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“I was so ashamed I couldn’t even call you to say I’d made it safely,” he said, ignoring my snark.
“My heart bleeds for you.”
“Please, Duffy, please.” He rushed toward me but stopped short when I gave him a look that made it clear that if he touched me, he would lose a finger. “You’re the love of my life. My soulmate. I fucked up, and I own up to that—”
“No.” It was my turn to stand up. Every time he spoke my logic shriveled deeper into itself, feeling personally attacked. “You don’t own up to that, and you’re not holding yourself accountable. You’re just sorry you got caught.”
His face paled. “That’s not true—”
“Anyway.” I spoke over him. “It doesn’t really matter. As I said before, you boarded a flight to Thailand and left me here, visa-less and jobless. I had to take care of business. So I got married.”
The last word exploded between us, and the room was blanketed with silence for a few seconds. He looked shell shocked, like he’d just watched his dog get run over. If he ever had a heart to adopt one. BJ didn’t like pets, and thought that dogs were dumb and high maintenance. What did I ever find in the bloke?
“What do you mean you got married?” he asked, finally.
“What part wasn’t understandable?” I replied tersely. “Don’t you know what marriage means? Or is it thegotpart that you’re struggling with? I have a dictionary in my room, if you need one.”
Dazed, he looked around, registering the proof that I was indeed with someone else. Riggs’s photography equipment. Clothes.Scent.“I mean ... when? How?Who?”
“A bit after you left.” I looked down at my nails, bored. “His name is Riggs. You don’t know him. Cheers for the idea, by the way. Of me marrying someone else. Worked well.”
Too well, as it turned out. The line between real and fake had never been so blurred.
“But it’s ... it’s ... just for the visa, right?” He looked perplexed. Like he genuinely thought I was a dumb cow who’d wait for him forever.
“Of course.” I smiled politely before delivering the final blow. “Though wedidconsummate our marriage. Including yesterday. Just to be on the safe side.”
He hung his head between his shoulders. Holy eye roll moment. The man cockblocked me out of an engagement, ran away to the other side of the world, and picked up randoms. At least I’d stumbled into bed with Riggsafterknowing of BJ’s indiscretions.
“Yousleptwith him?” He looked up, his eyes wide and haunted, as though he was witnessing a crime against humanity.
I waved a hand between us. “Only once or ...” I did a quick mental count. “Eighty-six times.” I frowned, remembering that time on the washing machine. “Make that eighty-seven, actually.” Pause. “And a half, I guess.”
I wasn’t even including oral in that.
I could tell there were so many things he wanted to say but couldn’t. It’d be hypocritical of him to chide me for something he’d done himself.
BJ shook his head, probably trying to rid himself of the mental image of his reserved, English-rose ex-girlfriend getting defiled several times by a faceless man.
“You say you want to see accountability? Well, there you have it. I’mhappyyou slept with the guy. I deserve it too. But I’m a changed man, Duffy. And I still want you. I want us to start over. To do it again, the right way this time. Please, would you give me a chance?”
Old Duffy wanted to say yes. New Duffy, however, had both a spine and healthy self-worth.
“I can’t divorce him now,” I said coldly. “We’re in the process of getting me a visa.”
It was easier than telling him the truth—that I felt nothing at all toward him anymore, and even if I had still loved him, his actions were unredeemable. My mum had a saying—jam could never become fruit again. That was how I felt about BJ and me. We were jam. We could never return to our initial form.
Plus, there was something else that was bothering me about my relationship with BJ. Something completely independent from the way he’d wronged me. And I could only point that out now.
I had always felt like I’d faded away in my story with Brendan Abbott Jr. If we were a picture, I’d be the landscape. That thing in the background that exists solely for the purpose of emphasizing the subject of the story. I was tired of being his plus-one.
BJ pressed his lips together, looking down. “I’ll wait.”
“It’ll take years.”
He nodded, not looking at me. “I’ll give you decades if need be.”
There was a beat of silence while I tried to think of ways to turn him down politely. It annoyed me that after everything that had happened, all the heartache and wrongdoing, all I was left with was dull disappointment and a bit of sadness for BJ, who was daft and arrogant enough to think he could get away with having his cake and eating it too.
