Two is a Lie

by Pam Godwin

  He continues to work his fingers inside me, holding my gaze as I catch my breath.

  “You’re the song I’d never heard.” He touches his lips to my breastbone. “The universe that didn’t exist. You’re every little thing that used to be empty.”

  My chest swells, lifting with a deep intake of air. “I love you so much.”

  His expression darkens, and he grips his erection, holding it against my opening. “Did you say those words to him when he was inside you tonight?”

  My heart slams into my throat, and I clamp my legs around his hips. “Trace…”

  He pushes my knees away and slides off the bed, tucking his swollen length into his pants.

  “What are you doing?” I crawl after him, my stomach tumbling with dread.

  He didn’t come.

  He fixes his tie and slides on the suit jacket, yanking and straightening his clothes without looking at me. Then he grabs his keys from the bureau.

  My blood runs cold. “Where are you going?”

  “Out.” He steps into the hall and vanishes around the corner without a backward glance.

  I scramble to my feet and snatch the shirt from the floor. Holding the wadded material to my chest, I race after him.

  When I reach the elevator at the entrance of the penthouse, he’s already inside, staring at the floor with a hard, unflinching expression.

  “Trace.” I sprint toward him, my voice shrilling with desperation and fear. “Don’t leave.”

  His gaze lifts to mine, his features empty of emotion. The elevator closes shut.

  “Please, don’t leave!” I slam against the doors, too late, and burst into sobbing tears.

  Sliding to the floor, I let myself think the worst. He’s done with me. He’s going out to find someone else, someone stronger and better, someone he doesn’t have to share with another man.

  My stomach cramps miserably, the tears endless and hot on my face. And I have no one to blame but myself.

  I’ve been holding two men in a state of flux for a month. I should’ve made a decision by now. I shouldn’t have broken my own rule about sex.

  What do I do now? Does he want me to stay here or leave? If I leave, he’ll think I’ve given up and gone home to be with Cole. If I stay and he returns with another woman…

  Turnabout is fair play.

  My insides constrict. He wouldn’t do that. Maybe he just needs to cool off. He’ll be back.

  He’ll come back to me.

  I wait for hours, curled up in his bed.

  I wait all night, texting and calling his phone like a crazy, obsessed girlfriend.

  When the sun rises over the St. Louis skyline, I finally sleep, but it’s restless and fretful. I wake two hours later, and it’s already seven in the morning.

  He never came home.

  Did he stay in a room in the hotel? Did he spend the night with a woman? Maybe he slept in his office. I lean toward the last option and decide to go check for myself.

  Showered and dressed thirty minutes later, I take the elevator one floor down and stride through the lobby toward his office.

  I spot him immediately, his tall frame leaning against the reception desk as he speaks with his new assistant.

  Marilyn is an older woman, maybe mid-sixties, with a warm disposition and a pretty smile. She glances in my direction, and a grin lights up her eyes.

  Trace follows her gaze and looks at me. No, he looks through me. Then he turns and walks away, veering into his office and shutting the door.

  I flinch, and my heart shatters on the floor.

  We’re strangers again.

  Strangers sharing the same soul.

  Determined and slightly hysterical, I pound on Trace’s office door until security gently yet firmly escorts me to the parking garage. Livid doesn’t begin to describe my state of mind as I’m shoved into the back of Trace’s sedan and driven away from the casino.

  My hands shake so badly I can’t type out a text, which is probably a good thing. The words I want to send to him are viciously resentful and seething with fuck you’s.

  He didn’t just send me away. He had me physically removed from his property.

  Is this just a temporary reflex in pissedoffedness? Or has he written me off forever?

  I squeeze my fingers around the phone as my heart takes a nosedive into sobbing regret.

  I’m not giving up. He can be angry and hurt and shut me out all he wants. But that’s not how this ends. I will not choose one of them by default. When I know who I belong with, it will be decidedly, absolutely, without doubt or fluctuation.

  He’s the one who told me to let the decision happen on its own. He told me he’d wait. A month ago, he sat there on my couch and agreed to date me while I dated Cole. He knew this wasn’t an exclusive arrangement. And as intelligent as he is, he knew it was only a matter of time before I broke my stupid no-sex rule.

  He just thinks I broke it with the wrong guy.

  Did I?

  Deep down, I don’t feel a wrong or right answer when it comes to them. I just feel love—bottomless, devoted, undying love times two.

  The driver drops me off in front of my house, and Cole greets me at the door the moment I trudge in.

  I don’t have to look at a mirror to know my eyes are bruised and swollen from crying and lack of sleep. My shoulders weigh a hundred pounds each, and I can’t stop my chin from trembling.

  Cole takes one look at me, and his demeanor shifts from friendly dimples to hard-lined tension.

  “What happened?” He cups my face, probing my gaze with alarm in his eyes.

  “Trace knows we slept together.”

  His forehead wrinkles, and a huff of air escapes his lips. “Is he being a little bitch about it?”

  “Don’t.” I shove out of his hold and slip past him with anger burning my cheeks.

  He charges after me and catches my elbow in the hall, whirling me around. “What did he do?”

