My hands tremble as I hit the doorbell on Cabin One.
I have no idea if he’s home. If he’s alone.
Please be alone.
The door opens up and a freshly showered Henry stands there.
“You lied to me.” It’s barely a whisper.
He says nothing, stepping back to allow me in. I walk through, inhaling his cologne with a shaky breath. I haven’t been in here since the day I discovered him gone. It looks the exact same.
The desk he laid me out on is still there, with his laptop set up on it.
The dining table he tied my wrists up on now holds dishes from room service.
Henry strolls past me, seemingly unconcerned. “Miles!”
A young, brown-haired guy who I’ve seen around pokes his head through the service entrance door. “Yes, Mr. Wolf?”
“You can call it a day. Please be back tomorrow at 8:00 a.m.”
“Yes, sir.” He disappears. Moment later I hear the door shut. I peer out the small window by the front door to see him trudging along the covered path.
“He’s not the type to eavesdrop, if that’s what you’re worried about.” A tiny smirk curls Henry’s lip, but otherwise he shows me nothing.
I can’t even begin to know how to approach this the right way, so I don’t bother. I just blurt out, “You lied to me. You told me that you slept with her, but you didn’t.” My voice breaks at the end.
His eyes graze over me. “Isn’t that what you wanted to hear?”
“What? Why on earth would I want to think that you slept with someone else? You should have told me the truth!”
He pauses, his fingers on a glass. Of water, it seems. The decanter of scotch remains untouched. “All I’ve ever told you is the truth, Abbi. I told you things would be different for a few days. I told you that I didn’t have time for jealousy. I told you that I didn’t fuck anyone on Friday night. I told you that my brother is a liar and manipulator. I told you that I wouldn’t beg you to believe me.” He fires the list off without pause, as if he’s got them itemized on a sheet of paper, the anger seeping through his words. But then he falters. “I told you that I trusted you. All of these things were the truth. Truth that you chose to either ignore or interpret differently.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. He did tell me all those things. “You should have told me the truth about what happened that night.”
“Why?”
“Because then I wouldn’t have hated you so much.”
He steps closer to me. “I figured it would hurt you less than telling you the truth. That, while you were lying under Michael, letting him fuck you, I was sitting in my cabin alone, considering whether I should be selfish and fire you as a Wolf employee so I could keep you for myself and avoid all this hassle.”
His words are a kick to my stomach.
It finally clicks.
Henry didn’t cheat on me.
Technically, I cheated on him.
Tears fall freely now. I don’t bother holding them back. This is all my fault. I fucked up. I messed everything up between us.
“Did I want to hurt you?” Henry watches a tear slide down my cheek, but he doesn’t reach up to catch it, to wipe it away. “Yeah, I did. Because I was angry. At you. At myself. Had I known you’d run off and fuck the first guy who put his arm around you, maybe I would have handled things differently.” His jaw tenses. “Never in a million years did I think you’d go and do something like that. You surprised me, Abbi, and not in a good way. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Tears spill from my eyes. “I saw you leave with them. I thought—”
“I told you I wouldn’t, Abbi. But that wasn’t enough for you.” A brief wave of emotion flares in his eyes before he’s able to get it under control, to ice me out. “And then you tried to threaten me, something else I never thought you’d do. So I did and said some things that I can’t ever take back.” He sighs. “And now there’s no going back. There’s no fixing it.”
I try to stifle my cries with a hand over my mouth, his words stripping away the anger and blame I’ve used as a shield, leaving me unprotected and raw.
I wanted a miracle, a reason to believe Henry wasn’t all bad. He’s just given it to me, and it doesn’t matter. I screwed up with Henry. Oh God, I screwed up so badly.
“I’m so sorry,” I manage to get out through my sobs before I bolt out the door.
~ ~ ~
Whispers surround my privacy curtain. I hear their questions, their concern, but I stay curled up in a ball, facing the wall, and no one bothers me. Not after I screamed at Tillie, telling her to mind her own damn business and stop looking for gossip.
This hurts a million times more than thinking that Henry cheated on me.
I cheated on him.
I mean, we weren’t technically “officially” an exclusive item.
But he trusted me to believe him and not go and sleep with another guy, and I did exactly that. I fucked everything up. I caused this pain. Me, who was crushed by Jed only months earlier for sleeping with another girl.
My head tells me that it’s nothing like what Jed did to me, because Jed and I were getting married. Jed and I shared a childhood of memories and promises, of plans. We already had a life. There was no doubt that we were exclusive and committed to each other.
And yet, down to my core—and every fiber of my body—I know that Henry owned me from the first time I gazed into his eyes, my head spinning from alcohol, my heart spinning from betrayal.
What have I done?
A knock sounds on the door and a moment later, angry voices.
“Is this because of you?” Katie hisses.
A guy sighs. “Yeah.”
I immediately recognize Ronan’s voice.
“You are such a dick!” The sound of skin slapping against skin ricochets through the cabin. “Make it better.”
The curtain shifts and, a moment later, weight hits my mattress as Ronan crawls toward me to stretch out next to me. I can see the red mark where Katie’s hand made contact with his cheek. It must have hurt, but he doesn’t show it, wedging his arm under my head and pulling me against him. He leans in to place a soft kiss on my mouth.
I pull away. “Don’t, Ronan. I’m not in the—”
“Shut up.” He brushes the hair off my face. “I’m not here for that. I’m not Aspen.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t think I’ve ever regretted anything so much as that night.
Ronan’s arms tighten around me, pulling my face into his chest, the smell of his soap comforting.
“You took the blame with them,” I whisper, my fingertips sliding over his cheek.
He shrugs. “I’m sure I’ve already earned it somewhere. Now cry all you want, red. I’m not going anywhere tonight.”
And I do, muffling my sobs against his t-shirt, soaking the cotton material.
I cry over Henry and what can never be fixed.
