“Ash? Dude, it’s me. Why the fuck aren’t you picking up your phone?”
It wasn’t the best way to start off this conversation, but it was the only way I knew how. If I waited for the right words to come to me—the ones that would make me sound noble and good, instead of like the scared, repentant fuck-up that I actually was—I’d never make this call. And it was a call I absolutely had to make, because what had just happened between me and Sarah was too important not to.
I had just won our bet. And now, I was going to settle up.
By calling the whole damn thing off.
I’d known from the get-go what a stupid fucking idea this all was. Sarah was a person, goddammit, and I’d come this close to using her as a tool in the never ending pissing contest between me and my brothers. It was like we’d never grown up from being teenagers. Our egos were still our only friends. Our reputations meant all.
Not anymore. Now, I had something more important in my life than any of that. Or at least, I could—if I put a stop to this shit right here, right now.
I’d waited until I could hear the shower running to put in my call to Ash. I didn’t want to risk Sarah overhearing our conversation. I hadn’t had a chance to explain things to her yet, or to beg her forgiveness. When she inevitably heard about the stupid thing I’d done, it should’ve been because I was sitting her down and telling her about it like a man, not because I was yelling at Ash so damn loud it might bring the cabin down around us.
Yeah, I was fucking furious with him. He was the one who’d dragged me into this. The bet had been all his idea. And I’d proved quite the sucker, letting him lead me into it. Who the hell cared what he called me behind my back? What other people said about me was none of my business.
It’s an attitude I hadn’t held until Sarah showed up. Shit… being with her seemed to free me from all this horseshit I’d been worried about before. I’d meant it when I’d told her I liked who I was when she was around. That Reid was way better, way cooler, than the Reid I was without her. Before her.
I didn’t want to go back to being that guy—the one who made everything about him. The one who was constantly chasing the next high, the next dangerous stunt he could pull that would have everyone worshipping at his fucking feet. I didn’t need that anymore. The chase was over. I’d found what I’d been looking for all along in Sarah, and it was so much better than I could have hoped.
I’d fallen hard for the girl. I had to admit that to myself. Admitting it to Ash and Wyatt would come later. Right now, my main concern was shutting this bet down and ridding myself of the stains that lying about it had left on my soul.
“Look, I need to talk to you,” I growled, rubbing the back of my neck. “It’s about… that agreement we made.” Shit, Reid. Call it what it is. Admit to yourself, at least, what a shitty thing you’ve done. “About that goddamn bet…”
I paused as a dark desire welled up inside of me, one I knew all too well. It seemed that being with Sarah hadn’t entirely cured me of my need to come first. To win, at the expense of all others. Part of me wanted to tell Ash I’d won. Rub it in his face. Use it as a shield, so that when the accusations came that I really gave a damn about Sarah, I would have something to hide behind.
Sure, I’ve fallen for her. Whatever. But you can’t say shit, because I won our bet. I corrupted my Amish girl first…
The thought was physically sickening. I put my hand on the kitchen counter to steady myself and closed my eyes, letting that wave of nausea pass, along with any desire I had to lord over Ash and Wyatt the idea that I’d won something by being Sarah’s first.
You’re a sick fuck, Reid Brody.
“It’s over,” I said at last. “You hear me, fuckface? This stupid bet about which one of us can get our dicks wet first is done. I’m calling it off. I want no part of this, you understand me? This… childish bullshit has got to stop. Someone has to have the goddamn sense to stop the ride and get off before we all crash and burn. Before we take these poor girls down with us. And—I know, it’s a shock—but it’s gonna be me.”
Since when am I the voice of reason?
“This was a mistake from the start,” I continued. “Nothing more than a dick-measuring contest, right from the beginning. If this is what you and Wyatt wanna measure your worth by, so be it. But leave me out of it. You know what? You don’t even have to call me back. I’ll assume, since you speak English, that you understand. I just hope you two figure your shit out before Hannah and Beth get hurt. They don’t deserve it. And you don’t deserve them—not when you’re more worried about who gets to claim bragging rights. Anyway, I gotta go.” I started to hang up, then realized I’d left something unsaid. “Oh, and one more thing, Ash: go fuck yourself.”
