Page 46 of What He Always Knew

What the hell do I do now?

And between those thoughts, I asked myself the same question as Reese.

“If you stay, and he goes back to the husband you’ve had for the past five years, will it be enough?”

It was the only question I knew the answer to.

Charlie

The rest of the conference dragged by, each minute feeling like a day. By the time we ended the Saturday afternoon session, it was all I could do to haul myself upstairs, change, and make my way to the bar. I knew everyone would be at the final mixer being held in the ballroom next to where we’d had the conference, so I found my safe haven in the relatively empty beach bar out back.

I chose a seat at the bar, my sandy feet dangling off the tall stool as I ordered my first drink of the weekend. That drink quickly turned to two, and two to three, and before I knew it, the sun had set, the beach growing dark behind me as dusk settled in.

My fingers trailed the sugary rim of my fifth fruity margarita as a cool breeze swept into the bar. At least, I thought it was my fifth. I hadn’t kept an accurate count, and I didn’t really care as I lifted it to my lips, hoping the alcohol would burn away everything else that stung — like the fact that I was killing my husband, that I didn’t know if I could stay with him, and that I still loved Reese, even when I wished I could stay away from him.

It’d been almost a month now since Cameron asked me to give him another chance, and the thought of enduring the pain I felt in my chest for another month made my stomach lurch. To make matters worse, I knew I wasn’t the only one feeling that pain. Cameron had to be sick, knowing I was away with Reese, and Reese had agreed to wait for me — to respect the time I’d promised Cameron.

I didn’t deserve either one of them.

Why did I think my happiness mattered anymore? The truth was they’d both be better off without me, and I should have to endure life alone. At least, that’s what I wanted to believe.

But inside my heart, I didn’t.

Under the bad decisions I’d made in the past few months, I knew my heart was pure and true. I had loved Cameron with every ounce of love and care I possessed. I had tried to wait for him, to let him come back to me on his own time. I had suffered through lonely nights, cold rejection, empty promises.

I may not have been perfect, but he’d hurt me, too.

And in the back of my mind, Reese’s question played over and over. If I stayed and Cameron went back to the way he’d been the past five years, would it be enough?

No.

Not even close.

Thunder rolled quiet and low off in the distance, and I took another sip of my drink, head fuzzy as I tried to imagine my life. With Cameron, it was hard to picture anything other than what we’d lived since the boys died.

I could faintly remember a time before, when we were happy, when we wereblissfullyhappy. He’d given me a glimpse of that the previous weekend, when he’d taken me back to Garrick, and back to a room we made memories in. And Cameron was opening up to me, he was letting me in, he was giving me a piece of himself he was never able to give before.

I loved him. I missed him. I didn’t even want to leave for the conference because we were having so much fun at home. I wanted to stay in his arms, in that house where he was beginning to peel back his layers and let me inside.

Still, Reese had a point, and it stuck with me long after I left his room last night.

If I stayed, would Cameron be the old Cameron, the one I fell in love with, or would he go back to being the one who’d hurt me and let me feel like I didn’t matter at all to him?

I blinked, imagining a different life, one where I was with Reese.

I saw us living in his quaint house, me sprucing up the front garden and choosing new linen colors in his bedroom. I pictured us as renowned teachers at Westchester, the couple everyone loved to talk to, the one everyone wanted to be. I saw late nights at his piano, heard our moans under his sheets, felt his arms wrapped around me.

But when I tried to see past that, to a family, to having children and joining my parents for Christmas, I couldn’t. Because those memories had already been created by Cameron, and I didn’t know how to erase him.

What if I never could?

I sighed, sucking a large gulp of margarita through my straw. I wondered if the answers lay at the bottom of this glass, since I hadn’t found any in the last four.

I felt him take the seat next to me before he said a word. His presence was electrifying, one that buzzed with a mixture of invitation and warning. He tapped on the bar, and as soon as the bartender saw him, she smiled, whipping up some sort of drink without him saying a word.

Of course. Even the staff knew and loved him.

I stared at his forearm on the bar next to mine, tracing the lean muscles and dark hair.