Secrets and Sins:Raphael(33)

"Noah, back down," Ethan murmured. "Greer is here for lunch, not an interrogation or to defend her choice."

"I understand my decision hurt you, Noah," she murmured.

"Do you?" he asked. "No, I don't think you truly understand. You trusted  a stranger over me, your friend who's been there for you since third  grade."

"‘Stranger' is stretching it a bit, no?" Ethan scoffed.

She shot a glare in her brother's direction, but he smirked in return.  Across from her, Noah's scowl deepened until his dark-blond eyebrows  nearly met over the bridge of his nose.

Noah closed his eyes, flopped back in his chair. Slowly, his eyelashes  lifted, and his unwavering scrutiny was neither mean nor kind. "He  doesn't even believe the baby is his," he gently reminded her,  inflicting damage to a wound that wasn't close to healing.

Do you want to know why that story about Gavin agreeing to a period of  abstinence was so hard to swallow? I've been inside you, Greer. I know  how sweet you are. How you can squeeze the breath out of a man, make him  believe he's died, and thank God for it. No man willingly walks away  from that. Definitely not by choice.                       
       
           



       

Raphael's words from the evening before flooded her mind, and images of  them straining together on the rumpled bed covers accompanied it. She'd  been helpless to his kiss, his touch. If the phone hadn't rung, she  would've allowed him to remove her clothes and-how had he put it? Put  his mouth on her and make her come on his tongue. Yes, God, she would've  let him. And she wouldn't have stopped there. Wouldn't have stopped  until his cock stretched her, filled her, throbbed within her.

How could he know she'd never been that uninhibited, wild-hell,  free-with another man before? That wild sexuality that was as much a  part of him as his blue eyes or I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude elicited a  hidden, secret passion she hadn't realized existed until that December  night when he'd called it forth with a tug of his lips on her nipple and  long fingers plunged deep in her sex. Almost as if his mouth and hands  had been the key to unlock the door where her sexual self had been  imprisoned.

Gavin hadn't walked away from it; Gavin had never tasted it. He'd never glimpsed the desire only Raphael had witnessed.

"His belief or disbelief doesn't change the danger of my situation," she  said. "And I couldn't bring the same trouble to your doorstep like I  did with Ethan. And Rafe … well, his profession is guarding people."

"'Cause he's doing such a bang-up job of it," he bit out, his arctic tone mirroring the chips of ice in his flat brown stare.

"Noah."

"I have a call to make," he bit out, the chair screeching as he shoved  it back and shot to his feet. In seconds, he‘d wended his way through  the tables and exited the restaurant.

"Give him some time, Greer," Ethan murmured. "He's worried and hurt." He  patted his mouth with a linen napkin before tossing it on the table  next to his half-eaten salad plate. "And in love with you."

She started to shake her head, to scoff, but then Raphael's assertion  from the previous evening returned to tease her like a high school mean  girl.

He's in love with you.

Her lips snapped shut, and suddenly weary, she bowed her head, massaged  her forehead between her thumb and forefinger. As if she could somehow  coax the solution to this convoluted mess out of her head. Like a silent  movie, memories of her and Noah passed through her mind in a vivid  slide show. Except now she viewed them with new eyes, from a different  perspective. Damn. How could she have been so blind? What did it say  about her that she hadn't discerned his feelings? Acknowledged them? Was  she so selfish, so self-absorbed? Or deep down in her soul where  secrets rattled like bones in a dark closet, had she known and opted to  take the coward's way out and not recognize it?

"I never noticed. Or maybe didn't want to notice," she admitted on a low  breath. God, Noah had been in her life more than he'd been out. Kind,  loyal, funny, trustworthy … there. She counted on him as the one constant  in her life that never changed, never left. Now even that stability was  gone, ripped away with the opening of her eyes. Loss yawned wide in her  chest like the maw of a lion, roaring in protest. Anger-unfair  anger-seethed inside her that he'd flipped the script on their  relationship. He had no right, damn it. She needed him to be  Noah-loving, dependable Noah.

