36. Wade

The burn of whiskey sliding down my throat did absolutely nothing to soothe the unending ache in my chest. I grimaced at the taste of water, the ice cube tickling my lips, and set the glass down. I'd never let Jackson order for me again. He'd gone soft.

"I do feel a little guilty," Jack chuckled. "Cassie's learned how to stand on two feet and how to make them work. We have to keep an eye on her constantly. Mandy should be fine by herself for an hour or so, though."

"Can't imagine the stress," I deadpanned. The ice in my glass clinked as the cubes moved around. For some reason, they were far more interesting to look at than anything else.

"She told me about the conversation you guys had back at the resort," Jack said, his voice a little softer. "And I heard about the accident."

I steeled my jaw. "Doesn't matter."

"It does."

"Does it?" I snapped, turning my head toward him. "She certainly doesn't seem to think so."

"You don't know that." Jack sighed. "What's happened since the wedding? Mandy said something about a necklace?"

I felt the muscles in my face contract as the memory of it flashed behind my eyes. "I gave her a diamond necklace. Then she overheard me talking to my stepbrother. Unfortunately, the conversation got heated and I told Zane that what Ray and I had wasn't real, it was only a means to an end, to get the investment. He was threatening to out us to Alec. I've tried to tell her that it was a lie to get him off my back, but everything changed that night. She gave me back the necklace and became really reclusive."

"Just sounds like you need to talk to her, to get things sorted out."

The glass clanged against my front teeth as I knocked the rest of the whiskey back. I didn't want to be having this conversation, and in actuality, I would have rather been speaking to Mandy. She was always the one who understood the softer side of things even if I didn't. Jack, even though he was my best friend, could be clueless sometimes.

"We have talked. Hell, we even fucked the night of the accident. I thought we were back on track, that things were going to be okay. That was before all of this Hunter bullshit."

"Hunter?"

"You might have met him at the wedding," I clarified. "He spent the entire time clinging to Zane's hip. He owns some agricultural empire or some shit. Ray was talking to him with too big of a smile, if you get what I mean."

Jack's brows furrowed as he spun the ice and whiskey in his glass, watering it down thoroughly. I cringed. "Talking doesn't mean anything."

"Yeah, well, when she had the accident Zane was the one that called me. She happened to crash just outside of Hunter's ranch."

"She could have just been passing by it," Jack said. "You don't have to immediately think the worst of her."

"What else am I supposed to think?" I shot back. "Zane made it pretty fucking clear. Hunter's the one that found her. He's the one who called the ambulance. That should have been me. I should have been there for her."

"Since when have you trusted anything that comes out of Zane's mouth?" He sat back in his high-top seat, the leather crunching under his weight. "You clearly love her. It's obvious. You have to keep trying."

"After that?" I scoffed. "I don't want her if that's what she's been up to."

"This could all be just one big coincidence. You have to consider that, man. There's no way she was seeing him."

My irritation, my anger, my hurt was getting the better of me. I knew that what he said was true. I owed it to her to hear her out, to talk to her and ask what had happened, but she'd made no effort to communicate with me since the accident. She had shut me out entirely.

I needed time to think. I needed to decide if it was even worth the potential heartbreak of hearing what she had to say. Sometimes, especially in my life, things were better left unsaid.

————

For the entirety of the last hour of work, I stared at my clock. I listened to it tick, the tiny vibrations as the handles inched closer to five o'clock.

Five minutes before, I stood.

The light in Ray's office was on. She'd pulled the blinds down two weeks ago and hadn't touched them since but I could see the tiny bit of light through the slats. That didn't necessarily mean she was in there, she could have forgotten to turn the light off, but I had the confidence and I felt prepared. I hoped to God she was in there.

I stepped over to Ray's office and stood outside the door, my hand hesitating on the handle. Turn it. Do it.

But it opened before I got the chance to.

"Jesus," Ray gasped, stumbling back a step. "You scared the shit out of me."

Don't chicken out now. "We need to talk," I said.

Her eyes narrowed. "Would this be a personal conversation or professional?"

"Considering you're on the clock for another four minutes, it's professional." I took a step through the open door, forcing her back, and shut it behind me. She clutched her bag between her fingers as she leaned back against her desk. "Were you leaving?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

She bit her lip as she looked anywhere other than at me. "I didn't want to see you."

I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest, the back of my suit pulling uncomfortably. "At least you're honest… sometimes."

"For fucks sake, Wade, just say what you need to say or I'm going home." Her knuckles went white around the straps of her bag.

I'd known what I wanted to say when I'd gotten up from my chair. I'd practiced it over and over in my mind all day, figured out the exact ways I wanted to phrase it, the ways I wanted to push her buttons. However, all of it eluded me in that moment.

