Page 95 of The Illusion
If he told me he was a goddamn alien I couldn’t be any more surprised than I am right now. "You're a fucking sociopath."
He pushes off the desk, coming toward me with slow, deliberate steps. "And you're a fucking hypocrite."
"Excuse me?"
"You stole Jessica from me."
I stare at him, the name not connecting to anything I can think of. "Who?"
"Jessica Miller. From high school."
The memory surfaces after a few seconds. Prom, junior year, my neighbor who needed a date because hers canceled. "Jessica Miller? Are you serious?"
"You went to prom with her. After I'd been fucking her for months."
I jolt. Jesus Christ. "You were going to prom with someone else! I didn't even like her. We went as friends because she was my neighbor and her dress was already bought and she was crying in her driveway when I got home from practice."
“You always had to be the fucking good guy and it fucked everything up. She liked anal," Asher says flatly, no emotion, no humanity in his voice at all. Just clinical observation. "And I liked having her on my fuck list. But I couldn't touch her once you took her to prom. Everyone knew. It made me look weak, like you could just take what was mine."
The blood drains from my face, leaving me cold and lightheaded. "You're holding a grudge from high school? That's what this is about? Losing a piece of ass?”
"It's about my father always thinking you were better than me. It's about him letting me do shit as long as you were there too, like you were my handler or my conscience. It's about howyou've always been in my business, always judging my choices, always standing there like you're morally superior. It’s about my wife running to you to blab about something that’s none of your fucking business.”
His voice rises. “You think you're so good, Ryan. So noble. But you're not. You're just as calculating as I am. You just hide it better."
That’s bullshit. "I don’t hide shit. All this time, I thought I was your best friend." The words come out a little broken. I’ve spent two decades with this guy as my closest friend. And he didn’t even give a single fuck about me, clearly.
"We were friends because our mothers went to college together and my father thought you were a good influence." He says it with finality, like he's closing a book. "But you haven't been my best friend in years. Maybe not ever. And you know why you stuck around? Why you're here right now, playing the white knight?"
I shake my head. “Go ahead and tell me why, I guess.”
"Because you want to fuck Julie. That's it. You're half in love with her, have been since before I even met her, and now that my marriage is falling apart, you're circling like a vulture, waiting for your chance to swoop in and comfort her."
He steps closer, eyeing me like a fucking lunatic. "Admit it. That's why you're really here."
The accusation lands like a physical blow to my chest. "That's not true."
"Isn't it? The second I'm out of the picture, you'll be there with your shoulder to cry on and your dick to ride. It's pathetic, Ryan. Predictable."
The room spins. He's wrong about me and my intentions, but he's so committed to the lie, so certain of it, that he’s using it as a weapon.
"I hate to burst your bubble, but she's not even a good lay," he continues, his voice dropping to that cold, clinical register again. "Willing, but boring. Vanilla as fuck. She's no Jessica Miller, that's for sure. I counted money in my head and fantasized about other women just to finish with her."
My jaw drops, horror and rage warring in my chest. "That's your fuckingwife. The woman you promised to love and protect."
He shrugs. "It's the truth. And soon enough, she'll be someone else's problem. Maybe even yours, if you can stomach mediocre sex in exchange for playing house with my leftovers."
I step toward him, my fists clenching so hard my knuckles crack. For a second, I genuinely consider punching him, right here in his corner office with the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, consequences be damned. I want to feel his nose break under my fist, want to see blood, want to hurt him the way he's hurt Julie, the way he's hurt me, the way he's apparently been planning to hurt both of us for years.
But I don’t. Because everything I thought I knew about him was a lie. Every memory, every moment of friendship, every time I defended him or made excuses for him or believed he was better than his worst impulses, it was all built on this. He's a calculating, vindictive fuck who engineered meeting the woman he married because I had a crush on her. He’s been systematically destroying that woman's trust in me for years with lies about me being some kind of manwhore.
And now that he’s caught, he’s casually standing here telling me he never loved her while he plans to discard her like trash. So, yeah. He’s goading me for a reason. I know it. Violence is easy and often predictable. I wouldn’t put it fucking past him to have me arrested for assault. And if I’m in jail, I can’t protect Julie from this piece of shit.
I shove him backward, hard. He stumbles, catching himself on his desk, and for a moment we stare at each other, two men who thought they knew each other, realizing they were never really friends at all.
"You're not even worth it." My voice is cold now, colder than I've ever heard it, stripped of everything except disgust. "You're not worth the jail time. You're not worth the satisfaction. You're nothing."
"None of this is your business, Ryan." He straightens his jacket, smoothing away the wrinkles like he's erasing the moment. "Stand down. I don't hate her. I'm not going to destroy her. She'll have the house, her engagement ring, all the jewelry I bought her. She'll be fine. Better than fine. She'll be free to find someone who actually wants her. Maybe that someone is you."
