Nothing But This (Broken Pieces 2)

He wasn’t sure when the affair had started. They had always been close. Always been such good friends. It had grated . . . how often Greyson had come home to find him there. So comfortable in Greyson’s home and so at ease with his new wife.

Greyson strode blindly toward the elevator. He was grateful to find himself alone in the metal cubicle once the doors slid shut. He leaned back against the wall and gripped the railing so tightly his palms hurt.

He longed to get home. Longed to close himself off from the world and break something. No. Break everything.

He thought back to the moment he’d absolutely known they were cheating. That day he had seen them having lunch together in an exclusive restaurant. Heads bowed; talking, laughing, whispering . . . so clearly delighted to be in each other’s company. Neither of them had ever been that easy in his company. They hadn’t seen him, and he hadn’t approached them. When he had asked her over dinner what she had done that day, she had lied to him. Blatantly lied. Said she’d had lunch with Tina.

Of course they were cheating on him. Why the fuck else would she lie about having lunch with Harris when she saw him all the time?

The elevator dinged open, and he blindly strode out and toward his car. He climbed in but didn’t start the vehicle; he merely sat behind the wheel, staring blankly out at the almost-deserted basement parking lot.

Greyson hadn’t confronted her about the lie, but that was when he had started retreating. His and Harris’s birthday had been just a few days after that . . . but, knowing that she would feel obligated to celebrate the occasion with him, he had fabricated a two-day business trip on their birthday weekend. He had hated the thought of playing nice with her and Harris. Had absolutely despised the idea of pretending that everything was fine when his life was falling apart at the seams.

After his return from the unnecessary trip, she had presented her news to him like it was some bizarre belated birthday present. He vaguely recalled her nattering on about wanting to surprise him with the news on his birthday. But in the shock of the moment, he hadn’t been paying much attention to anything else she’d had to say. Greyson had loathed the idea of that baby. Of everything it represented.

The baby was here now. And he was shaken to the core by how very much he had found himself wishing that the lie Olivia had concocted was the truth. He had watched, unseen for a few moments, while she had breastfed the baby. And had wished—desperately wished—he had been the one to give her that child.

Harris had given her the one thing Greyson never could. And seeing how happy she was with that baby in her arms made him feel even more inadequate than he had when he had realized that she’d been unfaithful to him. He had never made her that happy. Could never make her that happy.

When Harris returned half an hour later after a pleading phone call from her, Libby simply burst into tears. Harris’s appearance—so painfully identical to her husband’s—finally pushed her over the edge.

“What’s this? What’s wrong, Bug? Is the baby okay?” he asked, all concern, as he wrapped her in his arms. It took a while for her to get the story out, and by the time he managed to decipher exactly what it was she was saying in between the sobbing and stuttering, he had dropped his arms and was staring at her with an incredulous, infuriated expression on his face.

“Wait, are you telling me my idiot brother doesn’t believe that the baby is his?” he asked, searching for complete clarification. And a fresh stab of hurt and humiliation hit her as she nodded.

“What the fuck?” Harris muttered beneath his breath and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. He glared at the floor, shaking his head, obviously as confused by this as she was.

“H-he says he’s infertile,” Libby whispered, plucking a tissue from a conveniently placed box on the bedside table and blowing her nose messily. “I don’t understand this at all. I swear to you, I haven’t slept with anyone else.”

“Libby, I wasn’t even thinking that,” Harris promised, and his resolute faith in her made her resent Greyson’s lack of trust even more. “Look, we’ll get to the bottom of this, okay? There has to be some kind of misunderstanding.”

“No misunderstanding at all. Your brother’s an asshole, and I’m ending this disaster of a marriage as soon as I can.”

“No. You can’t do that. Just give him a chance to fix this.”

“Harris, what does it say that you’re here fighting for his marriage while he hasn’t even bothered to touch his own child? Don’t you get how completely bizarre that is? I don’t care about his reasoning—we never should have married. I don’t know why he pushed for it in the first place.”