"Why did you leave me?"

Her brows furrowed. "What?"

"That night. Why did you leave? I woke up and you were gone. Why?"

The air in the room shifted. "I… I needed some space. I wanted to go for a drive to clear my head. I realized what was happening and I didn't want to breathe the same air as you while I sorted myself out."

"Are you fucking Hunter?" I asked, the words leaving my lips before I could stop them. Confusion flickered across her face as she finally dragged her gaze back to me. "Tell me, Raylene. I need the truth."

"I'm not fucking Hunter," she said, the words oozing with disdain.

"That's not what Zane said," I scoffed. "He said you drove out there. That's why you crashed by his ranch. He said you called him ‘baby'when you came to after the wreck." Her face paled. I took a step toward her, that same anger flaring again, backed by every drop of anguish and pain I'd felt for nearly a month. "Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying!" she snapped. "Zane is the one lying to you. Since when do you trust his word over mine?"

Since when have you ever trusted Zane? Jack's words echoed in my mind around Ray's. That was twice, now, that someone had insisted I shouldn't trust him. And in fairness, I never had. Evidence was piling up fast, but it still didn't explain why she was there.

"Do you know how much you're hurting me?" I rasped. Pushing my fingers through my hair, I took a step back, putting a few extra feet of space between us. Now I was the one needing to breathe. "Do you understand for one second the hell you're putting me through? I have no idea what to believe, no idea what you believe."

"You're hurting me, too."

"I thought you understood when I explained why I said what I did to Zane. Was any of that real, Ray? Or were you too scared to come clean and tell me the truth?"

"It was real for me," she insisted.

"Then why were you with him?" I shouted. My anger, my pain, was beginning to boil over. I wasn't getting enough from her, wasn't getting what I needed to hear to be done with it. There was nothing that would stop me at that point—not the surprise on her face, not the workers that no doubt could hear us. "Why were you there?"

"I told you already!" she said. "Why didn't you contact me after the accident? Why didn't you care if I was okay?"

"Because I was under the fucking impression that you were seeing Hunter!"

"And that means I'm dead to you?"

"It means you had someone there already." The words came out as a snarl through my bared teeth as I stalked toward her. Her bag hit the ground as I closed the distance, less than a foot of space between us. I could hear her shaky breaths, could see the way her chest rose and fell. "It means that you didn't want me around."

"How could you ever think that?" Her words slowly filled with venom. "You honestly think I'm capable of that? I told you, Wade, I went on a drivebecause I'd fallen right back into your sorry little trap again. I needed to clear my head. I needed to think about what I'd done to myself and how you'd dragged me back into a place you knew damn well would only hurt me. I wasn't aiming for Hunter's ranch, you dickhead. He lives off Boulder Canyon for God"s sake, it's a popular road!"

I recoiled just an inch. I wasn't aware of that, had no idea where his farm was. For all I knew, it was out in the middle of nowhere, not off a major road like Boulder Canyon.

"I'm better on my own," she mumbled into the silence. "There's too much at stake to keep going back and forth with you like this."

My mind spun as I looked down at her. Every perfect curl in its place, every perfect freckle peeking through her makeup. Just observing her was enough to overwhelm me entirely, enough to tighten the rigidness in my chest. I didn't want to be Tom Buchanan to her, didn't want to be someone who only brought her pain.

But Daisy didn't have a happy ending. None of them did.

"What do you mean?" I asked, closing that distance once again. I'd gone soft in a moment of confusion. I'd lost my edge. All I could do was take her face in my hands, relish in the calm for just a moment. "Please, baby, tell me what you mean."

"Don't," she whispered. Her eyes glistened as she turned them from me, every muscle in her body shivering. "Please. I can't keep doing this. This has to end."

"If you're not with him, I don't want this to end," I insisted.

"You only want me when I'm useful to you," she croaked. "You want me when I serve a purpose, whether that's sex or an investment."

"That's not true," I insisted. "Ray. That isn't true, I swear it."

She shook her head in my hands, tears building in her eyes. Mascara mixed with the dampness, pooling in her tear ducts and leaving little streaks by her nose. "Please just stay away from me. I'll find a new job. I'll get out of here. I just need you to stay away."

"I can't do that," I mumbled. "I won't do that. Not when it's you. I meant every word I said, Ray. I love you, that is real. And I'm not going to stop fighting for that, for us."

"It's not real," she sobbed. Her arms wrapped around her small frame, hugging herself, calming herself, and every gasp of air she took in only broke my heart further. "It's not real for you."

"It is real for me." I fought the rising anger at her insistence. "And if it was for you, too, then I will fight every fucking day until this is fixed."