“Trace?” I force my feet to move toward him as overwhelming shame streaks down my face in salty rivers.
“Say it.” His tone is calm, so deadly composed it stops me in my tracks.
The song he chose, Say Something, shudders through the room, and the haunting piano notes bang through me. Bang. Bang. Bang. I close my eyes, draw in a shredded gulp, and meet his gaze head-on.
“I had sex with Cole.” My confession stumbles on a choked sob.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. “How many times?”
My chest caves in. I cry harder and shake my head jerkily, over and over, pinning my lips together to muzzle the helpless noise clawing from my chest.
“You don’t know?” His jaw twitches. “Or you don’t want to say?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper, clutching at my neck, my throat swollen with grief.
He shoots from the bed, his movements graceful yet lightning fast. Prowling toward me, he rests his hands in his pockets.
My shoulders hunch as he circles me, his hulking frame edging close enough to brush against me. But he doesn’t reach out, doesn’t try to soothe me. Why would he? I’m spineless and selfish, and I don’t deserve either one of them.
“You fucked him tonight.” He steps into my space, towering over me, his eyes aglow with unfathomable self-control. “In the bathroom.”
My face crumples, my tears thick and ugly as they roll down my face.
“You chose him.” His voice breaks, forming a crack in his coldness.
“No.” Tears strangle my whisper. “Trace, I didn’t! Please, believe me.” I sob and rub the heels of my hands against my temples, curling my fingers and fighting the need to cling to him, to hold him. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m trying…I’m trying to do the right thing, but I’m stuck. I can’t let go of him, and I can’t…” Wracking cries garble my voice, and I grip the lapels of his suit jacket. “I can’t lose you.”
“You’re a fucking mess.” He pries off my hands and sets me away, glaring at me with disgust.
“Don’t quit me.” I wrap my arms around my waist, tormented and shaking violently. “Please.”
“Is this regret?” He touches a thumb to my cheekbone and catches a tear, staring at it with unblinking eyes. “Do you regret fucking him?”
If I slept with any other man—any man at all—I’d regret it till my dying breath. But I was with the one I never stopped loving, the man I never moved on from. As complicated and painful as that is, there’s nothing confusing about my feelings for Cole.
The song ends, and deafening silence moves in, slithering and strangling and ticking down the seconds. Every breath carries me closer to the end—a finality I’m not ready for.
Trace studies my eyes, his scowl lined with a sadness I’ve never seen there before. His heartache is palpable in the stiff line of his shoulders, in the way he holds himself rigidly still, and in the very air coiled around him, keeping me at an agonizing distance.
I hate myself for hurting him. Doesn’t matter how much he lied or deceived me, I’m the one who delivered the most painful blow.
“I regret…” I feel cold, defeated, worthless, as I stare up at him. “I regret hurting you.”
He closes his eyes and tips his head back, his expression…lost. Then something crosses over his features, tightening the muscles in his face.
“Prove it.” He lowers his head and tunnels his gaze into mine.
My breath stammers, and my mind races to understand. Does he want me to choose between them? Right this minute? I grasp the sides of my neck, swaying and dizzy with bubbling panic.
His eyes dip to my borrowed shirt, and realization stops my heart.
“You want me to…?” I touch the placket of buttons on my chest.
“Take it off.”
He turns toward the couch in front of the fireplace, slides off his suit jacket with meticulous movements, and folds it over the arm rest.
He’s going to fuck me. He’s going to take my body while he’s hurting and probably far more pissed than he’s letting on. I’m willing to do almost anything to make this right, but I’m not sure sex is what he needs.
Or maybe that’s exactly what he needs. Reassurance.
When he shifts back to me, his eyes narrow at my still-clothed body.
“Your no-sex rule is fucked to hell.” He stalks toward me, loosening his tie. “Remove. The shirt.”
The cut of his voice makes me jump, but the heated promise beneath his gruff tone sends my fingers to the buttons. Maybe he just wants to pound all his loathing and bitterness into me, make me feel how badly I hurt him, and purge it from his system.