He took a step toward me. “We were bad for each other, but it was hell when she left. I’m being punished again now seeing you look at me like that.”
My defenses slid ever so slightly.
“What are you thinking, Emily? Please tell me.”
I shook my head, at a loss. I wasn’t even sure he’d told the whole story. Though, wasn’t it possible he was telling the truth? Probable, even? I’d already known it hadn’t been Reeve who’d actually killed her. Was there reason to still believe he’d had anything at all to do with her death?
“Emily?”
“I don’t know. It’s a lot to process.” The suspicious part had been that she’d gone with Vilanakis, someone who was connected to Reeve. But if Amber had left Reeve on her own, where would she have gone? To someone else who could take care of her. And if her bodyguard worked for Reeve’s uncle, then it made complete sense that she’d go to him.
Reeve took another step toward me, but didn’t try to touch me again. “Talk through it with me. We can process it together.”
“There’s nothing to talk through.” Then why would Vilanakis have emailed Reeve about her afterward?
“Emily —”
“Reeve, I just need some time to let it settle. Please.”
His jaw set. “Fine. Let it process on your own. Or settle. There’s a lot of things I need to process myself, but I’m going to sleep.” He flipped off the overhead, leaving the blaze of the fire as the only light in the room.
“You can join me when you’re done.” His voice was hard. Hurt. “Or not. I’m not going to tell you what you want to do this time.” He climbed into the bed, pulled the covers over himself, and turned his back to me.
I stood where I was for at least a full minute before I left his room and headed down the hall for mine.
CHAPTER 28
My room was still in disarray with my suitcase on the bed and my clothes half-packed. It looked like what was going on in my head – chaos, confusion, indecision. My mind was half-set like my bag was half-packed, torn between staying and leaving.
I sat on the chair at the vanity and tried to process. And settle. Tried not to cry, too. Which was silly because I’d been the one who had pushed Reeve away. He had every right to get huffy and go to sleep without me.
I wasn’t even sure if that was the source of my tearfulness. It was more likely a combination of things. What Reeve had done to Amber was horrible. Thinking about it too hard – thinking of Amber bullied into staying with a man she didn’t want to be with – made my stomach ache.
But if I was honest with myself, it really wasn’t the worst thing. Not compared to the things I’d put up with from men. Not even compared to some of the things she’d put up with from men. There was even a little part of me – a small part, but a part nonetheless – that thought maybe she deserved a little bit of discomfort. Because she could get uppity and pretentious and full of herself and it wasn’t hard to picture her driving someone to want to throttle her.
When I looked at her from Reeve’s point of view, she seemed almost obnoxious, or at the very least, a bad match. I wasn’t thinking of just the things he’d said, but also the things I knew about her and pairing it with the things I’d learned about him. Of course their sexual preferences differed, but also their tastes in other things. Reeve was comfortable in jeans on the back of a horse. Amber barely tolerated animals. Reeve swam for exercise. Amber swam to cool off before lying out again in the sun. Reeve liked to plan and dictate. And so did Amber.
None of that condones imprisonment.
No, it didn’t. But if she hadn’t been so addicted to drugs and money, she could have left at any time. And Reeve had admitted it was a mistake. Didn’t he deserve then to be forgiven? If not by her, then by me? Didn’t everyone deserve a chance to change?
He’d said that in reference to me earlier. When I’d said that Amber hadn’t believed me about Bridge, he’d defended me. I got why now. Because he understood what it was like to do something horrible and have to live with it. And he hated himself enough for it that he wanted desperately to believe that he could change. That people could change.
I didn’t think people could change. Not that much. But I also didn’t think Reeve would have gotten to the point that he had if he hadn’t been trying so impossibly to be the man that Amber had wanted.
It really was impossible for people like us – people like he and I – to be the kind of people Amber wanted. Comparing my situation to Reeve’s, I could see my life with more perspective, and I was more than a little irritated that she’d tried so hard to change me. Yes, she’d rescued me. But instead of helping me figure out how to protect myself, she’d forced me to hide.
In fact, I wasn’t just irritated. I was mad. Mad that she’d wanted me to be someone that I wasn’t. Mad that she hadn’t believed me when her boyfriend had raped me and ended my pregnancy. Mad that she’d kicked me to the curb. Mad that she’d been hooked on drugs for much of our friendship. Mad that she’d dragged me into her petty domestic dispute with Reeve. Mad that she’d tried to make him into a princess-pleaser. Mad that she’d gone and died.
Mad, now, that she was coming between me and a man who might actually be good for me. A man I might actually be able to love.
I was so mad, in fact, that I didn’t feel guilty about it like I would have expected to.
But even through my rage, I could see it for what it was and what it wasn’t. It wasn’t the kind of anger that made me love her any less. It was the kind of anger that made me wish more than ever that she were still around to work things out. The kind of anger that pinched with regret. The kind of anger that made it just a little easier to let go of some of the blame I’d been carrying around.