  The past twelve hours knot and twist in my gut. Trace seemed angrier about me keeping a secret from him than anything else. I won’t make that mistake again.

  “What would you do?” I whisper, staring at the hand on my arm.

  “What would I do…” Cole tightens his fingers around my bones. “If you fucked him?”

  I close my eyes, nodding stiffly as fear trickles in. I can’t bear the thought of one of them despising me, let alone both of them.

  Lifting my chin, I give him my tearful gaze. “We had sex last night.”

  He yanks his touch away and shoves his hands in his hair, his voice guttural. “Why?”

  “Why?” I stare at him, wide-eyed and blinking rapidly. “I love him, Cole.”

  With a great shuddering heave, he rubs his face, his neck, and turns to pace in the small square hall.

  “You act surprised by this.” I step into my bedroom and slump onto the bed. “I was going to marry him before you—”

  “Do you love him more?” He stands in the doorway, gripping the frame.

  “If I knew that answer, we’d be having a different conversation.”

  I’d be saying goodbye.

  He hangs his head, his chest rising and falling. “Look, I know this is more than you can handle.”

  “More than I can handle? Don’t say it like that, like I’m a naive little girl playing in a big man’s world.” I grind my teeth. “Let’s not forget that I waited for you. I waited two lonely, miserable, goddamn years after you died before I even looked at another man. Meanwhile, you’re off fighting wars that don’t exist with the expectation that I’ll run into your arms—celibate and alone—when you miraculously return from the dead.”

  “Danni—”

  “I didn’t fall in love with Trace out of spite or betrayal or selfishness. I lost you, Cole. I was grieving and miserable with my eyes locked on the rearview mirror. I needed to look forward, move forward, and Trace helped me do that. Then you came back and upended all the progress I made.” I draw in a ragged breath. �
��You say this is more than I can handle, and I say I’m holding it together pretty fucking well.”

  “You’re right.” He pushes off the doorframe and prowls toward me. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. It’s one of the million reasons why you’re the only one I want, now and always.”

  He kneels in front of me and runs his hands up my knee-high boots, slipping beneath my denim skirt to caress my thighs.

  “Cole.” I grip his forearms, the rigid muscles straining beneath my fingers.

  He inches closer, wedging himself between my legs, his hands creeping higher as he takes my mouth in a tender kiss.

  I melt against him, needing his affection, his determination, his seduction… No, wait.

  “Cole, you can’t—” I scramble back, scooting across the bed and climbing off the other side. “You can’t just force yourself into my space and seduce me and…and fuck me and expect everything to be alright.”

  His eyes sharpen, and he surges to his feet. “Isn’t that what Trace did? Last night? You told him about us, and he fucked you until I was eviscerated from your body and mind.”

  “No, that’s not—”

  “I bet you didn’t think of me once while he was driving into your cunt.”

  His words cut, knocking the air from my lungs and welling tears in my eyes. But the torment in his voice breaks my heart. His entire body shakes with rejection and anger. And maybe even fear.

  “This is why I didn’t want sex involved in this.” I step to the window and watch the shavings of rain pass over the neighborhood. “It turns a messy situation into a jealous war of pushing and fighting—”

  “Maybe you should’ve only fucked one of us.”

  “You, you mean?” I spin around. “If I only had sex with you, all of this would go away?”

  “Yes.” He clenches his hands at his sides.

  “Are you even listening to yourself? Because you sure as hell aren’t listening to me. I love both of you. That means everything I give you, I give to him.” I gentle my voice. “When I returned your engagement ring, do you remember what you said?”

  “You’re my heart.” He steps around the bed, his gait slow and heavy. “I can’t live without you.”

  “And now?” I sit on the edge of the mattress, following his approach out of the corner of my eye. “Has that changed?”

  He lowers beside me and breathes in, out. “No. But…”

  I go still, my fingers twitching between us.

  “I won’t share you, Danni. I can’t…” He leans forward, folding his hands together between his bent knees. “I can’t sit here, alone in this house, knowing you’re fucking him when you’re with him.”

  “He kicked me out of the casino.”

  “What?” He jerks his head toward me, working his jaw. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No. He’s just… I don’t know. He left last night and didn’t come back. He won’t talk to me.”

  “I’ll handle him,” he says with a growl.

  “Don’t you dare. This is between him and me.”

  I’ll be back at the casino this afternoon, that is if I still have a job.

  “You need to understand…” I rub my palms on the skirt. “As long as I’m in this place of indecision, I’m not giving up on him.”

  He stares at the floor, clenching his teeth and making his jaw bounce. Then he stands with his hands on his hips and directs his gaze at the doorway. “I need to think.”

  I don’t know what I expected, but his sudden need to leave wasn’t it. My shoulders fall, and I lower my head to hide the despair tightening my face. It’s quite possible I’ll end up with neither of them, and I’m not sure I’ll survive that.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He touches my chin, lifting it. “I just…”

  “Need to think.” I nod as worry sets in. “I’m going to take a nap until it’s time to go to work.”

  He leaves the room, and when I wake from my nap hours later, he’s already left for his job at the stadium.

