Page 57 of Fallen Hero

Calli’s lips parted and her eyes flared. “Wow. Four years is a long time to commit to a woman when you were clear there wouldn’t be wedding bells in your future.”

“Was there a question in there?” I taunted, for no other reason than to buy myself time to figure out how I was going to get out of the trap I’d laid for myself.

“Not if you don’t want there to be. Calli and Mase and the cone of silence doesn’t include having to share secrets that don’t want to be shared.”

Cone of silence.

That would imply trust.

Not that my relationship with Emily was a state secret, but I also didn’t broadcast it.

“Tell me the truth why you’ve never committed to a man,” I pushed.

Calista Ventura held my gaze hostage while she broke my heart. “Men scare me.”

Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me.

“Do I scare you?”

Without hesitation, she answered, “No.”

Thank fuck.

And fuck me sideways. Now I had to return the honesty.

“I met Emily when I was sixteen. She was fifteen. We dated until I was twenty. Then we broke up.”

“Why?”

Christ.

“She cheated on me.”

Seeing as it was a long time ago, the anger had long since fizzled out, but the betrayal still burned. Back then, I’d been naive. I’d believed Emily loved me. I’d believed her when she promised herself to me and only me. I’d believed her when she told me it was important to her that we wait to have sex until we were married.

All lies.

All bullshit.

The deepest betrayal.

“Now I kinda feel like an ass for talking to you about breakup songs,” she muttered.

“It was twenty-five years ago, Calli. I’m not over here crying in my soup, sad my high school and college girlfriend cheated on me.”

“Well, that’s good news. I’d hate to tell you how lame I thought it was that you’d give twenty-five years to a woman who is clearly a blind and stupid idiot for throwing you away.”

Christ, I didn’t want that to feel good, but it did.

“No one serious after her?”

There had been a lot of someones. Lots of nameless, faceless, empty pussy that at the end of the night left me feeling like garbage.

I shifted in my lounger and took her in. All that shiny blonde hair, those incredible blue eyes, and I wished more than anything she was not sitting next to me. I wished she was anywhere but in the middle of an op in Dubai, exhausted and worn out. I’d give up my condo, my stake in the bar, my retirement, all my possessions in exchange for her being someplace else with someone special and this life having never touched her.

Cone of silence.

“Want some truth?” I asked.