Page 131 of The Complete Truth Duet
Holy.
Shit.
This Shane guy was scary.
But I couldn’t say that Dante didn’t deserve it.
Guilt settled like a boulder in my stomach. “I thought she was going home. Dante came looking for her the next day, but I told him she’d run away. I never considered something had actually happened to her.”
“She was coming home. She’d booked a flight for the next morning.”
“She never made it,” I whispered, emotion bubbling to the surface again.
The first time Penn had told me about his wife, I’d thought it was crazy that he blamed himself for failing her when there was so obviously nothing he could have done. But right then, I got it. Dropping her off there, I’d failed her too.
Reaching over my head, I snagged a decorative floral towel that I knew without a shadow of a doubt Penn had not bought and used it to wipe my mouth.
“I have an extra toothbrush if you want it,” he said.
Fresh breath was the least of my concerns.
Settling on my butt, I mirrored his position against the bathtub for two. My body ached like I’d been through a wash cycle, and my mind was a jumbled mess, trying to fit together all the pieces he’d been doling out over the last God only knew how long. Each time I’d thought I had a handle on it, he’d dropped another bomb at my feet.
“Is there anything else?” I asked. “You have some kids or something I need to know about?”
“No,” he promised.
“Okay, do you need a kidney and I’m the only match?”
His lips twitched. “No, Cora. All my organs are in good condition.”
“Seriously, I can’t take any more surprises. If you have anything else up your tattooed sleeves, it needs to come out now. Are you secretly Savannah’s biological father come to save her from the clutches of her abusive adoptive parents?”
“What? No. And don’t encourage her with that. She’s been calling me daddy for weeks.”
My stomach rolled.
Apparently, he did have more surprises.
“You’ve had her for weeks?” I squeaked.
He leaned his head back against the wall. “I got to her as soon as I could. I stalked the hospital for a few days, hoping to see her get discharged. When that didn’t work, I went to Cleveland and tracked down her parents. I found her standing on the corner, trying to score some cash. Picked her up and brought her home.”
“Home,” I whispered sadly. “Right.”
He cursed under his breath. “That’s not what I meant. Obviously, her home is with you.”
At a loss for any other response, I repeated, “Right.”
“Truth or lie?”
I picked invisible lint off the towel. “No. That’s why I’m sitting here right now, lost and confused, feeling like I was transported into another person’s life. I let you lie to me for too long.”
“Okay…then truth. My body’s about to tear out of my skin over here. Any chance you’ll let me come over there and hold you?”
With sadness saturating my vision, I looked up at him. He was wearing the Penn Walker uniform: boots, tattered jeans, and a T-shirt. His scruff had grown in until it was straddling the line of becoming a beard, and the black tattoos on his arms and hands looked completely out of place in that lush bathroom. But Penn was always beautiful—rugged and unorthodox—and as though he’d cast a spell on me, even knowing what I knew now, I still craved his touch.
“I spent the last few weeks wishing you were sitting in front of me,” I confessed, pausing when my voice gave out. “And here you are, but it’s like all my dreams and all my nightmares have melded together to form the perfect mindfuck. I’d love nothing more than to dive into your arms and bury my head in the sands of comfort rather than confusion.”
Relief softened his face as he started to stand up.
“But I can’t, Shane. The man I fell in love with was nothing but a carefully constructed façade, tailored to who he needed to be to seduce me.”
“That’s not true. It was always me.”
“And who is that exactly? Please, I’m dying to know. What parts of you were my Penn with the big heart and gentle touch and what part was Lisa’s Shane out for revenge?”
He shook his head. “Me. It’s all just me. I didn’t show you who I wanted you to see to seduce you, Cora. If you recall, the only seducing I did was begging you to stay away from me for fear that we would find ourselves sitting right here, right now.”
“So it’s my fault.”
“No. Not at all. I just mean I didn’t have to pretend with you. Yes, I omitted a lot of stuff about my past and even lied to you about my motives. But every smile. Every laugh. Every kiss. Every touch. That was me. That was us. And that was the truth.”
