“How can you even ask me that?” Her voice shakes, then breaks over the words. “You know I meant every word about our future together.”
“Yeah, and how did you plan to spend your future with me indefinitely pretending we aren’t together?”
“I just needed some time to track down Drex so we could talk to him, rationalize with him, and now San has a lead so we—”
“San?” I interrupt. “He knew about this? Of course he did. Of course you’d tell him and not me. Trust him and not me.”
“It wasn’t a matter of trust.”
She’s too close. I can’t stand for her to be this close when I’m this angry, like a flame that might scorch her if she’s not careful.
“Get off me.” Rage mottles the words so I repeat them when she doesn’t budge from my lap. “Get the fuck off, Pep.”
“No,” she whispers into my neck, her fingers circling my wrist like she’s prepared to hold on.
“Fine, if you won’t move,” I say, grabbing her hips and lifting her up and off me, dropping her on the bed, “I’ll move you.”
As soon as I’m clear of her, I reach for the phone in my pocket and start dialing.
“Who are you calling?” I hate the fear in her voice. The thing I hate most is that she’s been living with fear for three months and didn’t share it with me. Didn’t let me protect her. Lied to me instead of trusting me.
“Dammit, Pep,” I say through gritted teeth while Bristol’s phone rings.
“That’s me on that tape, Rhyson, not you.” She stands on her knees in the middle of the bed. “I have a right to know who you’re calling.”
“No one says your name without thinking mine, Kai. So it may be you on that tape, but it affects me whether you like it or not, and if we—”
“What tape?” Bristol asks, voice gruff with sleep, from the other end. “This better be good, brother. What the hell?”
“Bris, how soon can you get to the house?” My eyes don’t leave Kai’s devastated face, shame burning a red spot in each of her cheeks.
It’s quiet on the other end, and I can almost hear the cogs of Bristol’s wheels turning as she brushes the sleep off.
“Twenty minutes.”
“Make it fifteen. Gep, too. I’ll explain when you get here.”
I hang up, striding for the door to wait for them downstairs. I can’t even look at Kai right now. I’m so furious with her. So . . . hurt by her. Is this how she felt when I pulled that stunt with Total Package? Betrayed? Split open? A raw wound salted with lies?
“I was just trying to handle things myself.” She trails me down the stairs. “Can’t you see I never wanted you to find out? To see me like that with him? God, even now just the thought of you seeing it makes me sick to my stomach.”
“I get that, Pep, but you lied.” I keep going, not turning to look at her. “For weeks you’ve lied.”
“I wanted to find Drex to get to the bottom of it.”
“And have you found him?”
“We’re about to. One of San’s contacts spotted him in Topanga a few days ago. We lost him, but we’re close.”
“Three months and that’s all you have to show for it?” I turn to face her in the foyer. “Did it ever occur to you and your Scooby crew that Gep is a former CIA operative? That he might just have some connections that go beyond some trash rag television show’s research department?”
She shakes her head, tears standing in her eyes.
“I didn’t want you to see, Rhys. Didn’t want you to ever know. You said you could never know details.”
“That was before . . .” I let the words fall off. I know I said that, but to keep this from me? For this long? “How could you think it was okay to lie to me about this? Did you just think it would go away? What was your plan here?”
“Once San found Drex, I was going to talk to him and—”
“Talk to him?” I’m seeing red. “On your own? This scumbag who recorded you having sex with him and is now blackmailing you, a criminal act by the way. You were just gonna track him down and say please don’t? Please stop? I wish you wouldn’t do that? That was your fucking plan?”
“I was scared, Rhys. I messed up. I hate that one night with that idiot is ruining everything.”
“That night and what happened between you and Drex isn’t what’s ruining everything. I don’t blame you for that.” I wave a hand in the abyss between our bodies. “Us. The lies and the deception. That’s your fault.”
“I know that, and I’m sorry.”
Her voice is so small. She is so small, and the thought of her putting herself in that kind of possible danger because she wanted to keep it from me when I’m the one who would literally lay down my life for her without a second thought . . . it infuriates me. Before I can tell her all of that, the front door opens, and Bristol walks in, punching in the alarm code from her phone. She lives close by, but she must have sprouted wings to get here this fast. She glances at the watch on her wrist.