Shane (Damage Control 4)

“You wanted to talk to us,” Jesse says, his voice low and strained, his brows knit. “So talk.”

There’s a knot lodged in my throat. I look around for Shane, but I can’t see him. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Jesse—”

“Why?” Jesse asks. “I wanna hear it. Why did you think it was okay to force something on me although I told you many times I wasn’t interested?”

Oh God. I shrug, although my heart is pounding, and heat is spreading on my face. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Everyone’s staring at me. I swear, even the music has died down and the noise faded, leaving me in the frigging spotlight.

“JJ,” Amber whispers, putting a hand on his bicep, a faded leather bracelet hanging from her wrist. “It’s okay.”

“You treated me like a thing,” Jesse says, not tearing his gaze from me. An amulet in the shape of an animal—a lion—hangs around his neck. “That wasn’t fucking okay.”

God, he’s right. It wasn’t. Having him now in front of me, I see more clearly. See what I did to him. To them. What I almost destroyed on a whim, and all my protests, all my childish tantrums and complaints about everyone in the group shunning me sound so stupid and pathetic.

“I’m so frigging sorry,” I whisper.

Guilt is choking me. I want the earth to open and swallow me whole. Seeing them together like that... So in love. So perfect together. Now that I know, that I realize… Christ.

“Cassie,” Amber starts, “this isn’t—”

“I really am. Sorry, that is.” I blow out a breath and wish my martini was here already for some liquid courage and to give me something to do with my hands. “I know you don’t believe it, but it’s true. Jesse Lee…” I gulp. “I’d take it back if I could.”

Amber exchanges a look with Jesse, then starts again. “But the thing is—”

“And you, Amber.” I want to get it all out before they sidetrack me and before my courage deserts me. “I apologize, I just… wasn’t thinking straight. I thought I was protecting you from Jesse Lee. I thought he was…”

“I was what?” he mutters.

I shake my head. How do I explain? Where to begin? How I thought that for him sex was not important, much less a mere kiss. That I thought I was protecting her when in fact I was hurting her. Hurting them both.

That I was desperate to catch Shane’s eye, and I thought it worked, but it turns out it didn’t. He never seemed to even notice, or care.

How embarrassing. How demeaning. How frigging stupid, Cass.

God, I wish I could turn back time. Not just to that wedding reception, but much earlier in my life.

“You thought I was what?” Jesse insists, demanding to know.

He has every right. He is my judge, and my jury, and my victim all in one, and the least I can do is tell the truth.

“I thought you were like me,” I whisper, turning my face away, my eyes burning.

A hush falls around us.

“I thought that you were just like me,” I say again and stand up to go, because telling the truth is damn hard, and if I speak the words I can’t stay here with these people any longer. “That you were a loser like me, Jesse, and I was wrong.”

Turning blindly, I stumble between the tables and the chairs and the people, my only thought to get out, to get away from the awful truth:

Jesse may have worked as a prostitute once, but the cheap whore is me.

***

I stagger out of the bar as quickly as my heels allow me without faceplanting and pull my coat closed over my breasts and my short dress. What was I thinking, dressing like this?

Shane. I thought Shane would be here, but it’s not like he has ever shown any interest in my body, so that’s pretty lame. Then again, I usually dress like this when I go out. I like having men’s attention. It makes me feel powerful. Desirable.

Wanted.