Page 68 of Everything But Mine

He jerks free, nearly stumbling before pride catches him.

Then he smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, nor hides intent. Those are wide and searching, already aiming for the softest part of me.

“You think you’re better than me?” He steps closer, shoulders tight. If he swings, I’m swinging back. His face is flushed, his mouth twisted with spite. “It fucking sucked,” he says, low and vicious. “Being with her, while you were always there. You think I didn’t see how much she worried about you?” He lets out a short, ugly chuckle, cruelty lighting his eyes. “I couldn’t figure it out. Why you two weren’t together. Then I did.” He smirks. “She has a thing for flaky men, doesn’t she?” The air goes cold. My lungs lock. “She got with you. Then she came back to me. And showed me how it was always about me. First with her mouth.” He trails off, a sneer taking over. “That thing she does with her tongue.” He grins, darts his tongue out, and makes a circle with its tip. “I used to come so hard down her throat.”

I freeze. There’s no way he knows, no way Amanda would tell him.

“But after,” he continues, savoring it. “When she curled up against me, she talked about you.” My chest tightens. “She told me why she wouldn’t be with you.” His smile spreads, sharp and satisfied. “Ever. Maybe she’ll play house, sure.” He lets the silence seep in the tension. Then he shrugs, a small tilt of his head followed by an uneven smile—wide, sharp, sadistic. “I know what you did, motherfucker,” he says quietly. “You and me? We’re not so different.”

Something tears in my gut, quiet and deep, because I know exactly what he’s talking about.

Amanda told him. She gave him a piece of us. Of me. Something private and painful. She’s refused to hash it out with me. But she told him, and now he’s wearing my hurt both as armor and weapon. With a fucking smirk.

I brace a hand on the back of the nearest chair to keep from swaying. I can’t even think of a comeback. Especially since he’s already left. His mission’s done; I’m unraveling.

The air feels thick, the way it does before lightning breaks. I don’t even care that he knows. That’s a lie. I actually really fucking hate that he knows. But that’s not what guts me. It’s that she gave it to him—my worst moment, my shame—and she handed it over as a soothing balm for his ego. It leaves me here, peeled open in the middle of a fucking wedding, with him grinning in victory.

And she did this. I’m going to be sick. Amanda can talk to him about that night? Turn it into a blade aimed at me? Then, she can damn well talk to me about it.

The bride is holding a piece of cake between her and Amanda when I find her in the ballroom. Cece’s pointing at the white frosting until Amanda finally dips her finger in the cake, swirls it around the corner to catch one of the roses onto her finger pads, and brings it to her lips. Her lip gloss has brushed off by now, so her mouth is a warm pink shade, lighter than her cheeks, but slightly darker when she presses her lips tightly around her index finger.

When Amanda opens her eyes, it’s me she sees, cheeks still hollowed out as she sucks the sweetness from her skin. Normally, the sight would have made me forget my own name. Now, I imagine her lips around Daray, as she brings him over an edge I’m unable to reach over and over again. And if that wasn’t bad enough, in my mind, they laugh at me. At how stupid and weak I was to sabotage the only relationship I ever cared about keeping.

For once, the thrumming in my veins isn’t shame, but anger. Unedulcorated, raw, and corrosive anger. Because I now know what it feels like for your person to betray you. I may have felt abandoned by Amanda when she left, but I’ve never felt exposed or mocked by her. I thread between tables, focused on her gaze, taking in the way her eyes glisten with heat, then confusion, the closer I get to her with my unhurried gait.

Amanda’s tracking my every move with that intense gaze of hers that’s made me feel like the center of her world. Once I’m by her side, towering over her seated form, I look down to keep her gaze on mine. Most people think she’s easy to read because she favors smiling. She’s even smiling at me now, but her spine is straight in a tense line, and she’s digging half-moons on the fabric of her dress. She buries every hurtful thing behind a neutral smile.

I’m one of those things, and I can read her trepidation, the same way she reads my clenched fists and jutted out jaw. Her gaze trails down my body, studying my set shoulders and rigid posture, and I wonder if she senses I’m holding myself together with rope and chalk.

When I say her name, it isn’t a greeting but an accusation. “I need us to talk, right now.”

Amanda picks the right time not to argue with me. She shoots out to hold my hand, and I let go of her as soon as she’s on my heels. Winding around the ballroom, once we’re almost clear, we get intercepted. By the two worst possible people at the worst possible moment. Because I’m spiraling so fucking hard right now.

Before I can turn around, Amanda molds her body to my side, clasping my hand tightly in hers. I stiffen for a second before I relax into her.

It’s been a long time since it was us against Keith and Robert. If you take in the three of us like this, side by side, the similarities are hard to miss. We have that same wavy, dark brown hair, mine longer, curling around my ears. We share the same amber eyes, too. Except Amanda says mine turn gold in the right light. My father’s are more like coal, hard and unforgiving.

“Hey, Eric.” Keith opens his mouth. “Can’t believe you’d crash my wedding and not say hello.”

Amanda rolls her eyes, and I squeeze her hand when she opens her mouth.

“I’m here for Amanda. I’m not here to ruin or stalk your day.”

“Eric.” Robert focuses on me, his estranged son, eyelids dropping to half-mast with every ounce of calculated dejection he can impose. “You weren’t meant to be here.”

I lick my lips, open my mouth⁠—

“I brought him here.” Amanda steps forward, slightly in front of me. An edge to her words that tempers my anger at her.

Keith chuckles, and Robert’s gaze on Amanda gives me the chills.

“I thought I made it clear the Donato girl is out of your league.”

I press my lips together and take a step closer to my father, so no part of Amanda’s body is in front of me.

“You made it clear,” I hiss. “I should never let your words get to me again.”

“Child,” Robert dismisses. “Don’t tell lies. I barely said a thing. Whatever happened, it was your own weakness.” He turns to Amanda. “Let’s check on your manners, girl. Will you thank me for keeping this fool from following you to Italy a couple of years ago?”