“Well, you’ve said a lot of horrible things. Something about my mom being right to blame me and erase me from her life. Oh, and that you hate me. And my favorite was the recent dig at my brief reliance on alcohol.”
Michael exhaled and rubbed a hand over his head. “I’m sorry. You just … turning up like this has brought a lot of crap back for me, and it’s made me crazy. I’m saying and doing fucked-up things—”
“That’s not an excuse,” I cried softly. “You don’t get to hurt me like that and say it’s because I make you crazy. And don’t blame me for your actions either. Your actions are your own, and I’m not taking responsibility for them.”
“I know!” He threw his hands in the air. “Don’t you think I fuckin’ know that? I hate myself for what I’ve said. For what I’ve done. But it was never intentional. It just happened in the moment.”
I scoffed. “Nina wasn’t intentional? You knew I would be there and you took a stab in the dark and thought, ‘Hey, I know what I’ll do to kick her in the gut even more. I’ll bring a younger model and show her I’ve moved on!’ Well, news flash, Michael, I already knew that! I met your wife, remember?”
“Ex-wife,” he bit out, taking a step toward me. His whole being bristled with contempt. “I’m not going to apologize for marrying Kiersten. You left! You fuckin’ left, and you didn’t come back! And don’t even pretend you haven’t been with other men.”
I narrowed my eyes because he was avoiding the topic of Nina. “Well, a girl has needs too.”
His features grew taut, and he took another somewhat menacing step toward me. Refusing to be intimidated, I stayed where I was. “Yeah? You fuck any of them without thinking about me?”
My skin flushed with outrage because he wasn’t wrong. There had been only one man in the last nine years who made me temporarily forget the heat I had with Michael. But when we were out of bed, I couldn’t forget. So I’d let that man go too.
He looked smug as he said, “I’m right, aren’t I?”
Was I to assume he always thought of me when he was with his wife? With other women? I thought not. “There was someone,” I whispered. “He made me forget.”
That stopped Michael in his tracks. Distress he couldn’t hide flashed across his face, and a flare of pain panged in my chest. “You still with him?”
“No.”
“Did he leave you or did you leave him?”
I shrugged. “What does it matter? This isn’t important.”
“Did you leave him or did he leave you?”
“Michael—”
“Answer the question, Dahlia.”
I could feel that familiar electricity zinging through me the nearer he got. “I left him.”
His shoulders seemed to relax, but he whispered, “Seems you have that habit.”
“Is that why you wanted me here? To get in a few more hits? Because you aren’t perfect, Michael. You aren’t blameless!”
“What the hell does that mean? Are you talking about Dillon?”
“You made a mistake then. I made a mistake too. But I let it go, and you didn’t.”
“Your mistake kept you away for nine fuckin’ years!”
That was it. Something inside of me cracked. “You’re a cop!” I screamed, my chest heaving and shuddering. I lowered
my voice, the words hoarse from my shriek. “You’re a fuckin’ detective, and you’re telling me you couldn’t have found me even if you’d wanted to?”
He flinched like I’d slapped him, staring at me with those soulful eyes that made me want to die.
“Why did you bring Nina?” I repeated.
“Because I’m a dick. She’s a friend. She’s also gay. She was at the station when Dermot asked me out for drinks, and I knew by the shifty way he was acting that you’d be there. So I asked Nina to pretend to be my date. I was so busy trying to make sure I was okay going into that situation, I convinced myself you wouldn’t care.”
Relief I didn’t want to acknowledge made me relax a little, knowing he hadn’t screwed over Nina to get at me. Also, her focused interest in Bailey made more sense now.