I threw my cell phone down on the counter in front of me and rammed my head into one of the cabinets, letting out a long sigh. Shit, that felt good. Hurt, too, coming face to face with who I’d been—but mostly, I was thinking about who I could be. How even though this had all started off so wrong, being with Sarah could make it right.
I could be a good man for her. I knew it.
As I turned around, though, the look on her face told me otherwise.
Time came to a standstill. My heart shuddered, then stopped. My blood froze in my veins, filling me with icy dread. Sarah was standing on the other side of the kitchen island, just… staring at me. Her face was pale. Her eyes were wet.
I watched, helpless, as her expression crumbled. As the light in her eyes snuffed suddenly—the spark I’d helped kindle last night.
No. Jesus, no.
“Sarah…”
“This was… a game,” she whispered, voice strained like it took every ounce of willpower she had to make the words pass through her lips. “This was all just a game to you. We were all… pieces that you could play against each other. You used us. You, Ash, and Wyatt—all three of you.”
I wanted to answer her. I wanted to tell her that was bullshit, that it wasn’t like that. Except I couldn’t. Because it was.
Sarah raised her hands suddenly, using them to cover her face. “Oh, God. Oh, Lord, what have I done?”
“No,” I said hoarsely, taking a step toward her. “Sarah, no. Please, listen…”
She pulled away from me. The only person in the world who could save me from myself pulled away from me. And she looked at me from between her fingers like I was a monster. Like I was the devil himself.
There was nothing but utter horror on her face. My stomach turned. And then it did it again when that horror turned to betrayal.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, pulling the over-sized robe she wore tighter around herself—like it could put an extra bit of distance between us, and she wanted all she could get. I stopped, still reaching for her, but knowing now it would do no good. Sarah wasn’t going to reach back. She was going to run.
No. I couldn’t let her do that. She meant too much for me to just let go of her.
“It’s not what you think,” I started; but then I realized that was something of a lie. “I mean—it is, but not anymore…”
“Not anymore?” Her lips moved, hard and slow, around the words, like she’d gone numb. “Not anymore? You… you made a bet about… sleeping with us. About corrupting us. Diluting our faith. You were just talking to Ash about it—but you don’t think it matters anymore?”
Rage replaced betrayal now. Sarah clenched her hands into fists. “Doesn’t matter anymore to who, Reid? Because it matters to me! And it’s going to matter to Beth and Hannah, too!”
“If you’d let me explain…”
“Fine!” I stared at her, dumbfounded. I hadn’t been expecting that. When I didn’t say anything, she shook her head at me. “You can’t, can you? You can’t think up a good enough lie to cover your tracks.”
“It’s not that,” I said, then stammered through a string of possible explanations before I threw up my hands. “Look—yes, there was a bet. About the three of you. About the three of us. It wa
s stupid and juvenile and—”
“And it was about sleeping with us,” Sarah interrupted. I watched the vein in her neck pulse. “About ruining us!”
“I didn’t ruin anything!” I snarled. A hard, smoldering ember was weighing heavily in my stomach, threatening to explode into flame at any second. It wasn’t fair to Sarah, I knew, but there were few things I hated as much as being talked over—being silenced. Especially when I’d been well on my way to doing the right goddamn thing. “All I did was take your virginity, Sarah. It’s not—”
“Yes! You took something from me, Reid—don’t you get that? You took my future. My value!” She sat on a nearby ottoman. Her knees were shaking so hard they were nearly knocking together. Again, she hid her face in her hands—or maybe it was that she didn’t want to look at me. “But you don’t care, do you? You couldn’t possibly understand...”
“Where the hell is this shit coming from?” I sputtered, snorting in disbelief. “You weren’t talking like this last night. Or this morning! Back then, it was all, ‘please, Reid, teach me. Show me how.’”