And the other side of her grieved. Their friendship would change. She  loved Noah. But she couldn't reciprocate his feelings. He deserved her  honesty. And afterward, she feared losing him.

"Don't worry, honey. He'll cool off," Ethan soothed, encircling her  fingers with his. "Give him some time. Then try to talk to him."

"Yes, okay," she whispered, throwing another glance toward the  restaurant's door. His blond head and lanky build was nowhere to be seen  through the large storefront windows. Maybe he'd taken a walk to calm  down …

"Greer."

She stiffened. Her heart thudded, the beat sluggish and dull in her  ears. The ice-cold casing she'd become adept at building around her  emotions slammed into place.

"Hello, Aubrey."

The regal redhead whom Greer had once considered a friend was still  lovely, still perfectly stylish in a blue wraparound dress, and still  reed-slender … except for the noticeable mound beneath her breasts.

Pregnant. Aubrey was pregnant.

It shouldn't have hurt.

Gavin was gone, and his and Aubrey's betrayal had occurred months ago.  Greer had been the one to break off the engagement; she'd walked away.  So no, the pain of catching her former friend with her fiancé shouldn't  still possess the power to hurt her.                       
       
           



       

Yet staring at the pronounced bump beneath Aubrey's shirt, the  bitterness, the disillusionment, the heartache of their deception rushed  in as if it'd been gleefully waiting at the edges of her conscious to  make a reappearance. She hadn't been "in love" with Gavin, but she had  loved him, had been ready to pledge her life to him, had honored and  respected him. And he hadn't considered her worthy enough to offer her  the same.

That hurt most of all.

And this woman embodied all the naïveté, grief, and rage that had tormented her. And apparently still did.

How could you? The scream ping-ponged against the walls of her mind,  rising in volume and velocity until the three words looped in a  cacophonous wail. Part of her wanted to leap to her feet and slap the  hell out of Aubrey.

And the other half yearned to crumple to the floor and cry until she was a dry, empty husk.

"Congratulations on the baby," Greer murmured, thanking God her voice  remained steady and didn't reflect the chaotic, confusing emotional  jumble whirling in her brain and chest.

Aubrey's hand fluttered over her stomach, resting there, reminding Greer of how she often mimicked the same unconscious gesture.

"Thank you. I-" She bit her lip, her lashes sweeping down before lifting  and meeting Greer's gaze. Quiet pleading filled her pretty dark eyes.  "I've tried calling you since … " Her voice faltered, fell, and a spasm of  pain contorted her delicate features. "I'm so sorry," she whispered,  and in spite of the pain gnawing at Greer, the regret in the soft  apology pierced the hard shell around her heart.

"Greer," Karen Wells said, appearing next to Aubrey. Where Aubrey's  greeting had been gentle and remorseful, Karen Wells's contained an  unmistakable venom. The last time she'd seen Karen had been right after  Gavin's death at the police station on one of the occasions Greer had  been brought in for questioning. The woman's patrician features had been  ravaged by grief, her once-straight shoulders sagging with the burden  of it. Now, months later, deep lines bracketed either side of her thin  mouth. Paper-thin skin pulled taut across stark bones, lending a gaunt,  tired air to her. But her eyes … her obsidian eyes gleamed with a fervent  hatred that sent a fissure of unease down Greer's spine. "It appears I  won't be patronizing this restaurant any longer. Not when they'll allow  trash and murderers in."

"Now wait just one goddamn minute," Ethan growled, half out of his seat, fists clenched.

"It's okay, Ethan," Greer rasped, struggling to breathe past the shocking pain of the verbal punch.

"The hell it is," he barked, drawing curious eyes of the other diners.  An uncomfortable silence descended over the immediate circle of tables  surrounding them. Anxious to avoid drawing any more attention, as well  as avert the ugly confrontation brewing, she laid a restraining hand on  one of his balled fists.