Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Six

Standing near the mirrored wall of the ballroom, I carefully scanned the large space. Where possible, I avoided working Christmas Eve. It wasn’t always easy, since a lot of people liked to throw parties on this particular day. Unfortunately, this was one of those years.

It also happened to be a fancy dress shindig. Women were required to wear bridal gowns, and men were required to slip on groom attire.

That included the people working the event.

As such, there I stood in my wedding dress. And I had to admit, I liked having an excuse to wear it again. Beside me, Sabrina wore an over-the-top, puffy monstrosity that she’d hired for the evening. She looked ridiculous; knew it; embraced it.

I glanced down at my watch. Another few hours to go. I was looking forward to getting home—and not simply because Dax had expressed an intention to replay our wedding night while I wore my gown. I liked to spend Christmas Eve at home, chilling and watching TV and all that holiday jazz.

I was familiar with several of the party guests, including my ex-boyfriend, Beckett. He’d earlier flashed me a friendly smile, introduced me to his girlfriend, asked me to pass on his regards to Dax, and then swanned away. It was a shame things couldn’t be so easy with Grayden, who also happened to be here and was pointedly avoiding making eye-contact with me. We’d only clashed gazes once, and his face had instantly adopted a petulant look.

Sabrina nudged me. “So, what did you get me for Christmas?”

Repositioning my headset, I threw her a quick look. “You’ll find out tomorrow.”

She pouted. “Why not just tell me now?”

“Why not just accept I’m never going to spoil the surprise that way?” I retorted. She pestered me every damn year to spill the beans before C day arrived.

She tossed me a hmph. “What did you get Dax?”

“Stuff he probably won’t be impressed by, but I figure it’s the thought that counts.”

Her mouth curled. “Just think … it’ll not only be your first Christmas together, it’ll probably be the first Christmas you guys spend alone—you’ll likely be up the duff this time next year. Oh, I do love that smile you’re wearing right now.”

I shrugged a shoulder. “What’s not to smile about?”

Her own smile dimmed as something to our left caught her attention. “Maybe that,” she replied.

Tracking her gaze, I felt my lips part at the sight of Mimi striding into the ballroom. “She cannot be serious coming here. She’s not even supposed to be in Redwater.” Going by her unsteady gait, she wasn’t entirely sober.

“Well, she is. And I’m guessing it’s you she’s looking for.” Sabrina spat a low curse. “Let’s get her out of here as fast as possible.”

We both made a fast beeline for the woman, who was already attracting attention for the mere reason that—wearing jeans and a thin sweater—she wasn’t adhering to the dress code.

Ordinarily, a security detail would have addressed the situation, but our clients hadn’t requested any for their event. Right at that moment, I couldn’t be more annoyed by that.

The moment Mimi spotted me, her mouth set into an ugly smirk that held a pinch of smugness. “Ah, there you are,” she said, a slight slur to her voice.

I would have asked how she’d known where to find me if it wasn’t far more important I get her out of this ballroom before the hosts took notice. “How about we go get some fresh air?”

“No,” she snapped with a childlike pout. “I wanna talk here.”

I felt my lips tighten. “If you have a single bit of common sense, you’ll leave right now.”

She snickered and gave me a haughty onceover. “Why, whatcha gonna do if I don’t?”

Sabrina shook her head at the woman. “You have to know you made a colossal mistake coming near Addison. Dax is going to freaking flip. Don’t make the situation worse. Just leave quietly.”

Mimi notched up her chin, belligerent. “Hmm, nah.”

Right then, Grayden materialized. “Mimi, what the hell are you doing here?”

She frowned at him. “Talking to Addison. What’s it look like I’m doing?”

“It looks like you’re pushing Dax’s buttons again,” he clipped. “I thought you wanted to fix things.”

“I did,” she whined. “I do. I just … I … You know what? Fuck him.”

Sighing, Grayden rubbed at his forehead. “If you don’t abandon whatever plan you have in your head right now, you risk losing him for good.”

She snorted. “What? No. Me and Dax … we’re, like, tied.”

Tied?

“By what?” he asked, bewildered.

“By what we lost, duh.”

Static sounded through my headset, and then … “The sheriff is here with one of his deputies, Addie,” said Megan. “He says they have questions for you. I tried getting him to leave, but he won’t.”

Lowe? Unbelievable. Seriously unbelievable.

I wondered if he was here about Thaddeus. Probably. I wasn’t sure what exact personal form of justice Dax had visited upon him yesterday, but I felt confident that Thaddeus would be in a bad state. Maybe he’d tattled, or it could be that Lowe merely suspected Dax was responsible.

Whatever the case, I would bet that the sheriff’s reason for coming to question me at an event was quite simply that the police presence would shit on my company’s reputation—thus avenging his niece.

I felt a serious clusterfuck coming on.

Sabrina leaned into me. “You get rid of her, I’ll get rid of Lowe,” she said, having obviously overheard Megan through her own headset.

Grayden looked from me to a retreating Sabrina. “Lowe? Lowe is here?”

I sighed. “Yes. Maybe you could help my friend convince him to leave.” Because the sheriff turning up would gain far more attention than Mimi’s antics. “We both know he’s sought me out here as a high-five to your wife, after all.” Ex-wife. Whatever.

Muttering something beneath his breath, Grayden jogged after Sabrina.

