“Maybe she’s exaggerating?”
“Maybe,” she says with a long sigh, her finger running around the rim of her untouched wine glass. “But I know it happened. He didn’t deny it. He lied to me and told me he told her it was a drunken mistake, but that’s not what happened. He left her with a kiss and his number. His goddamn number. Then he went and actually had the audacity to tell me screwing her meant nothing. That he wanted me and not her.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she puts her hand up to stop me.
“He doesn’t want me, Carter. If that were true, he’d want to have wild sex with me. He’d want to rip my clothes off because he couldn’t stand them on me another second. He’d want to bury himself inside me over and over again. He went down on a stranger. A woman he had just met. We’ve been together three years and never once have we had that sort of passion. This girl said it was the best sex of her life and I can’t even remember the last time I thought that with him, if ever.”
“Then maybe this is the beginning of a fresh start for you,” I whisper, clear my throat, and sit up straight so I appear convincing. “You deserve lust and passion. You deserve the best sex of your life every night. You deserve a man who thinks about only you when you’re not there and when you are, won’t be able to keep his hands off you.”
A tear tracks down her cheek followed by another one. She wipes them away, but they keep coming. “I hate what this did to me. I hate my thoughts. I hate all of them.”
“What are they?”
Her watery blue eyes cling hopelessly to mine. “What’s wrong with me that he’d want to do that to her but not me?”
Shit. That fucking bastard.
And what do I say? What do I tell her? That I want to do all of those things to her times a million? That I want to explore every inch of her body, bring it to the height of pleasure over and over again? That I would spend hours with my face between her thighs and love every second of it?
I cup her face in my hand, whether I should be touching her or not. “It’s not you, Grace. It’s absolutely not you. You’re…” I heave a breath, knowing I can’t say all that I want to say, but still staring into her eyes with steadfast determination. “You’re everything any man would kill to have. Just trust me on this. It’s one hundred percent him and not you.”
She sucks in a breath, another tear falling that I wipe away with my thumb. She shakes me off and I allow my hand to fall to my lap, frustrated and tormented and angry.
“That’s what I want to believe,” she says. “That’s what the tough, no-bullshit woman in me is screaming. But the girl, the fragile, newly shattered girl? The one who wasn’t even good enough for her parents to love? She says how can it be him if he did those things with her and not you?”
He will die. He will hurt and then he will die.
By the time we are done with dinner, it’s late. Not late by Saturday night in Boston standards, but late all the same. It doesn’t matter though. I tuck Grace in front of the television in my living room with a blanket and my remote because she says she doesn’t want to go to bed until I get back, and then I leave.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this furious before. As I drive the fifteen minutes over to the corner of Beacon and Mass Ave where Grace and Tony live, my anger only multiplies. How could he do that to her? How could he be stupid enough to cheat on her? To take all her sexy confidence and shatter it like that?
And what was all that about going down on the girl and crazy sex? Tony never struck me as the type of guy who was anything other than very vanilla in bed. So all of this is coming out of left field.
My instinct tells me that the girl was grossly exaggerating for the benefit of her friend. But does it really matter? No. And that’s a big fat no because the damage to Grace has already been done. Her trust and confidence are crushed. Her sense of self-worth is in the toilet. I saw it. Plain as day in her beautiful eyes. That girl did more than just tell Grace her fiancé is a cheat. He made her feel undesirable and less than and as a man who deals with women on a daily basis, not just personally, but professionally, there is nothing worse than that.
But still, I have to tread carefully.
Grace isn’t mine. She’s Oliver’s if anything, which is why I call him just as I pull up in front of the building. He picks up on the third ring, his voice groggy with sleep.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
He probably thinks it’s about mom and now I kind of feel bad for calling him when it’s nearly midnight. “Everyone is fine. Sorry to wake you, but there’s a situation with Grace.”
I hear him clear his throat and whisper something to Amelia. Then I hear blankets rustle as he moves. “Is she okay? What’s going on?”
“Tony cheated on her. She overheard the woman he did it with in a café. It’s bad, Oliver. She showed up at my condo in the pouring rain still thinking it was yours. She was a mess. I took care of her and now I’m about to grab some of her stuff from her place and possibly kill Tony, but she needs you, man.”
Oliver breathes heavily into the phone. “Jesus. What a dumb bastard. I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not. His ego was always too big and she was always too good for him. But wait, is she staying with you?”
“For now. Where else is she going to go?”
“Home with me.”
“Oliver, think about that. You’re in a very happy relationship with Amelia. You guys just moved in together. Bought that monster of a dog together. Is that something you want Grace to have to see on a daily basis while she’s hurting like this? She won’t want to intrude on that, and you know she will feel like she is.”
He growls under his breath. “Fuck. Just fuck. Why do you get to kill him? I want the honors.”
I chuckle. “I’ll leave some of him left for you. Is there anything she needs that I should remember to grab other than the basics?”
“Her rescue meds. She keeps them out on the counter in her bathroom and in her purse. Just grab any bottles you see. She’s been in good control with her seizures for a while now, but who knows what this could trigger.”
“On it. Thanks for the heads up. You gonna come by tonight or see her tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I’m on my way. I don’t want to wait until tomorrow.”
“Alright. I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Thanks, brother. For everything. I hate that I wasn’t there for her from the start.”
“No problem.”
“Break his nose for me.” Oliver disconnects the call and I hop out of the car into the pouring rain. I suck in a deep breath, plaster an asshole scowl on my face and bounce up the steps. I hit the buzzer, hunching forward under the small overhang just as Tony answers within seconds with, “Grace?”
Stupid asshole. His fiancée left the house without anything on her, and he isn’t out looking for her?
“No, dickwad. It’s Carter.”
“Carter?”
I shake my head. “Open up.”
The door buzzes and I make my way up the stairs, taking them two at a time. They occupy the entire second floor. Tony bought this place right after he finished law school and got a high paying job. It’s his place. No wonder Grace doesn’t feel like she can live here anymore.