frustrated finger through the air at me. “That was easy a
s math to say because I meant every word of it.”
“Khol—”
“Tell me you love me, Serena.”
“I…” I glance out at the rain, then at the exposed interior of the door that is now soaked. “You need to get out of the rai—”
“Tell me you fucking love me, goddammit!”
“Jesus, Khol, it’s just freaking words! You want to die from pneumonia, too, for three stupid words? Get out of the rain!”
He glares at me, long and hard, eyes iced over, jaw set. Then, “I wish I never fucking met you.”
Air and droplets of water whoosh at me as he slams the door in my face.
Forty - FIve - Kholton
“I’m sorry, what?”
Santa Monica
“For someone who just inherited a bucket load of greens, you’re depressing as shit.”
I shoot Brian a death glare as I plod into Brock’s beach house. “Lay off, man.”
He shrugs, unperturbed. “Just saying.”
Screw him. I’m allowed to be depressed. The woman I’m in love with doesn’t love me back. She used me a hundred times more than I did her.
But I guess I had it coming, right? Payback for all the sweetheart cons I pulled off in the past. All the women I hoodwinked. It was bound to happen.
Assholes like me don’t get to have a happily ever after. It only makes sense that the woman I eventually fall for would be a heartless, selfish bitch.
I fucking resent her.
I’ll never be the same after this. Being the “playboy” doesn’t interest me anymore. I don’t want new pussy. I want Serena Bentley’s pussy. More than that, I want her heart. Her trust. Her love. I want to fatten her with my seed. Spend the rest of my life serving her, making her smile. Screw everything else. I just want her.
Yeah, I sure as shit won’t be the same after this.
I shove past Brian and head straight to the kitchen for a beer just as Brock comes jogging down the stairs.