Oh, shit. That was an asshole move if there ever was one. Low blow, Reid. Low blow.
Sarah stared at me, eyes wide. Her jaw sagged. I knew I’d wounded her. Shit, I might as well have slapped her right across her pretty face.
Quickly, I tried to recover. “Things changed, Sarah. After I got to know you. Once I saw who you were… once I realized I was capable of being a better person—a better man—as long as I was with you… I didn’t want to play this stupid game anymore. What we did—the sex—it didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“The bet was… how did you put it? Oh, right. To see who could get their dick wet first.” Sarah snorted, disgust twisting her features. “You’re telling me that this trip to the cabin, the kiss on the Ferris wheel, the date at the movie theater—none of that had anything to do with trying to win?”
She had me there, and I hated it. I hated that I couldn’t tell her “no” without it being a lie. Because for a while there, it had totally been about winning the bet and making some cute little Amish girl forsake the tenets of her faith. But I couldn’t tell her “yes,” either. Not directly. Not unless I wanted her to run off screaming and never come back.
“The important thing is,” I said as evenly as I could, “that it’s not about that now.”
“I suppose not,” Sarah answered, “given that you’ve got what you wanted.”
“For fuck’s sake!” I slammed my hand down on the island counter. “Sarah, if I gave two shits about that stupid fucking bet, why would I have called Ash to tell him it was off?”
“Easy,” she said with a shrug. “Because you think you’ve won.”
“But I didn’t tell him that, did I?”
She didn’t have an immediate response for that one. Wringing her hands, Sarah only narrowed her eyes.
I sighed and ran both my hands through my hair. “I was going to tell you, you know. I didn’t want you to find out like this.” I closed my eyes. “I really, truly didn’t.”
Sarah shook her head. “You should have told me from the start. You should have been honest with me.”
“I’m being honest now,” I groaned. “And the truth is that I’ve called off the bet. What the hell is the big deal?”
She stared at me, aghast. “The big deal is that our relationship is built on a foundation of lies! The big deal is that everything I thought I understood about us—the things I felt for you—the things we shared—they’re all tainted by the fact that you were constantly, consistently lying to me about your intentions. Right from the start!” She shook her head. “How are you not getting this, Reid?”
“Because the past doesn’t matter, Sarah!” I said, trying once again to approach her. I felt like if I could just hold her, she’d understand. But she shrunk away from me and I stopped short again. “It’s all bullshit. It’s gone, and there’s nothing either of us can do to change it. It’s over.”
“The past is everything,” she whispered, looking away from me now. Her tears were getting the best of her. That anger was fading, replaced by grief. “The past—the parts of it we share—that was the whole reason I came here with you. The reason I trusted you…” She laughed, but the sound held no mirth. “God in Heaven, how could I have been so stupid? So blind? How could I have thought you were it for me?”
If I thought I might as well have slapped Sarah across the face before, in reference to one of my own scathing comments, that one right there got me back good. No, better than good. Because when she said that—when she asked how the hell she could have ever thought we could be together—I realized two things.
The first was that Sarah had wanted to be with me. That she’d wanted to stick around. That she had been thinking about abandoning her home, her family, her religion—everything—to stay here in Bright Falls with my sorry ass.
The second was that she’d used the word thought. Past-tense. Meaning she didn’t feel that way anymore.
That was the part that got me. That was when she drew a blade across my stomach and made my guts spill out onto the floor. Figuratively, anyway—but those kinds of wounds can be so much worse than the ones that scar your skin.
Emptiness took hold inside of me. And the words that came next out of my mouth… they didn’t feel like they came from me. They felt like they came from that black hole she’d opened in my soul.
“I have no idea, darlin’. Because bet or not, this was never gonna be a long-term thing for me.”
I knew very well what creature had said those things. It was the same one that reached greedily for the limelight, the one with an ego just as big and dark as it was. It was the old Reid, the one that had to save face at any cost. The one that had controlled me for so many years I sometimes wondered where it ended and I began. Being with Sarah had made the lines clearer, but now that she was leaving… now that she was beyond my reach… everything was ugly and gray again. Including me.