  I drive to the casino and dance through my eight-hour shift, scanning the dining room for any sign of Trace. He always watches me dance.

  Except tonight.

  Security never showed up to remove me from the stage, so I guess that’s something. I still have a job.

  At midnight, I hurry to the dressing room, shower and change clothes, and head to his private elevator. Punching in the access code, I wait for the doors to open.

  Nothing.

  I try again.

  Still nothing.

  My blood boils. He fucking locked me out!

  Pulling the phone from my pocket, I open a text window.

  Me: A) The elevator is broken, B) You’re really pissed, C) This is a test to see if I’ll bang my head on the doors and make an ass of myself.

  Me: I need to talk to you.

  Me: Please, let me upstairs.

  In the seven months I’ve known him, he’s never not responded to my messages instantly. I know he’s reading my texts. Hell, he’s probably watching me on the security feed.

  My stomach feels hard, my eyes itchy and hot. If I stand here all night, the only thing it proves is that I’m a desperate, pathetic woman. Clinging to an elevator isn’t fighting. It’s sitting down and taking it. If Trace wants to give me the cold shoulder, I’m not going to suffer it under the watchful eyes of his cameras.

  With a steeling breath, I gather what’s left of my self-respect and drive home.

  I’m not a wily or cunning person. I don’t know how to manipulate or play games. Stalking and calculation is for people like Trace, and that leaves me at a disadvantage. If he intends to put distance between us, I can only go at him with the things I have: love and stubbornness.

  That night, Cole sleeps beside me with a foot of space between us, as if I need more distance in my life. But I don’t fault him for it. I rejected him this afternoon, and if he tried to seduce me tonight, I would’ve rejected him again. Because sex isn’t helping any of us.

  And so it goes for the next week. I dance at Bissara, call and text Trace every day, and make attempts to access his elevator.

  I haven’t heard from him once, but I see him. He watches me dance from the shadows at the restaurant. Twice, I jump off the stage in the middle of a song to confront him. But he slips away both times, fading into the crowds in the casino.

  Avoiding me.

  His silence hurts. It makes me feel forgettable, invisible…unwanted. I shouldn’t have to beg someone to be part of my life.

  But there’s a difference between ignoring me and pretending to ignore me. I’m certain he’s pretending and decide to test the theory.

  At midnight, seven days after he revoked my access to him, I wrap up my shift at Bissara, shower, and change into jeans, a t-shirt, and a heavy wool coat. Instead of heading to his private elevator to perform my nightly ritual of trying my passcode and sending ignored texts, I walk through the lobby of The Regal Arch Casino and Hotel.

  My Midget is in the parking garage, but that’s not where I’m going. I don’t glance at the countless cameras in the ceiling, don’t scan the gaming area for his tall lean frame. I stride to the side entrance, where there are no bellhops or other employees who might report my location to the controlling casino owner.

  Cold drizzling rain splatters my face as I step outside. A shiver races through me, and I huddle deeper into the coat. A few cars motor past, but the side street at this end of the casino is relatively quiet.

  If he’s watching me, he won’t be…right about…now. I just stepped out of view of the exterior cameras.

  Following the sidewalk, I hop over to the next street, where numerous small bars and taverns light up either side of the road. I peer into the windows as I pass, soaking up the glowy warmth of the laid-back atmosphere and cheery groups of late-night drinkers.

  I chose this path because it’s usually densely populated this time at night, making it safer to walk alone. But tonight, I’m the only asshole standing
outside in the icy sleet.

  The poltergeist-white pellets spear the calm black sky. It’s neither windy nor raining hard, but every frigid drop seems to find its way beneath my clothes, biting my skin and penetrating my bones. After a few minutes of this, I’m drenched and trembling.

  Just as I’m about to turn back, footsteps close in behind me, stomping the pavement at a fast pace.

  I spin around and spot Trace sprinting out of the shadows a block away. My chest hitches, and I hurry toward him.

  His blond hair falls in sexy sodden strands across his brow. A dark gray suit clings to his muscular frame, every thread saturated and dripping beneath the spitting rain.

  Standing just out of arm’s reach, he holds his shoulders back and clutches his phone at his side. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Trying to get your attention.”

  His head jerks back, and he blinks against the icy drizzle. “You have my attention. Every second of every day.”

  “Is pretending I don’t exist your special way of letting me know I’m on your mind? If so, I must be really dense and stupid.” My teeth chatter against the cold. “It definitely doesn’t make me want to punch you in the nuts. Not even a little. So go ahead. Keep ignoring me. It’s a great approach in building trust and commitment in a relationship.”

  He leans in, his blue eyes glowing with anger. “Excuse me if I don’t take advice on trust and commitment from a woman who fucks around behind my back.”

  My breath cements in my throat, choking my voice. “Tell me you hate me, that you don’t want me. Say it, Trace. Tell me it’s over. I’d rather hear it than endure your silent treatment. Being brushed off without a word, ignored like I mean nothing… It’s the worst feeling.”

  He closes his eyes and wipes the rivers of rain from his face. Then he lifts his phone and types something on the screen.

  “My driver’s on the way.” He glances at the entrance to a small bar across the street. “Let’s go inside and—”