Page 103 of Trapped With You

Though what if you were never betrayed, Ella?

What if there was more to the picture…and you failed to see it?

When Cade glanced in my direction, he saw the conflict on my face. I was battling with the need to walk out of this place and never look back, or stay right here forever, where the only people to exist were him and me.

“What is it, Ella?”

I debated asking the question weighing on my mind since the summer. Then I reminded myself no morewhat-ifs. “Why wasn’t I enough for you, Cade?”

Why were you with that girl? Why did you need her when you had me?

It looked like he lost some one-sided battle with himself when his eyes closed and he whispered, “You were enough. You’ve always been, sweetheart.”

I fisted his leather jacket and dragged him closer. “Then why did you cheat on me, Cade?” I spat, shaking him. “Why do you talk like you aren’t guilty, dammit!”

“Because I didn’t cheat!” Cade snapped, pure agony coating his vocal cords. “You were everything to me. I would neverfucking cheat on you. I loved you!”

I loved you. I loved you. I loved you.

A broken sob escaped me.

Cade heaved out a shaky exhale and uttered words that shocked me to my core. “I was drugged the night of Josh’s birthday party.”

I flinched, rearing back as though I’d been slapped.

No, no, no.

Please, tell me I didn’t just hear him say that. “W-What?”

Cade peered at me with so much vulnerability, my heart squeezed. “I never cheated on you. I would rather die than hurt you like that, Ella.”

Stunned, I sat before him, struggling to digest the bomb he just dropped. “Tell me what happened. All of it.”

Cade inhaled a deep breath and finally told me his version of the night that changed everything for us…

C H A P T E R2 1

The Deceit

Cade

The Past – 3 months ago

Ella left me on ‘read’three hours ago.

My last text message sat at the bottom of our conversation with no reply on her part.

When are you getting here, sweetheart? —Princepin

Granted, she called me this afternoon to let me know she’d be arriving after 9:00 p.m. It wasn’t uncommon for Ella to take hours to get dolled up for a party, and usually I waited on her patiently.

But I was a needy man who liked having my girl by my side. Twenty-four seven, preferably. Sue me for being clingy.

I took a sip of my beer and glared at my phone. The rational part of my brain said to calm down. Everything was okay. The irrational part wanted to blow up her phone like the obsessed psycho she teased me of being.

The Remington residence was blasted in colourful neon lights and big garish décor for Josh’s nineteenth birthday party. The mansion’s first floor was converted into a makeshift nightclub with gyrating bodies, and the backyard was flanked with more partygoers drinking and playing beer pong. The smell of alcohol, drugs, sin, and teenage recklessness was thick in the air.

The whole affair was over-the-top but very on-brand for my cocky, confident, and boisterous brother. He loved to put on a good show.