Page 43 of Playing With Temptation

I could take no more.

Seeing Rainy cling to the chair in front of her while her pretty face was saturated with pain and fear was akin to torture.

We needed to hash out the past. We needed a clean path forward. But I didn’t want to tear her apart in the process.

“Rae, honey, look at me.”

Slowly, she tipped her eyes up.

“I’m sorry, Jase. So sorry. I know I did this to us.” She stopped long enough to blow out a breath and lift her head. Though she was still holding onto the chair like a lifeline. “It was stupid and yes, you’re right, immature. Back then, I know why I did it. I couldn’t face seeing you with someone else. I was jealous even though I had no right to be. Then I made a horrible decision and continued making them as the years went on. Back then, seeing you with that blonde broke me.” She paused again and shook her head. “That’s not me transferring blame to you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were free to see whomever you wanted. All of it is my fault and you didn’t deserve what I did to you. Not only because I loved you. But you were also my best friend and at the very least you I owed you an honest conversation about what I was going through. Instead, I was a coward and erased you from my life because that night it hit me in a very real, very tangible, very excruciating way that being your friend meant watching you move on. It was the most selfish thing I’ve ever done in my life and the one regret I will take to my grave.”

So, we were starting with Sally.

“Do you remember Brian Williams? He was a year older than me. We played football together?”

Rainy brows pulled together.

“Vaguely,” she stated.

It wasn’t surprising she didn’t remember him. He was two grades above Rainy and not in our direct friend group. Brian’s sister was older and had graduated the year before him, which would’ve made Sally a senior when Rainy was a freshman.

“That night at the bar before you showed up, Brian was there with his sister. He hooked up and left. When you came in, Sally and I were at the bar shooting the shit, catching up, mostly talking about how hard UCLA law school was and how she’d struggled to keep her grades up so she didn’t lose her scholarships.”

I watched recognition hit.

“I would never have done that to you,” I told her. “I was not hooking up with Sally. The thought never crossed my mind. You ended us, but I never lost hope we’d find our way back. Two years I waited.”

No, now recognition hit, and the way her torso jerked back I knew she understood exactly what I was telling her.

Now the hard part.

“I did not love Shay. Not before I married her. Not when she had Colson. Not when she had Juni. Not at any point during our marriage. There was a time when I cared about her. There were times when I was happy. But I never loved her.”

Rainy’s expression was carefully blank when she very quietly exhaled my name.

That breath sounded painful and I understood why. We’d have to get into Lucas’s father and where he was, and what kind of relationship they had. So, fuck yeah, I understood the blow of taking about Shay because soon, I’d be receiving my own.

“She cheated on me, and honest to Christ, all I felt was relief when she told me.”

“Relief?” Rainy carefully asked.

“I didn’t love my wife, not because in the beginning she wasn’t a good woman who I came to care about. I couldn’t give her something that belonged to you. So, yeah, I was relieved it was over. I was relieved that she fucked some other guy because for five years, I’d been carrying on a one-side emotional affair with my high school girlfriend. With everything that happened between me and Shay, I’m still the asshole in that relationship. I was relieved but I didn’t blame her for looking outside our loveless marriage for affection she’d never received from me and would never get from me. Especially when by that time, we were not happy. And that’s on me, too. I never should’ve married her knowing that I could never give her what she needed. But I don’t regret it. If I hadn’t married her, there would be no Juni, and I cannot imagine my life without my girl.”

“Well, I blame her,” Rainy snapped. “I don’t care how unhappy you are; you don’t cheat. There’s never an excuse for stepping out on the person you’re committed to.”

I knew that’d be her reaction. Her father had cheated on her mother before they divorced, and he bailed completely out of both of their lives.

Cheating was a bottom-line deal breaker for her.

“I was cheating⁠—”

“No, you weren’t,” she cut in to come to my defense.

“Rae, you might not have taken my calls, but while I was married to Shay, I did call you. I thought about you. I never stopped loving you. I never stopped wondering what my life would look like if you hadn’t left me. And this makes me not only sound like a royal dick but flat out makes me one when I tell you the honest truth if you’d come back, I would’ve left Shay. I wouldn’t have gone as far as physically cheating on her. But I would’ve packed my shit and left her. Meaning, I would’ve left the home I shared with my kids. Thankfully when you came back, I was already out of the house we’d shared. My kids are good. Things have smoothed out. And she’s hitched to another guy.”

She had nothing to say to that, which was good because I wasn’t done.

“She was a hook-up. My first after we broke up and I moved back to HP. I was in the academy⁠—”