Page 31

Jeese’s eyes were soft and tender as he looked at me, and I felt the weight of my own secret pulling. I needed to tell him what had happened more recently. He deserved to know, and he deserved even more to know what my situation was right now.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This part was going to suck. A lot.

Chapter Fifteen

Jesse

“I have something you need to know,” Charlotte said.

I lifted my head from where it hung, looking down into my beer and at my boots, knowing that everything I said depended on her trusting me, which she had no reason to do. Yet I hoped she would. I didn’t know what could happen from here, if anything, but I wanted her to know I was telling the truth, so far as I knew it to be.

“Go ahead,” I said. “It can’t be worse than what is going on with me.”

Her face twisted up in a mask of unease, and I sat back. Whatever she had to say, it wasn’t pleasant. Or she was expecting a reaction that wasn’t. I had to steel myself against whatever it could be just so I wouldn’t react however it was she thought I was going to.

She shifted in her seat and took a deep, long swig of the beer that was still novel to see her drink. When she pulled it away from her lips, she cleared her throat and looked directly into my eyes. As if she wanted to know the words settled in me and that I heard every last one.

“When we met up two years ago, Iwassingle. I didn’t lie to you about that.”

“But you left with your boyfriend,” I began.

“My boss. Not my boyfriend. Mr. Bethel, Tom Bethel, is the CEO of the company. He was there to meet me about apossible promotion. I told you I had something important in the morning. That was it. I had a meeting with him that was supposed to take place in the conference rooms downstairs. But at the last minute, he decided he wanted to go out to eat, so I went with him. I ended up getting the job, actually. But when I came back, you were already gone.”

“You have to be kidding me,” I said. “All this time… you were single, and you came back for me?”

I didn’t know if I should feel elated or furious. Maybe both. What was that guy’s name again? If I ever figured it out, I might wring his damn neck. Two years down the drain.

“I did come back. But you were gone, and I assumed it was like all the other girls. You got to bed me, after all that time, and you were going to move on. I didn’t blame you. I wanted more, but I wasn’t going to push it. Besides, I didn’t have your number or anything.”

“I thought you’d leave me yours,” I said. “Before you left.”

“I was in a massive hurry,” she said. “I thought you’d still be there when I got back. I didn’t expect to go out to lunch or for it to take so long.”

“So if you had come back, and I’d been there, what then?”

She blushed and smiled as she shook her head.

“Probably picking up where we’d left off the night before.”

I grinned and had to change my seating position as parts of my body awoke to the memory of that night. Of how her skin tasted, covered in sweat and hot from effort. How her body felt under my palms. How I’d made her quiver, and she’d made me shake.

“So what now?” I asked.

“That’s where it gets complicated,” she said.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

“So… you have a boyfriend? Fiancé?” I swallowed hard, glancing at her hand for a ring, but not being able to see clearly. “A husband?”

“Technically,” she said, “I have a boyfriend. But… well, it’s complicated.”

“Ahh,” I said. “I might have some experience with this. It’s just a physical thing?”

“Actually, no,” she said with just the faintest hint of judgment in her voice, “it’s not physical. It’s the opposite.”

“Oh?”