Especially me.
I knew, the moment I said them, that I’d fucked up. Not only were they cruel words, but they weren’t true. They were just an amalgamation of all the shitty things I’d felt about women in the past. They were the whisperings of a ghost—of the man I used to be, and the ego that drove him.
Sarah didn’t say anything at all in return. She just sat there, looking at me. And I had to watch as that recognition in her eyes, that familiarity, faded away until she stared at me the way she would a stranger. She had no idea who I was anymore. And neither did I.
Without Sarah, I was lost. Even to myself.
She was on her feet in an instant, sweeping through the room, up the steps, and into the bedroom we’d shared. She slammed the door, and a moment later, I heard it lock.
I covered my face with my hands. The silence around me felt so heavy, like the walls were closing in. Like at any second, I would be crushed. I was an animal, cornered by my own shortcomings. Shit, maybe I always was, but until this moment, I hadn’t been able to see it.
All I was seeing now was red. I had to hit something. Anything. I had to destroy something besides me and Sarah.
The wall closest to me ended up with such a deep hole in it I was damn lucky I didn’t hit anything electrical. But I couldn’t help thinking that if I had, it might’ve been the best thing for me. Maybe the shock would’ve snapped me out of this downward spiral—the same one that always put distance between me and anyone who had ever ventured to give a damn.
I was letting my pride ruin my life. Again. And without Sarah, I had no idea how to stop it.
20
Sarah
I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. No, actually—I could believe it. Because this was everything my family, and my gut instincts, had warned me about. But I wouldn’t listen to them. I’d listened to Hannah. I’d let myself believe that the English world wasn’t so bad. Certainly not as horrible as all the stories we’d heard in our youth.
And she was right. I
t wasn’t as bad as all that. It was so much worse.
Almost an hour ago, I’d called her from the bedroom I’d let Reid defile me in. I’d told her, through a sudden onset of sobbing and tears, what had happened between us. I’d told her about the bet. About how Reid had fooled me into allowing him to forever strip me of my virtue, and my value to a future husband, just to win. Of course, I knew that Hannah and Ash had already had sex, so the irony was that Reid didn’t even win, but I wasn’t about to bring that up to him. That was none of his business, although I was sure it would come up as he and his twisted brothers sat around and compared notes. What kind of world had I stepped into?
Now that the curtain had been pulled aside and I saw Reid for who he really was, it was easy to forget the illusions that had made me believe returning to my village was a bad idea. He and Hannah, and even Beth, had made the English world seem so tempting. But that was the problem with temptation—it never led to anything good.
I’d known that, going in. Reid had made me forget for a little while, made me question everything I’d been taught, everything I held as true. Now the truth was out, though. I should have trusted my heart, my religion, and my family—the parts of it who hadn’t up and left for no good reason, never to return.
Hannah was on her way to pick me up from the cabin now. I had no idea what I was going to say to her when she arrived, but I had nothing nice lined up. I supposed, in this instance, it was probably better to say nothing at all.
I did my best to hold them in—all the cruel, nasty feelings swirling in my gut. All the rage and pain, and even hate, that coursed through me at the mere thought of what Reid had done, tightening my chest and filling me up with darkness so thoroughly I could feel it weighing down my fingers and toes. Like some demon had wormed its way inside me and was stretching to fit my skin. By the time Hannah arrived, my efforts to contain it had tears stinging my eyes. I couldn’t look at her as I got in the car.
I couldn’t look back at the cabin, either. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of it; the place where I’d lost the courage of my convictions and so much more. I also couldn’t risk seeing Reid’s face. Would he be watching from the window? I doubted it. He hadn’t even tried to stop me from leaving. Hadn’t said a word when I emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed, to sit outside and wait for Hannah.
PRIDE: A Bad Boy and Amish Girl Romance (The Brody Bunch#1) Page 14