Enemy Dearest

When I emerge, he’s out cold.

I find my clothes and get dressed quietly so as not to wake him. Before I leave, I scribble a note on a slip of paper and leave it on the pillow beside him as I fight a threat of tears and the cruel words circling my mind, mocking me for thinking for a split second we had something real, that he was different.

He’s not worth the anguish.

He got what he wanted, now so will I.

Chapter Twenty-One

August

* * *

The other side of the bed is cold when I wake. There’s no indentation in the pillow indicating she stayed the night—only a slip of paper with something scribbled on the front.

CENTURION NURSING AND HOME HEALTH SERVICES 555-3389

I crumple the paper and toss it aside. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her yet, but I’d already aligned a home health worker through the same agency, which is supposedly the best in town. I requested their top nurse. And even threw in a bonus if they could start first thing Monday.

It was going to be a surprise, a show of good faith since our little arrangement was taking so long. I thought it’d help things along. But last night when she came over, we went from talking about her father’s alleged affair with her childhood babysitter to fucking and there wasn’t much time for anything else.

Either way, it’s done.

I will forever own the priceless honor of having tainted and deflowered Rich Rose’s precious daughter, and she can run off to college not having to worry about her mom.

Shuffling to the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face and brush up. The man staring back at me from the mirror doesn’t wear the smug satisfaction I thought he would after completing this mission.

I took things slow with Sheridan last night—for her sake. At least in the beginning. I didn’t want to scare her away with any ridiculous porn star positions, nor did I want to fuck her like some dead fish sex doll. That wouldn’t have been enjoyable for either of us.

Her body was warm and pliable in my hands, willing to do anything I wanted, eager to please and be pleased. But somewhere along the line, I realized I was enjoying it … in a different way. It’s like someone flipped a switch, and I was no longer fantasizing about avenging our family’s legacy—I was picturing the two of us together.

And not just fucking.

In my head, we were going to the movies, ambling around the mall hand in hand, taking weekend getaways … normal couple shit.

So I fucked her harder, as if each time I filled her to the hilt it would jostle one of those ridiculous thoughts from my head. But it didn’t work. All I could focus on was how natural it felt to be with her and how soon I’d be able to see her again. Bullshit lovesick nonsense.

None of it made sense—and the obsessive fantasizing refused to stop.

So when she lifted a tender palm to my face and tried to kiss me like that moment meant something, I lost it.

That’s when I flipped her to her stomach and took her from behind, pressing her face against the pillow so I didn’t have to look at those radiant, hopeful, innocent blue eyes. Eyes that should belong to a white-collar nobody with aspirations of buying a cookie cutter house in the suburbs and starting a family with her so they can line their walls with perfect portraits of their two-point-five kids—not a spoiled rich kid with a heart of coal..

In a flash of a moment, I imagine Sheridan as a wife and mother. Doting. Kindhearted. Loving and loyal. I picture her mending scraped knees, reading bedtime stories, checking for fevers, and wiping tears.

My chest burns, swelling with ancient emotions that I force into the depths of my soul where they belong. And the voice that reminds me no one has ever shed a tear over me or worried about me or given two shits about me—I tell it to shut the fuck up.

Even if we weren’t who we are, even if we didn’t share tangled pasts, even if the universe hadn’t conspired to keep us apart our entire lives—I’d still be the wrong guy for her.

At the end of the day, she deserves a man who can love her. And because you can’t give something you’ve never received … that man will never be me.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sheridan

* * *

“Do you remember that babysitter we had way back when? Kara something?” I ask Dad over dinner the next day.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t react.

“Ah, yes. Kara Tindall,” Mom says. She perks up in her chair. “I remember her well. Very sweet girl. A little misdirected, I think. But very kind.”

“Wonder what she’s up to these days?” I ask.