“Basically. But it wasn’t like you just blurted it out. We were talking about the future. You had mentioned that it wouldn’t be long before your mom started in on you about getting married. And to be honest, my first thought—actually, more like worry—was that you had jumped into bed with me out of desperation. The only reason I didn’t believe that was because you curled into me and said I made you feel worthy.” His eyes locked with mine, and it took everything in me to not choke up at his words, wishing I could remember any part of it. “You told me I made you feel like you weren’t disposable.”
I blinked a few times, if nothing more than to regain my composure before stating my purpose for coming. To remind myself why I was here in the first place. I refused to fall victim to Holden York again. Apparently, the last time it happened, I became his wife. If I did it again, I could end up bearing his child. “Whatever. I don’t recall that conversation.”
“Of course you don’t, Janelle.” He dejectedly fell back into the recliner, leaning his weight toward one side like a young, arrogant king sitting on his throne. He cocked his head and placed his thumb beneath his chin, his forefinger practically digging into his naturally hollow cheek, and the others resting beneath his sexy, plump bottom lip. “You’ve made that very clear. I get it. I took advantage of you that night without ever knowing it. I thought we shared something, only to find out I basically stole it from you. But thanks so much for pointing it out…yet again.”
His anger bit into me, and it took a minute to regain my bearings.
“You’re the one who ran off and ignored me for the last five years.” I leaned forward in my seat, as if needing to get closer to him, showcasing my own frustrations that I’d kept buried since that morning in Vegas. I hadn’t realized how much of an impact that had on my outlook on relationships until right now, encountering it for the first time. “It was like you wanted nothing to do with me once you left my hotel room that morning. I had whiplash. We were friends, then we fuck and you want nothing to do with me.”
“Don’t…” He held out his hand in a gesture to physically stop me, his expression hard and full of ire, maybe even disgust. His breathing turned ragged and he held me hostage with his piercing, hateful stare. Even though his body went rigid, he remained in the same position in the chair. “You kicked me out of your room. And within a month of us coming home, you ran off to college. You are the one who has barely shown your face here during the last five years. So if you have whiplash…it’s all your fault, baby.” With each “you” he spewed, he jabbed his finger in my direction.
And I swear I felt each one of them stab my chest.
Justin had ditched me only four months before Matt’s wedding. That means four months separated the time I’d gotten tossed to the side by one guy after not sleeping with him, and being forgotten about by another—after sleeping with him. I wasn’t often an unhappy person. I didn’t typically feel bad for myself or suffer from low self-esteem. However, after those two life-changing blows, both by guys I thought were important to me, I’d emotionally boarded up my heart. That was the point in time when I threw my hands in the air and decided to live for me and not care about how men viewed me. I’d been in one more relationship since then, which only lasted five months before I caught my roommate licking him like a lollipop. That was pretty much the reassurance I needed to know relationships weren’t for me.
“You pulled away from me, Janelle. You pushed me away. You told me to leave. Or do you not remember that, either?” He now sat forward, both of us leaning toward each other with a coffee table between us. “What did you want me to do? I’d slept with my best friend’s little sister. I took her virginity, and she didn’t remember a damn second of it. I felt like a creep. Like I’d somehow conned you into bed. Like I’d gotten you drunk just to sleep with you. When the truth was…it was all your idea!” He scrubbed his hand down his face before continuing in a much softer, more remorseful tone. “I knew you’d been drinking, but I swear to you that I didn’t have the slightest clue you were as lit as you were. You walked, talked, and acted perfectly fine. You don’t remember your first time, and it’s all my fault. I was angry with myself and didn’t care to be around you, because all it did was remind me of the worst night of my life.”
His words were like a dull knife ripping through every layer of skin on its quest to shred my heart into unrecognizable pieces. “The w-worst night of your life?” Appalled, confused, and incredibly hurt, I spewed my question, the words burning my tongue like acid. “If it was so horrible, why haven’t you done anything to annul the marriage?”
Holden froze, only his chest heaving while the rest of his body turned to stone. It was clear he hadn’t expected to hear that accusation, to bring up the union I had no recollection of. “So, that’s why you’re here. Makes sense, but how’d you find out about it? I know you didn’t suddenly remember that and nothing else.”
I couldn’t help but blow out a huff of disbelief and shake my head. “Really, Holden? That’s your response? As it turns out, we’ve been legally married for five years, yet we’ve barely spoken or seen each other since, and you’re questioning how I found out? Were you ever going to tell me we’re husband and wife?”
He covered his face with his hands and sighed before dropping his arms. “You can believe me or not, but I actually planned on telling you when you came back. If you came back. If you didn’t, then I would’ve found some other way to let you know, but considering part of the deal we made when we got married was that you’d go off to college and then come home and live with me, I guess I kinda figured I’d wait until then.”
“That was the deal? I don’t get it. What benefit do you get out of being married?”
“Tax breaks.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “You never told me we are legally married because you didn’t want to give up your tax status? Is this some kind of joke?” My voice got higher and higher with each question. “I feel like I’m in the middle of a horrible prank, and everyone’s in on it but me.”
He resumed his relaxed, arrogant-king position in the recliner, coming across as the sexy kind of confident. “Now really…how’d you find out? You clearly didn’t remember, so what was it?”
“I was informed when I tried to get married—to someone else.”
Had I not been staring right at him, I would’ve missed it. I wouldn’t have witnessed the slight drop in his shoulders, the split-second break in eye contact, or the falter in his breathing. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he’d been emotionally sucker punched. But I knew that couldn’t be right. Maybe at one point in my life, many years ago, I could’ve romanticized the situation and convinced myself that Holden and I had a chance. There was even a brief moment after Vegas that I’d grown lost in the idea of being with him, falling for him like I’d dreamed of most of my life. But his intentional avoidance cured that possibility real quick.
Holden York didn’t want me the way I’d once pined for him.