Royal(53)

“Oh, we’re going to play that game now?” I huff. “You going to hold me hostage until I tell you what you want to hear?”

“It really, really blows, doesn’t it, Royal? To need an answer to something so badly that it damn near kills you, and to know that the one person who could heal that pain refuses to give it to you?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“You said that before, and I still disagree with you.”

I step into her space, resting my hands on the curve of her hip and guiding her closer to me. Inhaling her sweet scent, I lock eyes with her.

“Don’t push me away, Demi.” I lower my lips to hers, but I don’t kiss her. Not yet. Our mouths graze, and she breathes me in, harboring the air and refusing to release it. My right hand cups the base of her neck, slinking up to her jaw and feeling the wild palpitations of her heart. “I still love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone. And I’m not giving up on us. We deserve that happiness that was stolen from us seven years ago.”

She glances away, but I guide her back, meeting her glassy gaze.

“Because it was stolen,” I say. “No matter what anyone says, I didn’t do it, Demi. I didn’t do it.”

I’m overcome with a choke in my voice, so I kiss her before she senses I’m two seconds from falling apart. Men don’t fall apart. Men don’t cry. Men don’t get sad or weak. They brush it off and move on and pretend the parts that hurt don’t exist. If something becomes too painful, we fucking amputate that shit and don’t give it a second thought.

But I never could. Not with her.

Her lips warm mine, our tongues seeking one another’s. Demi’s skin is soft as silk beneath my fingertips, and I’m tempted to yank her hair out of that perfect little bun just so I can run my hands through it again.

My eyes burn, but I force it away.

I need to go before she asks more questions. I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her everything, because I know she has one foot out the door already, and if this is my only chance to come clean, I’ll do what I have to do.

But I want her undivided attention, because this isn’t the kind of thing you tell someone in passing. I don’t want her dressed to the nines, on her way out the door to some charity benefit for Brooks fucking Abbott.

“Call me when you get home tonight,” I say, cupping her face and taking my lips off hers.

“Royal . . .” She steps away, her words stuck for a moment. And then her shoulders slump. “I really need to get going.”

She steps into heels and motions toward the door. And with that, we go our separate ways.





Chapter Twenty-Eight




Demi



I follow Brenda like a shadow for the first hour, listening to her repeat the same things over and over again.

It’s really minor brain damage . . .

The doctors are very impressed with his progress already . . .

He’ll have a few months of physical therapy . . .

Yes, he’s talking . . .

His short-term memory seems to have been affected, but there’s a chance it’s only temporary . . .

“How are you holding up, kid?”

I turn to see my brother holding a plastic cup of hot pink punch and munching on a Madeleine cookie. His navy sweater is covered in crumbs, and he flashes me a boyish grin, the kind I rarely see anymore since he started practicing law.

He’s happy Brooks woke up.

Flinging my arms around his broad shoulders, I cling to him, not sure if I’ve ever been this happy to see him.

“What’s up with you?” he laughs. “You know we just saw each other, like, two days ago.”

“Just glad to see a friendly face.”

My back is to Brenda, and she’s yammering on to a group of women I’ve never seen in my life. She’s soaking this up, all this attention. And she’s good at it. People are drawn to her, and I’m not unconvinced that most of the women in Rixton Falls want to be her when they grow older. She’s unsinkable yet sweet, polished yet approachable.

“I don’t recognize anyone here,” I say.

“I overheard some people saying they came all the way from Oregon,” Derek says. “I think people were really touched by Brooks’s situation, and they’re coming in from all over. That’s the irony in tragedy. It’s beautiful like that. It unites us.”

“If they only knew . . .”

Derek chuckles. “What are you talking about?”

I swat him away when I see Delilah gabbing it up with a group of girls I vaguely remember from high school. I recognize their faces, but most of their names escape me.

“Jesus, everyone came, didn’t they?” I glance around the room in search of more familiar faces and come up mostly empty-handed. There’s the checker from the Quik-E Save, Father Batiste from Holy Trinity Church, and Sister Sapphire, but there’s nothing recognizable about any of the other faces here.