AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He held my gaze. It was hard and intense, and I knew he wanted to ensure I heard whatever it was he was about to say. “Not a single fucking one of those girls was Jade.”
My mouth flooded with saliva, and that sharp, acidic taste tickled the back of my tongue. “What…” I started but had to pause and collect myself again, hoping that I’d heard wrong, or maybe, actually hoping I’d heard right. “What do you mean?”
He rolled his eyes dramatically like a teenage girl would to her parents when she had to repeat something she’d said. “Jade and I hooked up before you and I started dating. Not after. Not during.”
“The texts—”
“Were from last year.”
The speed of my heart beating was like nothing I’d experienced before. My entire body was pulsing as the blood rushed through my veins at high speed while I considered what it meant if he was telling the truth.
No.
“She didn’t want to tell you because she thought it might affect our relationship,” he continued to explain, obviously pretty damn proud of himself as he rubbed the salt a little deeper into the gaping wound.
I wasn’t sure what my face looked like exactly, but I could imagine the shock plastered across it that made Chad begin to laugh. The sound was so dark and cold, like someone was running an ice cube over my skin, goose bumps popping up in its wake.
“Yeah. You called your bestie a whore in front of her friends and family,” he taunted. “Not a lie, but a bitchy thing to do anyway.”
Tears burned at the back of my throat.
This couldn’t be reality.
What the hell had I done?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
VALEN
It was like a punch in the face, and I was suddenly questioning every fucking thing I thought I knew.
I should have talked to Jade.
Heard her out.
But then what would have happened?
I would have still gotten married.
I would have married this fucking man in front of me, admitting he cheated a few times a week. That this asshole was fucking his way through Boston but not wanting to touch me at all. “So was the whole perfect Catholic-boy thing just bullshit too?”
His brow pulled into a frown. “What? No. That’s why I was waiting for us to get married.”
I choked out a laugh. “You didn’t wait! You just said you were fucking around with every girl this side of the Charles River.”
He slammed the gun down on the table, and my entire body jumped off the seat. “That’s lust! I loved you, so I didn’t treat you like a whore by fucking you on our first date.”
Jesus Christ.
How did I miss this?
How did I not know that this was what was inside him? Was he like this all the time and had disguised it well? Or did I bring it out?
The bell over the door rang for the first time since Chad had walked in, and I couldn’t help but look up.
Jade ran in first, and I immediately launched my body out of the booth. “Jade, get out,” I yelled, but she kept hurrying across the diner toward us, a determined look in her eyes. Reed shot through the door behind her before it had closed completely, his fists clenched and his eyes carefully surveying the room.
“Oh good! The whole gang is here,” Chad exclaimed, casually slipping out of the booth behind me as I stumbled into Jade’s arms.
