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Her smile widens. “You still have that anger in your eyes, Reaper. I hate that for you.”
I scan her face, my chest heavy and tight. “You get married yet?” I ask her.
That smile dies on her face, and she shakes her head. “No,” she whispers. “I didn’t.” She looks down at the ground and shifts on her feet.
I reach for her chin and lift her face so that I can see those eyes. “Why not?”
“He cheated,” she tells me. “I walked in on him and my friend.”
The fuck. “What a fuckin’ asshole. You done with him?”
She nods. “Yep. I’ve been telling him for the past six weeks that it’s over. The truth is, it was over long before that. I was just too stupid to see it.”
“He not takin’ no for an answer?” I ask, my chest vibrating with anger. I’ll kill him if he hurts her.
“I’m pretty sure he heard me last night.” She sighs and looks up at me with big eyes that are filled with sorrow. “I hurt him with what I said.”
“Was it the truth?” I ask, and she nods. “Then he needed to hear it. He contacts you again, you tell me.”
She blinks. “Why would I do that?”
“Because I said so,” I say. It’s as simple as that. “You’ve seen the shit your girl’s gone through. If that asshole of an ex of yours isn’t takin’ no for an answer, then the next time he calls or turns up at your place, you call me, and I’ll deal with him.”
She laughs. “Why would you do that? I could call Mayhem, Digger, or Shadow. You don’t have to do that.”
“You call me,” I say as I pull her close to me. “Please.”
She stares at me for a beat and then slowly nods. “Okay, Reaper. If Harry comes back around, I’ll call you. I don’t have your cell number,” she says as she reaches for her phone. “Here,” she says, handing it to me.
I quickly input my number and hit dial using her cell. My phone vibrates in my pocket. “Now I’ve got your number,” I tell her. “You good?”
She nods quickly. A little too quickly.
“Esme,” I say softly. “You were with him for a while, right?”
“Yeah, eight years.”
Fuck, that’s a long fucking time.
“So I’m goin’ to guess that you’re not okay. You loved the dick, and he hurt you.”
She places her hands on my chest. “Listen, Reaper, I was hurt. Being with Harry was...” she pauses. “Awful. I’ve realized that I hadn’t loved him for a long time, if I ever did. I grew up wanting what my parents had: a loving marriage with kids. I always knew that was what I wanted. Harry wanted that too.” She releases a sigh. “Being with him was okay at the beginning. We were both young and busy with school. Then the years just seemed to pass by, and I started to get suspicious. He’d started to put a pin number on his cell, and he’d be taking calls late at night and leaving the room when he did so.”
“He was cheating,” I say. The guy’s a fucking douche. Esme is fucking gorgeous. I have no doubt that her ex is a fucking coward who was out of her league to begin with. I take her hand and lead her to the bench at the side of the clubhouse where she sits down. “What did he say when you confronted him?”
She blinks, noticing that her hand is still in mine. I’m not letting it go. For some reason, I’m drawn to her. I want her, but she’s guarded.
“He twisted it. He made me believe that I was paranoid, that I was crazy. Time after time he’d manipulate it and twist it all back onto me. By the end, I thought I was crazy.”
Fucking asshole. I’d love to get my hands on the bastard. I’d kill him.
“That was until I walked into my house and saw him fucking my friend in our bed.”
“Classy,” I snarl. “He couldn’t lie to you anymore. You had the proof you needed.”
She nods. “Yep, it was exactly what I needed. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t mad. I was disappointed that it had taken me this long to finally find the evidence that I needed. I was hurt that my friend was sleeping with him. But I felt relief more than anything. I left, all while Julia cried and pleaded with me to forgive her for the mistake. Harry was on his knees, begging me to give him another chance. He said it was an accident, a one-time thing.”
“You left though.”
