The man I vetted, molded, groomed, and campaigned for my best friend to marry … he gave me everything money could buy. Sometimes he gave me a look, a smile, a touch … but it wasn’t the look, smile, or touch. My heart didn’t belong to him. And while I loved him for many reasons, none of those reasons came close to the one reason I loved Ronin Alexander—that one completely wordless reason.
My heart just knew. One feeling. One force. One moment in Vancouver that told me I had arrived.
“Why …” Graham sighed, shaking his head. “Why did we bring so many people into this? Why were you so stubborn? This could have all been avoided.”
I squinted. “Wh-what are you talking about?”
Rubbing his temples, he closed his eyes. “We married the wrong people.”
No. No, no, no!
My jaw unhinged as I stared at him without blinking, waiting for him to open his eyes and see that he was so very wrong. But he didn’t open his eyes, and I couldn’t find a single word. I could barely find my next breath. Tossing my napkin on the table, I shoved my chair back and ran toward the restroom.
Before the door completely closed behind me, I felt his presence looming over me like a storm cloud. I rested my hands on the edge of the sink and squeezed my eyes shut, erratic breaths congesting in my throat as they tried to make their way past the boulder of emotion.
I stiffened when he pulled my hair off my shoulders, letting it slowly fall from his fingers, down my back. “You regretted our night together. I never did. You put words in my mouth like I surely regretted it too. You were the one who said we could be friends or nothing, but if we were more than friends it would end badly. You made the best night of my life sound like a clumsy fucking mistake. Yet, we’d agreed to officially start dating weeks earlier. Sex is part of dating. Why did you end it just when we were getting to the good part? Do you have any idea how that made me feel?”
With tears trailing down my cheeks and my heart slowly cracking, I glanced up in the mirror to his red-eyed reflection. My mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out. What could I say?
I’m sorry?
I never knew. I honestly never knew he really wanted that.
“Y-you made fun of me—my twiggy figure, tiny boobs, and bleached hair. You said I fit in with the guys because I looked like a guy.”
His head moved side to side in tiny increments as pain etched his whole face. “It was my stupid, childish way of flirting with you. I could have had any girl, a million friends, a nicer place farther from campus, but I chose you. How could you not see it?”
My brain felt like a ten-car pileup in the middle of a snowstorm.
I couldn’t see through my blurred vision.
I couldn’t hear past the blood rushing through my ears.
And the iciest of chills crawled from the bottom of my spine to my head, intensifying the ache.
“You wanted Lila,” I whispered.
“I wanted to make you jealous.”
I shook my head over and over. “You chased her.”
“You said she’d never give me a chance. I wanted to prove you wrong. I wanted to prove to you that I was worthy. I thought if I could make Lila love me that you’d see me differently too. You’d see me through her eyes. And I liked a challenge.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, making a tight fist with his fingers. “And you did too. You. Did. Too.” His hands fell to his sides, and he blew out a quick breath as his shoulders folded inward.
I turned to face him, drawing in a long, angry breath. Why? Why did he have to ruin everything? “You don’t make someone jealous by using their best friend as a pawn!”
“You don’t make love to someone and call it a fucking mistake less than twenty-four hours later!” He planted his hands on his hips and leaned in toward me a fraction.
He looked … hurt. The anguish on his face. The unshed tears in his eyes. The way his angry tone broke when he said the words “make love.”
Sixteen years.
Our friendship spanned sixteen years. Nearly ten years longer than I’d known my husband. Graham wanted for nothing. And even if he had, I didn’t have a single thing to offer him. I had never been more than a science geek with a bath shop and sick parents. I wasn’t the prettiest. I loved sports, but I couldn’t stand up on skis, make a basket, catch a football, or hit a golf ball. Graham’s parents didn’t care for me.
Yet, there I stood in a bathroom with the Governor of Colorado, wondering why he looked at me like I crushed every single dream he’d ever dared to imagine.
He swallowed hard, but refused to blink, refused to release a single tear. “You married the wrong guy.”
Oh, Graham, Graham, Graham …
“No. I didn’t. You fell in love with the wrong girl.” I didn’t hold back a single tear. My hand reached for his chest, and I placed my palm against his heart. “But you married the right one. And she loves you. And I know you love her too. Maybe …” I bit my lips together for a few seconds, finding the courage to say what I needed to say to my friend. “Maybe what you and Lila have is not the same kind of love I have with Ronin. But that’s okay. My father lost his first, and maybe his most powerful love, many years ago. It didn’t keep him from loving my mom. If you love me, Graham, you will love Lila as your wife and me as your friend. And we will not speak of this again.”
We wouldn’t speak about it, but I would never forget it.
I would never forget the day Graham destroyed the four of us.
I would never forget the day he took away my plausible deniability.
“I’m a patient man.” He lowered his mouth to my forehead, resting his lips there while I stood stone still, scared of his touch, devastated by his confession. “I’ll wait for you.” When he stood tall again, taking a step back, his signature cocky smile slid up his face. All signs of the broken man just seconds earlier vanished. “Let me know when Katie gets a positive pregnancy test. She promised to name it Porter if it’s a boy.”
My stomach churned, pushing bile up my throat. He made her promise to brand my nephew like a reminder, once again, that he owned my whole family.
“Don’t give me that frown, Evelyn.” He tugged on the cuff of his shirt, and his cufflink fell to the floor with a clink. I gripped the edge of the counter as he hunched to retrieve his gold cufflink that landed right between my hot pink tennis shoes. After he plucked it from the ground, he leaned forward, putting his nose a half inch from my crotch without touching me.
My stomach churned more, and I could taste the acid on my tongue. He made me feel trapped, responsible, like a terrible friend to Lila and wife to Ronin. Graham had to give me one last reminder that I became friends with the Devil and my life would always reside in a special kind of hell.
Taking a long, embarrassing, nerve-grating, bone-chilling sniff, he lifted his gaze to mine. “I’ve never forgotten the way you smell.” He blinked slowly like my scent intoxicated him. “The taste of you on my tongue.”
My jaw stung from clenching my teeth so tightly. My skin burned with anger. My pulse drummed out of control as I internally screamed, but only a whisper escaped from my trembling lips. “I hate you.”
Graham stood, resting his hands beside mine on the counter, trapping me in the cage of his body. His playful smile vanished, the lust in his eyes drowning in the black pool of his evil soul. I didn’t know if it was the money, power, or truly my unwillingness to see how much he wanted me sixteen years earlier, but the Graham Porter I used to love was no longer alive. “You don’t hate me, Evelyn. You hate that I own you. You hate that I do know what you taste like because you came in my mouth over and over again that night. You hate that you can’t block those memories from seeping into your head when Ronin fails to give you everything you need. You hate that your debt to me will never be paid. But more than anything … you hate that you will never stop needing me. Needing me to be the perfect husband to your best friend. Needing me to play the charade with Ronin so you don’t have to tell him the truth and watch your world fall apart. Needing me to rescue your sick family because we know your dad’s kidney won’t last forever. And there’s nothing…” he lowered his face closer to mine, his warm breath poisoning my skin “…and I mean nothing that gives me greater pleasure than knowing the woman I love needs me.”