The chill returned, encasing my insides in ice.
“Brock felt guilty when it came to me, but it never touched on the guilt he carried because of you.” Her gaze lowered and her shoulders tightened. “I was there that night. I knew who you were when you were talking to Brock. I could see how much you cared about him, and I could see that Brock barely even noticed that you were there.” She shook her head, exhaling softly. “Anybody could’ve seen it. You left, and he stayed with me. I felt sorry for you.”
Well, that was just lovely. My fingers curled inward. The nails dug into my palms.
“I was there with him when someone came running into Mona’s screaming about someone being shot. We didn’t go outside immediately. His friends did—Colton and Reece. They ran out. I don’t remember how we heard it was you, but we did. He saw you on the ground. It was brief, because one of the brothers pushed him back, but I’ll never forget the look on his face,” she said, a distant look settling into her expression. “Like he blamed himself for me losing the baby, he blamed himself for you getting shot.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” I was quick to tell her.
“I know that. You know that. But no one, not me and not even you, could change the way he felt, especially after that Christmas when he brought me to your house. I just want to let you know, I didn’t want to go,” she said. “I didn’t want him to be there, because I knew what it would do to you and him.”
My heart turned over heavily. “Kristen, I—”
“The entire time we were together that guilt festered. It was an open wound spreading into every aspect of our life,” she interrupted as tiny darts of pain shot across my palms. “For six years, you were all that he would really talk about.”
I sucked in a sharp breath.
Her cheekbones turned pink. “He was already around your family, but I know he talked to your mom about you. I overheard them on multiple occasions, and I never said a word to him about it. I thought that if he knew that you were okay, that you were doing fine, he’d eventually let it go and fully be a part of us—of our future. He never did. And he never stopped talking about you.” She let out a bitter-sounding laugh. “How do you think that made me feel? It was worse than being with someone who was in love with someone else.”
Unable to say a word, I pressed the tips of my fingers to my lips.
“Actually, I would’ve preferred that he had loved you. At least I would have lost him to someone he loved. Not to someone he felt this twisted sense of responsibility for.” Her red lips thinned. “I even asked him, right before he ended the engagement, if he was in love with you—if he had spent six years with me loving someone else.”
The room was still whirling, and I didn’t want to hear what she was about to say, but I didn’t stop her. The woman who delivered the epic verbal bitch slap was gone. I was frozen in my chair, unable to stop this train wreck.
“He said he didn’t. Not in the way I was afraid of,” she said.
My gaze flew to hers, and I got what she was saying. I didn’t need to read between the lines. She just told me that Brock didn’t love me. Truth was, she might be right. We hadn’t exchanged those words, and finding out if he loved me or could love me the way I loved him, had always loved him, was mine to discover from him. Not from Kristen.
But it was too late.
“When he decided to retire and began talking to your father about coming down here to work, I knew he would find his way back to you—find some kind of way to make amends, assuage his guilt, and I’d had it.” Anger colored her tone for the first time. “I told him I did not want him coming down here, because not for one second did I believe that he wanted to be the GM. He was trying to find a way to get close to you. I made him choose, and he chose you and he chose his guilt. That is why we broke up.”
“Okay,” I blurted out. “This sounds crazy, and I don’t know what to say to you. I’m sorry things didn’t work out—”
“You really think I’m making this up? You’re telling me not once has he mentioned his guilt?”
Brock had.
Her chin lifted. “Has he even told you that I’ve contacted him many, many times since he moved here?”
“What?” I stiffened.
Kristen leaned forward. “I wanted to get back with him. I’m woman enough to admit that. We’ve talked it out. The weekend he came back to—”
“To finalize the sale of the house?” My stomach dropped to my toes. He’d returned looking like he hadn’t slept. Kristen had followed him. Never once did he tell me that she was trying to get back with him or that she was contacting him. “Were you two together?”
She bit down on her lip. “Part of me wants to tell you yes, because maybe, just maybe, if you shut him out of your life for good, he’ll be able to move on, to actually live, but I’m not going to lie. I tried.” She laughed again, the sound hurting and cutting all at once. “It didn’t happen and not from lack of effort.”
I sort of wanted to hit her. For real. It didn’t matter at that moment that Brock and I weren’t together then. This woman who knew I was with Brock was sitting here telling me how she was still trying to seduce him.
“What in the actual fuck?” I said. “Do you hear yourself?”
“I hear myself. Trust me.”
“Then why are you here?” I demanded. “What is the point?”
“The point is I’m trying to do you a favor. I’m trying to stop you from making the same mistake as me and stop you from making a fool out of yourself like I have.”