Page 13 of It’s Me, but Different (Merriweather Sisters #3)

Esme

Without the kids, the silence of my suite suffocates me.

I've been lying on the bed for two hours, just staring at the ceiling. The television stays on, but it's just background noise. The twins stayed overnight with Lumi after spending the afternoon with the horses and inventing adventures in the snow.

I know I should be happy. I came here for them, and Ana Sofia and Theo have been happier in these two weeks than in the previous two years.

And yet, every time I close my eyes, I can't get River's face out of my mind confessing that it had all been a trap.

That my trip to Silver Peaks, this rest opportunity I needed so much, was just another manipulation by the Merriweather sisters.

And the worst part is it worked.

Because, as much as it pains me to admit it, these days with Sloane have awakened something inside me that I thought was buried forever.

“Fuck,” I mutter, jumping up from the bed.

I can't stay here all night, remembering on loop what happened and what could have been. I only have two nights left at Silver Peaks. I'm not going to waste one of them watching romantic movies on TV that will make me cry even more.

I put on comfortable jeans and a white t-shirt and decide to go down for a drink at the hotel bar.

And of course, I have to run into exactly the person I would rather not see.

She sits alone at a table, her back to me.

Three empty beer bottles form a perfect line in front of her.

She's wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt, and her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail.

When the bartender serves her a new beer, she raises the bottle in a toast directed at no one in particular.

For a few moments, I'm about to turn on my heels and take refuge in my room again. But there's something in her posture, in the way her fingers drum nervously against the wood, that makes me walk toward her.

“Can I sit?” I ask, pointing to the empty chair next to her.

Sloane turns abruptly, as if my voice had scared her. Her eyes are slightly glassy from the alcohol, but the surprise in her gaze is genuine.

“Esme…” she sighs. “I thought you'd be having dinner with the kids.”

“They stayed overnight with Lumi. Ivy promised they could watch all the movies they wanted."

I sit in the chair and signal the bartender.

“A whiskey, please. With ice.”

“Wow,” Sloane murmurs, raising an eyebrow. “I didn't remember you drank whiskey.”

“There are many things about me you don't know anymore,” I respond, maybe with more dryness than I intended.

I think it hurt her, because we fall into somewhat uncomfortable silence, as if someone had built an invisible wall between us. Sloane doesn't even look at me, she seems very focused on drinking her beer in small sips while I focus on the burn the whiskey produces going down my throat.

They say alcohol gives courage, but it also makes everything hurt more.

“River told me about the trap,” I finally blurt out.

Sloane tenses, and her hand stops halfway to the bottle.

“The trap?”

“Come on, Sloane. Don't tell me you didn't know. The special offer, the ridiculously low price, the fact that Julie signed everything so I wouldn't know it was a hotel from your family… all that shit.”

“I didn't know anything,” she interrupts me, turning to look at me directly.

“At least when they did it. I swear on whatever you want. I found out the morning you arrived at the hotel, when we miraculously ran out of ski instructors for your kids and I had to take charge of giving the lesson. It bothered me as much as it bothered you,” she adds.

There's something in her voice that pushes me to believe her. Or maybe I want to.

“Really, you didn't know anything?”

“I swear,” she confirms, staring at me with an intensity that takes my breath away. “If I had known, I never would have allowed them to do that to you. I never would have let them use your… your circumstances to bring you here.”

The word “circumstances” hurts me. Being widowed with two small children, my financial difficulties, the need for a cheap vacation for my kids. Everything River and Anika took advantage of to set their ambush.

“But I'm glad you're here,” she adds so quietly I can barely hear her. “No matter how bad the way they got you to come makes me feel, I'm very happy to see you.”

“You're glad? Yesterday you seemed delighted to make my decision to go to Denver easier.”

“Make your decision easier?” she repeats, frowning. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about how you encouraged me to accept it. As if you wanted me to leave as soon as possible. Almost as if you were happy I was doing it.”

Sloane runs a hand through her hair and lets out a long sigh.

