She laughs like that’s the dumbest question ever and makes me set her down so she can start the water.
“I hate this. I hate showering and leaving. I hate not waking up with you in my bed beside me.”
She doesn’t reply, and I step in behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist, dropping my chin to her shoulder.
“We could fix that, you know.”
I know I’m likely moving too quickly, that this all happened so fast between us—zero to sixty in no time flat—but it’s as if now that my heart has learned how to beat again it only wants to beat for her and doesn’t care about time or rules or anything else.
It just wants her.
Her hands twine with mine over her stomach, and I close my eyes as hot water cascades over us.
“My sister slept with David.”
The words stun my eyes open, blinking at the tile wall. I tense, and she feels it because her fingers release mine, tickling my forearms, trying to relax me.
“My sister is my twin. I don’t think I told you that yet, but she is. Identical. Just like you and Luca, though absolutely nothing like you and Luca. We’re night and day and oil and water. I was the good girl, and she was the rebel, always getting into trouble. She had ruined our wedding. Got drunk and made a lewd speech and then proceeded to hit on every male there, whether eligible or not. I hadn’t spoken to her since until tonight.”
“And she told you she slept with your ex-husband?” I’m a lot stunned and even more confused. What sort of sister would do that, close or not?
“No. David told me the Saturday night before I went on my date.”
I grunt. That was only like nine days ago. It feels like a lifetime with how much has happened.
“David was at a tournament I didn’t attend because I was at home sick. He had too much to drink at the bar, or more likely it seems my sister drugged him somehow, and when he went back to his room, I was there. Only it wasn’t me. Obviously, but he didn’t realize it, or so he claims. It was Cat, and she was naked, and they started having sex, and then he realized it was her, and my parents were there.”
“Your parents?” presses incredulously from my lips.
“They all blackmailed him, Landon. For two years. Threatened to tell me and ruin our marriage, so he paid them off. Only they did ruin our marriage.” She sighs.
“Elle.” I don’t know what to say, so I just hold her tighter against me. Her family set up her husband and blackmailed him? The fuck? I can’t wrap my head around that, only I can. Not from my family, but I’m an Abbot-Fritz and yeah, people do all kinds of insanely fucked up things in the name of a dollar.
“There’s more, Landon. My sister is involved with some guy. Some bookie or something. She’s in deep for five hundred grand with him.”
Now I really stiffen, my heart galloping in my chest. Is that why… has she been… No. She wouldn’t.
“I’m going to pay him myself,” she declares, and I can’t help but sag a little at that, and I hate that that’s where my head went, but again, Abbot-Fritz and that’s just how it goes. “I told Cat I’d pay him, so he doesn’t kill her, but that I’m done with them. All of them. I know I likely shouldn’t bail her out after what she did, but I can’t sign her death warrant either. Anyway, I had her tell my parents I was done with them too. Threatened not to pay or to go to the press and sing a sob story if they ever spoke about what they did publicly. But you’re a Fritz, Landon.”
I swallow, my mouth bone-dry. “I’m not following.” Except I am, and I don’t like where this is going.
She spins in my arms, licking her lips and staring up at me as water rains down on us. “I worry if my family somehow found out we’re involved… that they’d…” She can’t even finish her statement, and I understand why—and am grateful for it. She’s worried about me. About Stella. About what they could do to us. The fact that she’s talking to me about it, not after my money, but concerned for it and me, tells me all my instincts about her are correct.
I cup her face in my hand. “I know how to take care of myself.”
She shakes her head against me. “They’re ruthless. Look at what they did to David.”
“If this is your attempt to get rid of me—”
“No. But I need you to know what I come with. What I potentially come with. I’m hoping they’ll slink away into the shadows. I threatened a lot, but my parents get nothing out of this, Landon, and that’s what scares me.”
“I don’t scare off that easily.”
But I’ll do my own research into her family. Something I should have done from the start but didn’t. I looked into her. Into her ex-husband. Now it seems I have more than just Stella and my family to protect. She thinks her family is ruthless. She has no clue.
She’s never crossed a Fritz.
Money can buy a lot of whatever you need, and I happen to have plenty of it.
“David was horrible to me,” she whispers after a very long, quiet moment. “I was constantly on eggshells, nervous and jittery whenever he was home. Everything I did, I found myself questioning how he’d react. And nothing I ever did was good enough. Everything I am was an affront to him. I was too ugly. Too stupid. Too careless. Not grateful enough. Not perfect enough. He let me know it too. Any chance he got.” She licks her lips, her eyes tilting up to mine. “It’s why I was so upset when you slammed the window shut on me. It was like everything he always told me I was hit home in that very moment. I wasn’t enough.”
Fuck. Just fuck. How could I have been so stupid and reckless?
“It was me who wasn’t enough. Not you. I never felt deserving of you. Not from the second I saw you, even until now. I’m trying. I am. I want to deserve you. I want to deserve this.” I press my lips to hers. Press them on her chest over where her heart thrums. “I’ve hated myself for so long, Elle. I was furious with Reese that night. I thought she had the easiest gig in the world, being home with Stella while I was spending interminable hours in med school and studying. I was wrong. She was home and happy with our girl, but she also had dreams I didn’t take into consideration. Aspirations beyond what her life was, and in truth, Stella had been going through a rough toddler patch. She was difficult, and Reese did need a break. But instead of recognizing that, I yelled. I yelled and told her to go, and she did, and she died.”
“Regret is such a strange thing, isn’t it? The power it wields. The way it scars. David loved me, and you loved Reese. And I think, truly, if time were malleable, we’d correct our errors instead of learning from them. But that’s history, right? History teaches us to talk about it so we never forget or repeat what should never be repeated.”
Her hand is on my cheek the way mine is on hers. I stare into her eyes, holding them for so long. Searching their depths. Reveling in their secrets and mysteries that are only mine to discover.
“Maybe this is our second chance at getting it right.”
“I want that,” she tells me. “All of what you said. I want to wake up beside you. As much fun as sneaking around this week has been, I don’t want to do that forever. But I still think we should keep this a secret. From everyone. I don’t know what would happen to my teaching position, and there’s Stella to consider and my family and—”