Page 195 of Wicked Angel
“Yeah,” she said dryly, “it felt good from my side of it too. For a minute.”
“Maybe I sensed,” I added, going for the full truth, “that there was a part of you that would never let me in. That we could just hide from each other together. And for a minute, I actually thought we might be safe like that, forever.”
She actually seemed mildly curious now. “So what happened?”
I shrugged. “I got scared. I realized I was wrong about you. You loved me enough, so fast, that you would’ve wanted more of me. More I couldn’t give. So…”
“So, you pushed me away,” she concluded, “horrifyingly.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. I really am.”
“You wanted me to find out. You knew I’d walk in on you. At the resort. In that hot tub in the middle of the night, with those women.”
“It was cruel. I know that. I didn’t mean it to be cruel. It was thoughtless and selfish.” I tried to find words to explain, but there weren’t really any that would do her any good. So I just went with the truth. “I got wasted that night on purpose. I didn’t plan the rest, but I didn’t think about you when I did it. After the drinking binge and all the coke, the rest was just me checking out on you. Before you could check out on me.”
“Wow.” She shook her head. “I must’ve been naïve as hell. I was married to you and I didn’t even know you were doing coke.”
“I didn’t want you to know.”
She seemed to consider that for a moment. “When you sat me down and gave me the big breakup talk, you said we ‘rushed into things.’ I’ll never forget that, you know? That was the part that really hurt the most. I knew we rushed. I wanted to rush. It was finding out that you regretted rushing into itwith methat really crushed me.”
“I’m sorry you were crushed. You didn’t deserve that, Amber.”
Maybe she actually believed me this time. I wasn’t sure. She didn’t seem angry.
She sighed a little. “I used to think I’d never heal from the damage you did. I felt like you left this crack in the foundation of my trust that might never heal.”
“Did it heal?”
“Of course it did. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t have gotten married again. Dylan makes all the things I feared I’d never have seem possible. Not just possible… imminent. He loves me in a way that I never have to worry it will just evaporate tomorrow.”
“I’m glad you found that.”
Amber was silent for a long moment. She still had her guard up with me. I didn’t expect that to ever change. I didn’t expect her to let me anywhere near her heart, ever again, even as a casual friend. But I could tell that being genuinely glad for her and what she had with Dylan got close.
“You know, I probably wouldn’t believe a word you had to say,” she told me bluntly. “Even now. After all this time. But Ash told me what you did.”
Well…shit.
I did not know what she meant by that. Ashley Player was the lead singer of the Players and Dylan’s best friend. What the hell did he tell her about me?
“He told me about how he tried to kiss you that night, at that ski resort in Alaska.”
Oh. That.
That was years ago, after my marriage to Amber. I’d kind of forgotten about it, actually.
“Uh…”
“He told me how drunk he was,” she went on, “and how messed up he felt over his breakup with Summer. He said he made a move on you, when the two of you were alone in a hotel room. You could’ve reacted to that any number of ways. There was no one else there to witness it. But he told me how you treated him. He was hurting that night, and you were so nice to him. To Ash, and to me, that spoke volumes about who you really are.”
I didn’t know what to say.
I’d never told anyone about what happened that night, out of respect for Ashley. I knew he was bisexual. Most people did. But whatever he was going through that night seemed pretty messy, and it wasn’t mine to tell.
