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Something happened to me that changed the entire course of my life, but it brought me to where I am now.
I know what it feels like to make love to a man I love. I would never have had my first experience with Rook, if that night almost twelve years ago had played out as I thought it would.
I extend a hand to him. “I’m okay, Al. I have a beautiful life.”
He takes my hand in his and squeezes it. “That’s what I’ve always wanted for you.”
We hold hands and sway on the swings in silence for a moment before I look his way again. “I’m in love.”
His head snaps in my direction. “No shit, Gilbert?”
My lips part in a soft smile. “No shit.”
I don’t expand on that because it’s the first time I’ve told anyone that I love Rook, and I want to savor that for a moment more before I tell my childhood friend that the man I love broke my heart tonight.
“I’m so fucking happy for you.” He squeezes my hand again. “What’s his name?”
The sound of hurried footsteps approaching lures both our gazes up, and from the darkness, a man comes into view.
It’s my man, or the man I thought was mine.
When Rook is within three feet of us, he stops and stares.
I tug my hand free of Al’s and jump to my feet. My toes get lost in the sand as Al moves to stand, too.
“What the fuck, Allard?” Rook blurts out. “What the hell are you doing with the woman I love?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Rook
I don’t know what the hell I stumbled into, but I want answers.
“Carrie,” I say her name, wishing like fuck Allard wasn’t next to her.
She was holding his hand when I approached them.
None of this makes any fucking sense.
After Abby called Carrie’s landlord in Brooklyn and found out that she wasn’t there, she told me to hightail it to this playground in Queens. Apparently, Carrie has always come here when she needs an escape from life.
Tonight called for that because she thinks I screwed another woman hours before I was going to fuck her.
I scrub a hand over my jaw and repeat her name. “Carrie.”
“Rook.” My name comes out of her in splintered shards.
I hear the broken emotion in it, and it splits my heart in two.
I don’t give two fucks if Dalton Allard is standing less than a foot from her. I need her to know now that I would never hurt her. I need to take that pain from her.
“Milo was in the hotel suite,” I say. “Not me. I would never do that to you. I love you, Carrie.”
She stumbles forward in the sand to get to me, so I rush at her to scoop my arms around her waist. I tug her up and against me, her feet dangling in the air.
“It was Milo?” she asks quietly. “Not you?”
I place her back down but don’t let go of her. Staring into her eyes, I nod. “It was him.”
