For His Brother's Wife

“Oh, my God!” Her breath caught on a sob as she thought of how cold and calculating Craig had been and how he had planned to ruin her life even before they married.

Cole stood up and began to pace the length of her bedroom as if it bothered him that he’d upset her. “That happened while I was home on spring break the year you graduated. The same week I broke Craig’s nose.”

Paige gasped. “The two of you fought over me?”

Cole shrugged. “It wasn’t much of a fight. I told him to leave you alone. It pissed me off when he said no. So I stuck out my fist and he just happened to be closer than he should have been.”

She shook her head. “I still don’t see how you thought ignoring me was going to dissuade him.”

“I had hoped that if he thought I’d lost interest in you, he would give up and leave you alone.” Cole shook his head. “That’s why I didn’t ask you out and stayed away that entire summer.”

She frowned. “You still haven’t explained why you thought that tactic would work.”

“Craig normally had the attention span of a flea,” Cole answered. “As soon as he thought he had prevented me from having what I wanted, he moved on to trying to torture me with something else. Unfortunately, that was the one time it didn’t work. Apparently, Craig saw through the ruse.”

Cole looked as if he was being truthful with her. But she’d learned the hard way that appearances could be deceiving when it came to the Richardson brothers. And it was all so sordid, she had a hard time believing what he said.

“Why didn’t you just tell me what he had planned?” she asked. “Wouldn’t that have been simpler than playing head games with him?”

“You have to remember, a twenty-year-old isn’t much more than a boy and doesn’t normally have the reasoning skills of a thirty-year-old man. Besides, I didn’t figure you would believe me,” Cole admitted. “It’s so damned twisted even I have a hard time believing how Craig’s mind worked.”

“You’re probably right.” She shook her head. “But I’ve seen the evidence. You knew what Craig was up to and were obviously in on Craig’s scheme. In the email he said it was your turn to have me because he was done and intended to move on.”

“Paige, you didn’t read all of the messages, did you?” he asked.

“No. I only made it through a couple of them and they were more than enough to make me sick. Especially after reading Craig’s journal.” She shuddered just thinking about how vile his ramblings had been.

“That’s what I thought.” Cole walked over to stand in front of her. “If you had opened the first email in the file, you would have known about what I just told you. In it, Craig was gloating about the fight failing to dissuade him and how he had succeeded in ruining any chances I’d had with you. The rest of the emails outlined what his life had been like being married to you.”

Tears filled her eyes as a thought suddenly occurred to her. “He started sending those emails almost two years ago. You’ve known all this time and you didn’t tell me,” she accused. “You must think I’m the biggest fool who ever lived.”

“I’ve never thought that about you, Paige.” Sitting down beside her, Cole shook his head. “And until I found that flash drive the day I went through those boxes from Craig’s office, I didn’t know anything that was in them. Apparently Craig hid it in the box with my trophies and probably intended to send it to me at some point in time.”

“I can’t believe that you didn’t know anything about the messages,” she stated flatly. “He sent those to you. You had to know what he was up to and the horrible things he said.”

“I have no way to prove it, but I deleted every one of them unread,” Cole answered.

“Not even one?” she asked, still skeptical.

He shook his head. “Not even one. I wasn’t interested in anything Craig had to say.” He gently took her hands in his. “Don’t you see, Paige? We’ve both been victims in Craig’s sick game for over ten years. And if we give up on what we’ve found together these past few weeks because of what he put in his journal and those messages, he’s continuing to call the shots and make us victims—he wins again.”

“What is it that you think we have together, Cole?” she asked, pulling her hands from his. Her faith had been shaken right down to the foundation and she wasn’t certain of anything anymore.