He stalks across the room, not looking anywhere else but at me. As he gets closer—when I can see the green of his eyes—I note they’re filled with disappointment.
When he reaches me, he spares a quick look to Bridger and lifts his chin in greeting before turning back to me. He just stares and I don’t know what to say. Should I apologize? Explain my actions? Or maybe I should just own them to make the break easier.
Before I can utter a word though, Bridger stands up and claps a hand on Rand’s shoulder I’m assuming in commiseration. He gives me a guarded look and turns to head back across the room. Rand and I both watch him walk out of The Silo.
“Why are you doing this, Cat?” Rand asks softly, and I slide my gaze back to him.
I lay open my heart and tell him the truth. “Because I’m not good enough for you.”
I expect him to scoff, roll his eyes, and lay into me with a speech about all my fine qualities. But he doesn’t. He just stares at me with the look of a man who knows the ride will be bumpy but who is prepared to hold on tight.
“If this is what you need to do,” Rand says in a neutral voice, “then you do it. Just so you know—it’s not going to change my feelings about you.”
My mouth falls open as I realize he’s deadly serious. “You’d sincerely be okay with me fucking someone else here tonight?”
“No, I won’t be okay with it,” he says with a touch of anger in his voice and his eyes firing a little hot. “If you’re going to play around with others, I want to be involved. But if you feel this is what you need to do to because you can’t deal with my feelings, or maybe the feelings you have for me, then you need to do it.”
“I need to do it?” I whisper back in question since he seems to think he knows what I need.
“You need to do it,” he reiterates. “But I’m here to tell you, Cat. You won’t feel better. You’ll feel worse because you’ll know it hurts me. It won’t make the break any easier for either of us.”
This angers me because I know he’s right and I don’t want him to be. I also don’t want to fuck someone else, so maybe I should just really lay it on the line so we can end things on words rather than actions.
I lean toward him, keeping my voice just above a whisper. “Do you know how much strange cock I’ve had in me? Multitudes of men who I didn’t even know their name? Fucking me in my mouth… my *… my ass. I never said no. I never thought to have a tiny bit of self-respect and tell my asshole, evil husband that I wasn’t doing those nasty things. I took it over and over again, and you know why? Because I liked the money and the lifestyle. I didn’t want to go back to a dirty, cockroach-infested apartment or a sticky stage with a stripper pole. I whored myself out to be a wealthy woman, and I did it without regrets. Is that the type of person you could fall in love with?”
“I know all of that,” Rand says back in a low voice, and I don’t detect a trace of bitterness over my “used goods” status. Instead, his voice is gentle as he reiterates, “I know all that and I don’t care. But you are wrong about one thing… you do have regrets. If you didn’t, it wouldn’t bother you so much right now.”
I blink at him, unsure of what to say.
He’s so right.
I regret everything I’ve ever done from the moment I met Samuel Vaughn. I regret marrying someone without love, for choosing money over respect, and for hurting Rand in any way.
He leans in closer, lips hovering just inches away from mine. I breathe in, and he smells so good…
“You do what you have to do, Cat,” Rand says softly. “It’s not chasing me away.”
He kisses me. Nothing but a tender kiss on the corner of my mouth.
Then he turns away from me and walks out of The Silo.
Chapter 23
Rand
I’m not a fan of Vegas. Been a handful of times, usually for a bachelor party. Not big on gambling, definitely don’t want to see Cirque de Soleil or Celine, and all-you-can-eat buffets are overrated.
This part of Vegas isn’t much better. No glitzy lights. No throng of people walking around with stars in their eyes.
Nope. Cat’s mom lives in a small trailer park on the outskirts of town with nothing but flat desert as far as the eye can see. When I pull my Suburban onto the dirt path that leads into the entrance, dust kicks up and swirls all around.
I left Cat in The Silo going on almost twenty-four hours ago.
I left her behind and told her she needed to do what she needed to do, and I don’t regret that. I can’t make Cat into something she doesn’t want to be. I have to let her figure things out so she accepts them.
She has to be in control of her destiny. Of that, I’m absolutely certain.