The Ruthless Gentleman

But making out with anyone wasn’t in the cards for me, and a new charter was the last thing I needed. The idea of seeing other people where Hayden and I had shared so much seemed wrong. Even though things had ended badly, I didn’t want to erase it. I just wanted the pain of not having him to drift away. I wasn’t sure that would ever happen, but I knew new guests wouldn’t help. Neither would vodka.

“Wanna come and help me pick out an outfit for tonight?” Skylar asked.

I shrugged and followed her out of the kitchen. “That pink dress you showed me the other day would be nice,” I said, trying to act as if my world hadn’t turned upside down and inside out.

I followed her into her small cabin that she shared with August and she shut the door behind us. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You don’t look okay.”

“I’m fine,” I said, taking a seat on August’s bed, dipping my head so I didn’t knock my head on Skylar’s bunk.

“So, what happened with you and Hayden? Are you going to see each other again?”

I hadn’t expected her question. We’d not discussed me and Hayden since our conversation in the laundry room. “No, of course not.”

“Of course not?” She squinted at me as she hitched up her leg and sat on August’s bed. “You must have been in love with him. Why wouldn’t you want to see him again?”

Her statement hit me like a punch to the gut. “In love with him?” I clutched at my stomach, trying to find my breath, disorientated and dizzy. “Why would you think I was in love with him?” It couldn’t be true, could it? I couldn’t have fallen in love with a man who thought I was capable of betraying him for money, someone who clearly didn’t know me at all.

My limp body and my aching heart suggested otherwise.

“Avery, you’re not that kind of girl. You wouldn’t have risked everything you’ve worked so hard for just to get laid by a pretty face.” She sighed, and a grin curled at the edges of her mouth. “Although he did have a mighty pretty face. And a gorgeous ass. And I swear, one time the breeze lifted his shirt and I got a look at—”

She stopped as I fixed her with a glare.

“I’m just saying that to have put all that on the line, he must have meant a great deal to you.”

I swallowed. I couldn’t love him, could I? I couldn’t love a person who’d treated me so cruelly. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. Why was everything so fucking unfair? I didn’t want to be in love with a man who’d left me so easily. But of course she was right. Of course I loved him. Or a version of him at least. I loved the way he seemed to want to peel back my layers and know my deepest, darkest thoughts, the way he was so driven and determined that sometimes he’d forget the time of day and the day of the week but still kept the perspective that his brother had a job far more worthy. I loved the man who was the best man I’d ever known. I would never have risked everything for anything less. But it didn’t matter what he’d meant to me. He’d hurt me. Despite what he thought, he was the one who’d betrayed me. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself not to cry. “He’s gone now. It doesn’t matter.”

“You should totally call him. You swapped numbers, right?”

I shook my head. “We had a huge fight. It’s done.”

“Tell me what happened.” Skylar pulled me into a hug and I let her. I needed someone to show me they cared in that moment.

I explained Hayden’s accusations to Skylar, and explained what really happened. Talking about it was like putting a period at the end of the relationship. I could no longer pretend to myself that things were different, that what he’d accused me of had just been some big mistake and that he’d be back soon, begging my forgiveness. It was done.

I’d never felt that irresistible pull that I had toward Hayden for anyone else. I couldn’t imagine I ever would again. No one would be able to pin me to the spot with just a look, rile me up to the point of almost coming with just a kiss. No man would ever make me feel as if it was an honor for me to share the weight of my responsibility with him. Even just talking to Hayden about my family had helped lift the burden slightly.

People like Hayden Wolf came around once in a lifetime. Things might have been different if I’d never taken that phone and business card. Maybe then, we might have found a miraculous way through the distance and contradictory lives and lifestyles, but the chance for miracles was over.