“Fuck, Esme. Do you really think that? Do you think I want you to leave?”

“And what am I supposed to think?”

“I thought that was what you wanted to hear,” she explodes, raising her voice enough for some heads to turn toward us.

“Because the day before, when we were at The Peak, you made it very clear you didn't want complications in your life.

That your kids were the priority and you couldn't risk their stability for 'this,'” she adds, making air quotes when pronouncing that last word.

“What was I supposed to do? Beg you on my knees to give me a second chance when you yourself had told me you didn't want to try? "

“I… I didn't say I didn't want to try,” I sigh.

“Esme, look at me,” she interrupts me, placing two of her fingers under my chin to force me to look up. “I made the biggest mistake of my life eleven years ago, and not a single day has passed without me regretting it,” she confesses.

“River told me about your depression,” I admit, looking down.

Sloane tenses suddenly and withdraws her hand as if my skin burned.

“What exactly did she tell you?”

“That after you got injured, you sank so low they were afraid you'd do something stupid. That during therapy you discovered it wasn't about your sports career, but because you understood you had lost the person you loved and…”

“River shouldn't have told you those things. It's very personal.”

“Is it true?”

Sloane closes her eyes and lets out a very long sigh before answering.

“Yes, it's true. I was very bad, Esme. Very bad. But I don't want to talk about that anymore; it's been a long time.”

“Why did you never try to contact me?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. “After your injury, when you realized you had made a mistake, why didn't you look for me?”

“And what was I going to tell you? Hi, Esme, now that I can't compete and my life is shit, it seems like a good time for you to come back to me? Besides,” she adds, lowering her voice, “you were about to marry Luis. I saw photos of you on Instagram.”

“You saw them?”

“Yes,” she admits. “You were beautiful. And he… he seemed to make you so happy…”

The way her voice breaks tears my heart, and without even thinking, I take her hand in mine to caress it.

“Sloane…”

“You know what hurts me most?” she continues, intertwining her fingers with mine. “That you're right to be afraid, because I probably won't be able to give you everything you deserve.”

“Maybe,” I whisper, “maybe we've both changed enough to try again.”

Sloane looks at me confused, as if she doesn't understand what I just admitted.

“Can we go somewhere more private? I find it hard to talk about these things with so many people around,” I confess, making a circle in the air with my finger.

“Your room?” she asks. “Just to talk, of course,” she clarifies.

“Fuck, River made sure you got one of the best suites in the hotel,” she jokes as she enters.

I stand by the door, not really knowing what to do now that we're alone.

“Do you want something to drink?” I ask. “There's a minibar.”

“I know there's a minibar, but no, I've had enough to drink for tonight,” she admits.

“Is what River said true? That you've never been truly happy since you left me.”

“It is,” she sighs. “I've had good moments, I've had fun. I've traveled, I've had some girlfriends. But happy… truly happy, no. I never have been. It was as if part of me had stayed frozen on that January night when I told you I couldn't afford distractions.”

Her words hit me straight in the heart. I know well what she means, because for a time I had the feeling that part of me had died along with our relationship.

“Luis made me happy,” I confess. “In a different way, but he made me happy. It was a calmer love, somehow more mature.”

“You deserved to be happy. And you're right about that. I was immature back then, but I've changed. Or at least, I'd like to think so.”

“I didn't mean it like that,” I rush to clarify. “What I mean is I never stopped wondering what would have happened if we had stayed together. Especially when I found out about your injury, I often wondered if all that sacrifice was worth it. If you regretted it.”

“Ugh, if I regretted it…” she sighs, dropping onto the bed and stretching her arms above her head.

Shit, she's beautiful.

“How do you think it would have been?” I ask quietly, lying on the bed next to her. “If you had chosen to stay with me.”

“I don't know. We probably would have fought a lot. I was very stubborn, and you were very independent. Maybe we would have broken up anyway.”

“Or maybe we would have found a way to make everything work. Maybe we would have been very happy,” I correct, sitting up to straddle her hips.

“Esme…” she whispers, clearly aroused.

“Yes?”

