I nod. “But, once I started, I was addicted. I couldn’t stop. I ended up in jail countless times. And then, when I realized I had to stop, I couldn’t.
“But then I accidentally stole a woman who was engaged. I got her to fall for me. I saw the pain I caused her and her fiancé. I became addicted to something new. I became addicted to stealing women. I thought it was better than breaking the law. I thought I was saving these women from what was eventually going to happen later. They were going to get married and then live miserable lives that would eventually lead to divorce. I didn’t think love was real. And, if it was, I wanted them to prove it to me. Prove that love existed by staying away from me. By getting rid of me. None of them did though. Not one. They all gave in eventually.”
“Danielle and Wade would have eventually divorced. And who’s to say that she wouldn’t have gone down the same path at that point? Not that it should make you feel any better,” Sloane says.
“Don’t worry. It doesn’t. I’m done meddling in other people’s lives. I did something so unforgivable that I will be spending the rest of my life trying to make things right.”
“I did something unforgivable, too,” Sloane says in a whisper.
Her words make my heart stop. I suck in a breath.
She cheated on me. She lied to me about loving me. She set me up to hurt me in the same way that I hurt Danielle. She might have had a good reason for doing so, but what she did is still unforgivable. I can never look at Sloane again without seeing his hands on her naked body. I can never hear her moan my name again without thinking about his name escaping her lips.
We each did something unforgivable.
I look at her eyes, and my heart stops again. “You loved me. That part wasn’t a lie, was it?”
She doesn’t answer right away. But she slowly shakes her head. “It wasn’t a lie,” she whispers.
My eyes widen. I have no reason to trust this woman. She has every reason to hurt me again and again and again. And I have every reason to not trust a damn word out of her mouth. But I trust her because, if there is one thing that I know to be true, it is that we loved each other.
“You still love me?” I whisper.
“Yes,” I whisper back before biting my lip.
I hate myself for loving him. I shouldn’t love him. He is the reason my friend is gone. Or, at least, a contributing factor. Although there are countless things I could blame for her death—Wade, drugs, Asher, Danielle, and myself—blaming anyone isn’t going to bring her back.
What Danielle would have wanted, I hope, is for me to be happy. To keep living when she couldn’t.
So, as crazy and stupid as it might be for me to love Asher, to trust that he has changed, I do. Because I love him.
“Can we try this again?” Asher asks, his little fingers brushing against mine in the sand.
I grin just a little. It’s the first time I have in the weeks since I betrayed Asher. “Yes.”
Our hands grasp each other’s faces as we kiss. Our kisses are desperate, like we haven’t seen each other in years, not weeks. Our tongues tangle together as well as our bodies in the sand.
As I kiss Asher, I realize how stupid I was for following through with my plan. I would have been walking down the same path that Danielle did instead of following my heart and finding happiness.
I feel the wind blow through us as we kiss. I shiver as it does. Asher wraps his arms around me tighter, kissing me, unable to stop.
The wind blows harder, and I get sand in my eye, causing me to stop kissing him for a second. When I get the sand out, he goes in for another kiss. I hold up my hand, stopping him. The look of pain on his face is so sad, it’s almost cute.
“Are you having second thoughts?” he asks, his voice a little shaky.
I laugh because I love him so much that there is no way I could give him up, yet he still doubts how I feel. It’s going to take him longer to heal than it will take me. But then I’ve had months to heal from his betrayal, and he’s only had days to heal from mine.
“No. I just want to fuck you in a bed like normal people instead of here on the beach.”
Asher laughs, and I immediately see his insecurity leave his face. He stands up and then motions for me to climb on his back. I do, and then he carries me while I kiss his neck on the way to his car.
* * *
We make it back to my condo building without completely stripping each other naked although it was hard to keep our hands off each other. At one point, I had to sit on my hands to keep Asher from crashing the car. He said he couldn’t crash it. It wasn’t even his car.
I’ll have to ask him later where he has been sleeping since I took everything in the divorce. But I don’t want to bring up negative things like that now. Right now, I want to remember one of the reasons that I fell in love so hard with Asher. Because of what he does to my body.
But we can’t keep our hands off of each other any longer. Even though we still have to make it upstairs,