“Hypocritical coming from someone engaged to a man that swore he fell in love with you the moment he saw you?” he questions, sarcasm lacing every word that left his mouth.
The shock of his words cripples my ability to respond with a witty comeback. We weren’t having a good ol’ laugh throwing worms in the bottom of Ash’s school bag anymore. And my initial reaction to his cruel words does nothing to calm the sea of emotions ravaging inside me. Logan Carrington was one of them. They all came from the same seed. The seed of men that felt entitled. Screw women, move on, fuck feelings and repeat.
“Knock, knock . . . anyone home?”
“You’re a jerk,” I mutter.
I walk past him and towards the unsteady old jetty that sways along with the tide. Standing at the beginning of the broken plank, I watch the dark, murky water as the weight of Wes’s actions begins to sink in. My shoulders fall, drooping and dragging the rest of my body down. My shaking hands move to the necklace sitting on my chest—a small heart that Wes gave me on our first anniversary. Pulling the chain left and right, my anger that had crept back in and overshadowed the hurt, makes me remove the chain and with one mighty throw, it flies in the air and hits the water.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Taking steps towards me, Logan shouts through the quiet night. “You were fine until you checked your phone. Then you switched to queen bitch.”
My voice remains silenced, ignoring his use of derogatory names.
“So what? You’re too good for us now?”
I spin around, matching his stance and moving closer to intimidate him.
“I’m too good for you? How about the fact you guys think you’re too good for me? After all . . . you left me behind.” Sucking my stomach in, I take a deep breath and let it all go. “That call was my publicist. Wesley was caught fucking some hooker.”
His fiery, persistent stare turns into pity. I didn’t need Logan’s pity.
“A hooker?”
“Hookers.” I laugh deliriously. “And sniffing coke off their asses. Because God forbid you’ve got nowhere else to sniff that shit.”
My lips quiver, tears threatening to fall. I didn’t want to give Wes the satisfaction, but emotions are a powerful thing. When you think you’re strong and made out of steel, they’ll make you crumble and fall harder than you could possibly imagine.
I stare down at my hands, watching them shake as that trapped tear falls down my cheek, followed by a whole stream.
“I hate him!” I cry desperately and unable to speak coherently. “The whole world will know what he did to me. I’m stupid. So fucking stupid for ignoring every sign that stared me right in the fucking face.”
I fall to my knees; the cold dirt hitting them instantly. “Everyone told me to marry him. He wanted to get married and have kids. We argued about it all the time. I didn’t want kids yet. It’s why we got George.”
I gulp for air, my sobs uncontrollable. “He just kept pushing me and telling me our brand was everything. I just had no one to confide in. No one to tell me I was a fucking idiot for believing his lies.”
“Jesus, Emmy. Where’s your fucking backbone? Since when did you listen to a guy?” Logan criticizes me.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Mom knew most of it but I filtered out the really bad stuff. Like when he tried to switch my birth control pills to get me to fall pregnant.”
Logan gazes at me with a pained expression, lips taut without saying a word.
“It was never about me. It was about the network. They needed a story line. When the ratings dipped slightly, they wanted a scandal. What better scandal than two co-stars getting knocked up after only one season of filming?”
“So why the fuck did you stay with him? Do you know how stupid it makes you look?”
Logan’s bluntness was exactly what I needed—two years ago. Right now, his words hurt and my already-bruised ego couldn’t take any more. I wanted to crawl into a dark hole and forget the world existed. Pretend I had no life waiting or millions of fans watching my every move.
“You know what? You don’t care at all. You and Ash call yourself family yet of the few times I reached out to you, you guys didn’t give a goddamn shit.”
“I could say the same thing,” he argues back.
“When? When did you reach out to me?”
He keeps quiet, rubbing his neck with the palm of his hand while staring into the ground.
“Exactly. So don’t tell me how stupid I am. It’s bad enough I now have this on my shoulders. You putting me down doesn’t empower me when I need all the strength I can get right now. I’ve fucked up. I trusted him and look where it got me.”
“I’m sorry. What a fucking asshole!” he yells much to my surprise. “Do you want me to call my people?”