AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Money.” He says the words simply, no particular resonance.
“Yes. I assume that was her main motivation. I thought—” I shake my head with a bitter little laugh. “I thought she was actually trying to help me. That maybe we could finally reconcile. Even after all this time, all the ways she’s proved she doesn’t care about me anymore, I still believed… But yes, I think she wanted escape while still getting the money she thinks she deserves. I assume in another month, she’ll reappear and want to swap back so she can marry you and then end it and get the settlement laid out in the contract.”
“Yes. That would be my guess too.” He sighs and leans back against the couch, wrapping an arm around me and bringing me with him. “We did discover that she’d managed to access one of my accounts and must be using that money for her spending in the meantime.”
“What? Seriously? And she thought she could get away with it?”
“She was smart. If I hadn’t learned the truth about her and gone looking for suspicious activity, I might not have found it until too late. She’s sharp.”
“I assume there’s a man involved.” I’m not even hurt that it’s my sister we’re talking about. I’m far too exhausted and burned out to feel wounded at the moment.
“Oh yes. It’s someone from her gym.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. That much was easy to uncover.”
“And she doesn’t know that we know?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well then.”
His chest rises and falls with a sardonic huff. “Yeah.”
We sit together in silence for a few minutes. I nestle against him, astonished and deeply relieved I’m still allowed to take comfort from him this way.
After a minute of searching my memory, I say, “You haven’t called me Amber recently.”
“Not since I found out you’re Jade. Honestly, I almost slipped up a time or two.”
“I had no idea. I thought you just wanted to call me…”
Sweetheart.
That’s what he’s been calling me for weeks now.
“So when you suggested we put all our mess on pause, you knew exactly what that meant to me. You knew it meant my real identity?”
“Yes. That was for me as much as for you. I knew you were torn up about it. I could see it so clearly. You tried to run away after we first had sex, and I understood why. It was important to me that you tell me the truth—that you get to the point where you could take that step—but I also needed to know that there was something worth… worth fighting for. So the pause helped me as much as you. I could be with you without constantly obsessing about what it all meant. But it wasn’t enough. Gradually all the questions kept coming back to me until I was dying to get the truth out one way or another.”
“Yes. That’s how I was feeling too. It worked for a while—and it gave me a safety net—but it was always temporary. Artificial. But I couldn’t get over the absolute certainty that telling you the truth would mean I’d lose you.”
“I don’t know why you thought that. What did I do to make you doubt me?”
“You didn’t do anything.” I lift my head to meet his eyes. “It wasn’t your fault. It was me. I’ve lived…” I swallow over the break in my voice. “I’ve lived all my life with the people I’ve loved and trusted the most betraying me. My dad. And Amber. Even a few months ago, I fell for the hope that Amber might… might return my love and trust. Only to be crushed again. The people I love don’t love me back. They can’t be trusted. That’s what life has taught me. But I was wrong to apply that lesson to you. I’m sorry.”
He wraps both arms around me in a hug, holding me tightly as I shake against him. He doesn’t say anything, but it feels like he understands.
And it means everything.
We hug for a long time, and then we both relax back against the sofa. His arm is still around me. “So what now?” I ask softly.
“I… don’t know. What do you want?”
“Should we…?” I want to blurt out I’m desperately in love with him and never want to be apart for the rest of our lives. But my deception has just come to light. He’s forgiven me evidently, but he must still be conflicted. He cares about me, but I can’t simply assume that he wants exactly what I want. So giving us both a little time and space to figure things out seems the safest route. “Should we take a little time to process everything? And then decide what we want?”
“Yes,” he answers immediately, no hesitation or reluctance. “That sounds like a good plan. No pressure. No demands.”
