“Let her just head out? I thought you said not to give up!”
“She needs time to think. I bet that as soon as she’s out of the city she’ll realize how much she misses your ass.”
“You think?” I ask with a half grin.
“Hell yes. Charlotte needs time to grieve the husband she lost. The Adam she buried years ago isn’t the man she thought he was. She has to process that, and this time, let him go with his flaws and all.”
“I hope you’re right,” I tell him. Just sitting back and doing nothing isn’t really my style.
Charlotte
* * *
“Are you sure you’re ready to leave?” I ask Tessa when I find her sitting in the chair in her room with her luggage and things piled up next to her.
“Not really, no,” she says, which is surprising. I’ve asked her that question every day for the past week and she always said yes, sometimes even hell yes, that she’s bored and ready to go home.
“You’re not?”
“No,” she says again with a cringe. “Do you think Roman…I mean, he’s already done so much, but is there any chance he would help pay for me to stay another month?”
“You want to stay another month?” I repeat. This day is just full of freaking surprises.
“Yes, but you don’t have to stay. I know you want to go home. I’ll be fine. Verek visits everyday lately…”
“He does?”
“Ah, yeah, he does.”
“Could I ask why you let Verek come see you but not Paul?”
“Because Verek didn’t really know me before…know the person I used to be. And I guess because he was there. He knows Charlotte. I don’t have to talk to him about what happened or how I feel. He feels the same things…the anger, the disgust. Paul doesn’t. Paul may think he wants to know all of the gory details, but he doesn’t, and I don’t want to fill him in. Ever.”
“Do you talk to anyone about the details?” I ask in concern.
“I was raped by four men,” she says, making my lungs freeze in my chest. It’s the first time Tessa has ever said the word we’ve all been carefully tiptoeing around. “The ‘how’ of it doesn’t really matter. It happened in this big blur of violence and humiliation, but now it’s over,” she adds with a sigh. “I don’t know the ‘why’. Why someone would do something so cruel to a stranger. I probably never will get the why of it figured out. And I have no clue who they were. They were horrible men who I assume just hurt people for sport. Some people are just evil, and that’s all that they are. So, what more is there to talk about?”
“Are you still worried that they’ll find you?” I ask, and she nods.
“Which is another reason why I like having Verek around,” Tessa explains. “Between him and Paul, who do you think could take on those assholes?”
Verek. The Savage King always has a gun strapped to him just like Roman and the other guys, ready and eager to use it if necessary. It takes less than a second to come to a decision between which of the two men can protect Tessa better.
“Point taken,” I agree.
“Verek and I, we just talk, you know? He’s become a good friend. Mostly he just talks about that club, Fluid. He’s the manager; he runs it for that motorcycle club all these guys are with. He talks about music, about living at the beach, all sorts of stuff to take my mind off things. Will…will you talk to Roman for me? Or should I ask Verek to talk to him since they’re closer?”
“I-I don’t know,” I say when I flop down into a chair and scrub my palms over my face as a massive headache begins to form. “I don’t know anything right now.”
“Is everything okay? I thought you would want to stay another month, but if I’m wrong, just go home, Charlotte.”
“Roman asked me to stay with him this morning, like permanently,” I explain.
“Wow. That’s great news, right? I thought you were having fun with him.”
“I am. We were having fun,” I agree. “I thought it was just fun, nothing serious, and then he hit me with a Mack truck load of information today.”
“What information?” Tessa asks.
“You know how I told you that Roman knew Adam from their time in the military?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he says that he knew him so well that Adam told Roman that he was having an affair and that he — that Adam has a son…”
“A son?” Tessa gasps. “With whom?”
“A woman named Meredith who was serving with them.”
“That’s…that’s crazy, though. Adam would’ve told you if he cheated on you, right?” she asks.
“I thought he would, but what if Roman is telling the truth?” I reply. “If he is, then I’m not sure if I really knew my husband.”
“Maybe Roman’s wrong and it was just some gossip on the base or whatever,” Tessa offers.
“Roman showed me a photo of the boy,” I admit to her while chewing on my thumbnail. “There’s definitely a resemblance. I’ve seen Adam’s baby photos, and the two of them are…very similar.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Of course you don’t!” she exclaims. “Who wants to believe that their dead husband had an affair and a child with another woman?”
“I know! And I’m just…I’m so freaking angry at Roman!”
Tessa’s brow creases. “You’re angry at Roman? Why are you angry at him?”
“Because he knew about this and didn’t tell me!”
“You’re angry at the poor man for being honest with you when your own husband wasn’t?” she asks, which of course sounds ridiculous when she says it out loud.
“Yes. It’s crazy, I know, but Roman did other things too!”
“Like what?” Tessa asks.
“The flowers on Valentine’s Day and the beach house rental every week for our anniversary, to name a few…”
“That was all Roman?”
“Yes. It was wrong of him to make me think it was Adam!”
“Charlotte, honey, do you think maybe your anger should be redirected to someone else?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Why are you angry at Roman when, to me, it sounds like you should be pissed at Adam?”
“How can I be angry at a dead man?” I huff. “He’s gone. Adam isn’t here for me to yell at him!”
“No, he’s not here in the flesh. But that doesn’t mean you can’t yell at Adam or be mad at him. And, girl, if anyone deserves your wrath, it’s your cheating husband. He impregnated another woman! His child that he should’ve had with you is out there in the world, running around, looking like him! If that doesn’t make your blood boil, then I don’t know what will.”
“I hear what you’re saying, I do,” I tell her. “It’s just, I feel so blindsided by Roman, like he told me now so that I would choose him over Adam.”