AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The apology was nice, but he made no sense whatsoever. I shouldn’t care about his motives, but I wanted to understand. “You were so crazy about me you needed another woman?” I asked, incredulous.
Eric rubbed his eye; a frustrated gesture Dean did too, I realized. “You were perfect for me…on paper. We should have worked out. Something was missing, though. I’m not trying to defend my actions, but I’ve been wondering if my brother was between us the entire time. Like maybe you were never one hundred percent mine. And I sought out that missing piece with someone else.”
My cheeks burned. I made a squeaky noise of indignation. I jumped forward and jabbed my finger at him. “You….”
And then I trailed off, the wind knocked out of my sails. Nothing would ever justify him cheating on me, but if I was being honest, he wasn’t entirely wrong. I’d had a fairly serious crush on his brother the entirety of our relationship. I had been a damned good girlfriend, but I hadn’t committed as fully as I could have. Part of me had always wondered if I had made a mistake. It was possible, however unlikely, that Eric had picked up on that.
And even more shocking than my revelations was the fact that Eric had come up with that theory. And that he was displaying such monumental amount of patience by letting me work out my response without interrupting me.
I ran through several responses in my head before settling on the middle ground. “Thank you for apologizing. I do appreciate it. And, I won’t say I forgive you…yet. But I think we can agree we just weren’t right for each other. It wasn’t meant to be. It happens. How it ended sucked big time, but it probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer regardless.”
“Exactly. And I am happy with Emily. I’m not saying that to be cruel, I swear. I wanted you to know because I want you to be just as happy. You deserve it. Although, maybe you already are?”
He said the last part like it was something dirty. He might be sickeningly into his new chick, but he still hated that Dean and I had ended up together. And thatdidmake me weirdly happy.
I rolled my eyes at his implication. “Not that it’s your business in the slightest, but Dean and aren’t together. It was nothing. A brief, ridiculous rebound, nothing more, and you effectively ended that too, if you recall.”
Eric continued to stare me down. “Are you sure about that? That it was nothing? Hooking up with you behind my back was a dick move on Dean’s part, no matter what went down with us first. It isn’t like him. We’ve always been cool. For him to do something like that…it’s a big deal. Huge. He obviously has serious feelings for you. And…I think I know you well enough to say the same.”
I had done an admirable job of keeping calm so far, but I was reaching my Eric limit. “Would you make up your mind? First you freak out seeing us together, then you come to my place to tell me how terrible of a person he is. And now, what, you want us to patch things up? Are you on a new medication or something?”
Eric chuckled darkly. “Not exactly. Seeing you together isn’t great. I hate it, and probably will for a long time. But I owe you one. Two actually.”
My heart stuttered. “Two. . .two?”
His hands shot out and landed on my arms. “No! No…it’s not what you are thinking. I mean, I owe you for Emily, and for sort of stretching the truth the other day.”
I felt like I was falling down some rabbit hole. Everything he said was making my head spin more and more. “You had better explain.”
Eric fixed his gaze on something over my shoulder, rather than meeting my eye. “Dean did know about Emily before you, so I didn’t entirely lie...but I may have exaggerated how long he knew. I was pissed. I’m working on it.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Exaggerated by how much?” I could feel the rage closing in.
Eric shuffled his feet, his discomfort palpable. “I don’t know for sure…but I think he only knew for about a week. Not months. I thought you should know that.”
I shook my head, at a total loss for words.
Eric’s phone buzzed and he immediately reached for. “Look, I need to get going. But again, I’m sorry for everything, and I wish you the best.”
I watched him jog across the plaza, rooted awkwardly in my spot. Trying to figure out what the hell had just happened, or what I should believe. This had all gotten so out of control.
If you really want to know,there’s only one person who can tell you the whole truth,my traitorous mind whispered.
“Shit. Okay. I can do this,” I said aloud, fortunate that the space in front of Eric’s office had quickly emptied so no one could witness me talking to myself again.
As I started slowly walking towards my car, I pulled out my phone with a shaky hand, and shot off a short, terrifying text.
CHAPTER16
Dean
Itook a long, scrutinizing look around the restaurant’s dining room, decently satisfied with my work. I was leagues away from being an interior decorator, but I’d worked my fair share of special events in this room over the years and had picked up a few things along the way.
In hindsight, it was probably too much. But when Jillian had finally texted me the other night, I had been thrilled. I’d already been planning my big move anyway, but her reaching out to me first just made it that much easier to get her here. I’d been tossing around different, occasionally ludicrous, ideas to convince her to come over, and then out of the blue she asked if we could meet up. I immediately suggested the restaurant as a neutral ground, and she readily agreed. Done and done.
I was also hoping that her reaching out was a good sign. It was entirely possible she only wanted to figure out the plan for officially undoing our marriage, but that wouldn’t require an entire conversation, I didn’t think. Besides, I’d been waiting and waiting for the papers to arrive, or for her to ask me to start the process, and in all the time apart, she hadn’t. She was obviously hesitating too, and I was choosing to think positively about her reasoning.
And soon, I wouldn’t have to wonder. She was due any minute.