“Do you think this is right? I don't want you to regret later…”

“Shh. We're two adult women,” I interrupt, placing two fingers on her lips to quiet her.

She doesn't need to be told twice. She raises her hand to caress my cheek with a tenderness that disarms me, and when I lean down to kiss her lips, I feel my last barriers explode.

The kiss starts soft, almost shy, as if we're both afraid of breaking such a fragile moment. But when I wrap my arms around her neck, when I feel how she sighs against my lips, all caution disappears.

“Fuck,” she gasps against my mouth. “I've dreamed of this so many times…”

“Me too,” I confess, not caring how vulnerable my voice sounds.

Sloane moves her hands down to my waist, sliding them under my shirt to caress my bare skin. It's a contact that burns and freezes me at the same time, awakening nerve endings that had been asleep for years.

“Are you sure about this?” she asks suddenly, pulling away enough to look into my eyes. “Because if you're not, we can stop right now. It's okay. I understand, really.”

“Shut up already, Sloane Merriweather!” I whisper, starting to unbutton her pants.

She smiles, and there's a sense of urgency in her movements, as if she also needs to undress me as soon as possible.

She makes me turn, positioning herself over me without stopping kissing me.

The weight of her body against mine feels familiar and strange at the same time.

Like a love song you know, but haven't heard in many years.

Sloane gasps while pulling up my shirt, slipping a hand under my bra while rubbing against my thigh.

“Easy there, tiger, we have all night,” I remind her with a wink.

But Sloane doesn't listen to me. She takes off my bra and separates slightly to run her gaze over my bare torso with an intensity that makes me blush.

“You're even more beautiful than I remembered,” she murmurs, leaning down to kiss my collarbone.

I close my eyes to lose myself in the sensation of her kisses, from my neck to my breasts. Sighing, moaning, needing her caresses, and when her tongue makes circles around my nipple, I arch my back, covering my mouth and muffling a moan against my palm.

“I don't give a shit if someone hears us,” she whispers against my skin. “I want to hear your moans.”

That simple phrase makes me sigh. It's as if time hadn't passed between us. Sloane undresses me with the same passion, with the same dominant attitude in sex, and my body remembers it as if it were yesterday.

But at the same time, it's different. We're no longer two twenty-year-old girls who made love with the urgency of someone who thinks they should reach an orgasm as soon as possible. Now every caress seems different, every kiss tastes like a second chance.

My underwear follows my pants. She takes it off slowly, tenderly, without hurry, as if she were enjoying every inch of my sex that's revealed. Then she stops and caresses my pubis with the back of her hand with a softness that almost makes me cry with emotion.

“Fuck, you're so perfect,” she whispers against my skin while kissing my belly.

Sloane takes off her clothes quickly, throwing them around the bedroom.

She bites her lower lip with desire, staring between my legs, and then grabs me by the ankles and opens them suddenly, settling over me.

She pulls my hair while I feel her teeth travel over my chin, she rubs against my sex, mixing her wetness with mine in a delicious friction that takes me back many years.

For a good while, everything disappears. There are just the two of us, lost in a world of sensations, of pleasure, of moans. Rediscovering a language I thought I had forgotten.

And when she gets up and leans down to blow gently between my legs, I let out a very long moan that tastes like surrender.

I open them instinctively while Sloane kisses the inside of my thighs, teasing me while sliding her palm over my sex before licking it.

She takes me again and again to the edge of the abyss, stopping just when she perceives I'm about to have an orgasm to start again.

She continues with that game for a while until finally, I let myself fall onto the mattress, screaming her name while waves of pleasure run through me from head to toe.

“Fuck,” I sigh, running my hands through my hair while she gently kisses my pubis.

“I've missed you so much,” she whispers with another kiss.

“Me too,” I confess, stroking her hair. “More than you can imagine.”

“What are we going to do now?” she asks.

“There is a vibrator in the closet.”

“Idiot. You know perfectly well I wasn't referring to that, but for now it'll do, we'll think later,” she jokes, rolling her eyes.