“No, Brynne, no . . .” He comes towards me, but I hold up a hand and laugh in his face.
“Don’t come near me,” I seethe. My words pound into him and he takes them with every ounce of the insult I injected. I can see them sear into his consciousness, burn a hole in his heart, and I hope it hurts like hell. “How dare you? How dare you . . . I don’t even know how to put it into words!” I shout. “Are you some kind of sadist?”
“Brynne, stop,” he pleads.
“You stop. I can’t even process this!”
Everything is rocking in my head—ideas, thoughts, possibilities, theories smashing into one side and then the other. I can’t make sense of any of it.
I watch his features fall, his shoulders slump forward as he watches me work through this information. All I know is that I hate him. I hate him in so, so many ways.
I pick up my phone and type in a text to Presley. I get a reply immediately that says she’s on her way.
“When did you know?” I ask, biting the side of my cheek. The pain is quick and welcome, offsetting the numbness that threatens to overtake me.
“When your mother called in Vegas,” he chokes out. “You told me Brady’s story and I started to put two and two together.”
“That’s why we came home?”
He nods.
“How could you do this to me, Fenton? How? How could you let me . . .” My lip quivers, the anger evaporated. The look on his face starts to break me and I won’t let that happen.
Running into the master, I shut the door behind me. I need space. I need privacy. I need to go home.
He pounds on the door behind me. I hear the words he’s saying—that he’s sorry. That he wants to talk to me. To let him in. But I don’t. I can’t. Letting him in would betray my family, and I’m not going to do that.
Tears fall across my cheeks, so hot they sting, as I get dressed. I cram my things back into my bag and look longingly at the bed where, just a few hours before, I lay with him and had all kinds of silly thoughts about what might be, where this might lead. None of the options were this.
I realize he’s stopped knocking. My phone buzzes that Presley is at the front door and I tell her I’m coming out. When I open the door to the master bedroom, I catch the end of Presley barreling through a Fenton-opened door, her black hair flowing behind her. Her eyes are wide as she scans the room, and once she finds me, she runs to me.
All I can do is look at Fenton. His head in his hands, his back against the wall, he looks as beaten as I feel.
“Are you okay?” she asks, running her hands up and down my forearms.
I shake my head, the tears coming harder now. “Can we go home?”
Her lips pressed into a hard line, she takes my bag and then steps in front of me.
“Fuck you, Abbott.” Presley leads me out of the house, but as I walk by, Fenton touches my arm. I don’t have the power to pull it back.
“I am so sorry, Brynne.”
I just blink through the tears and leave him standing there, a line of wetness flowing down his face too.
My head throbs. Each pump of my blood feels like it’s going to split my skull in two pieces. Or three. Possibly four.
I stare off into space at the general direction of my closet, trying to figure out how I got in this position.
Nothing seems right. I’ve thought about it all day. The sun is going down, the world behind my windows sunless now. I’ve lain in bed for hours, alternating thinking with crying and doses of sobbing.
How can this be happening?
I flop onto my back. My body feels hollow. My soul is crushed, my heart splintered with the news that he broke my trust before he even knew he had it.
How could he not tell me? How could he lure me in and make me fall in love with him and all the while know that he’s the one person I loathe more than anyone else in the world?
He’s the man that won’t tell the truth about what happened that day. He probably paid off Grant and the others.
My stomach rolls and I race to the bathroom and spew the three bites of Greek yogurt Presley forced me to eat at lunchtime. I rinse my mouth with water and look at my reflection.
I look about as good as I feel.
My eyes are swollen, my cheeks now the carriers of burst blood vessels from puking. My face is stained with tears and the agony of realizing I’ve been lied to and played for a fool . . . and that a man I trusted betrayed me. Again.
I return to my room and see Presley sitting on my bed. I sit next to her, letting my head fall to her shoulder.
“Heya, friend,” she says. “You okay?”
“No.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“I have a couple of snarky comments, but none of them will actually fix anything.”
“I know, Brynnie. I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“You really liked him, didn’t you?”
I nod and raise my head, feeling like a fool. “How could he do this to me? How could he not tell me?”