“Let’s go somewhere private,” I urged Mimi.

She shot me a petulantly stubborn look. “Uh, let’s not.”

Lord give me strength. “You have two choices. You can come with me, and then we’ll talk. Or you can refuse, and I’ll have you thrown out. Makes no difference to me either way.” I walked off, leaving her the choice to follow. Thankfully, she followed, not sensing that I was only calling her bluff.

Since the nearest room happened to be the ladies restroom, I slipped inside, conscious of her still trailing behind me. Quickly realizing it was empty, I stopped near the end stall and swerved to face her.

Mimi gave me yet another onceover, sullen. “That the dress you wore for your wedding?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Little understated, ain’t it?” she sniped. “But then … I guess there’d be no point in getting all dolled-up for a ceremony that has no real meaning behind it. Right?”

My scalp prickled. Had she somehow heard about the pact? Possibly, though I didn’t see how. “What is it you want?”

Turning to the mirror, she dabbed at the corner of her mouth, as if wiping away smudged lipstick. “I had myself an itty, bitty chat with Felicity.”

And the pieces fell together.

Facing me once more, Mimi folded her arms and grinned. “I know.”

“You know what?”

“Why Dax married you. Why you married him. Why he gave you what he gave no one else.” Her grin went up a notch. “You guys made a pact.”

“That’s why you went through the trouble of tracking me down and gatecrashing this party? Just so you could inform me you learned of the pact?”

“Girl, it was no trouble to track ya down. This party is an annual thing—I heard months ago that your company was managing it this year. As for why I came … no, it wasn’t just to tell you I ain’t in the dark anymore, or even to laugh at how ridiculous you are for marrying a guy who cares zilch for you.”

She sure didn’t sound as though she found me ridiculous. No, there was a fair amount of spite there.

“I get a little maudlin during the holidays, so I was flicking through some old photos earlier of me and Gracie while I set about getting smashed.” Despair washed over her face, sweeping away every trace of smugness. “I found one of her and Dax looking so fucking happy. In that picture, ’cause of the angle and lighting and stuff … it actually looked more like me than her.”

And Mimi had seen exactly how she and Dax could have looked together as a loved-up couple if things were different.

“He never gave me the chance to make him that happy, because he doesn’t wanna be happy. But someone coulda changed that. Maybe not me, no, but somebody.” Her eyes blazed into mine. “You are in the way of that. By tyin’ him to you, you’ve taken away his shot at that future. And fuck, I got mad thinking about it.”

I snorted, all out of patience when it came to this woman. “You’re not mad that I took such a future from him. You’re mad that I took it from you. That’s how you see it, because that’s how you want to see it. Then you can tell yourself I’m to blame for why he’ll never commit to you; why there’ll never be a picture of the two of you looking like the besotted couple he and Gracie were. It hurts less that way, doesn’t it?”

“But it doesn’t hurt you, does it? You don’t care that the messed up reason he committed to you is that he doesn’t care for you. You’re wasting time outa his life.”

“And you’re wasting time out of yours by sniffing around a guy who’ll never want you.” When was that going to get through her head? “You came to the wrong person tonight. It’s Dax you should be talking to, because I’m sure the question on your mind is … If he was intent on marrying someone he didn’t care for, why didn’t he just marry you?”

Her face reddened. “Fuck you!” she shouted. “Fuck! You!”

The door opened a few inches, and several voices filtered into the room. Lowe. Sabrina. Grayden. Megan. A male voice I didn’t recognize.

I gritted my teeth. Oh, for shit’s sake.

Lowe entered first, talking over his shoulder to Grayden. No, arguing with him. Grayden was speaking in what I called his “lawyer voice,” attempting to convince the sheriff to leave.

Lowe didn’t.

Instead, he scanned the restroom, his eyes lighting up as they landed on me. “There you are.” He glanced from me to Mimi. “I knew I heard someone yelling.”

Fuck that bitch for practically leading him to us.

As he and Grayden went back to arguing, Sabrina threw me an apologetic look and mouthed, “I called Dax, he’s on his way.”

Good. He could end this scene with just a few words—well, threats. Using my headset, I told her, “Go wait for him.” Someone would need to tell him where to find us. “Have Megan hold the fort.”

Both women disappeared, closing the door behind them so no party guests would overhear anything.

Turning my attention back to the others in the room, I sighed.

This was probably what would be called a soap opera moment. I mean, I was standing in a ladies restroom … wearing a bridal gown … being smirked at by a woman who coveted my husband … while my ex-boyfriend and the local sheriff argued a few feet away.

Not that weirder things hadn’t happened in my life. Particularly in the past year. After all, it wasn’t every day that you legally bound yourself to an ex-lover as part of a fallback marriage pact.

I looked at Mimi. “We’ll talk again soon.” I waved my hand at the door.

Still smirking, the brunette folded her arms and gave a little head flick that made her chin-length layers dance around her face. “I’d prefer to stay. This looks like it might be fun.”

God, I needed to cut that bitch up at some point.

For now, I switched my attention back to the two men who were deep in an argument. A deputy sheriff looked on, seeming intent on not getting involved—well, most cops swerved getting on my husband’s bad side, and this little scene would sure piss him off.

“I’m only here to ask her some questions, Grayden,” the sheriff insisted, his large fists perched on his stout hips. “She doesn’t need a lawyer present. And if she did, you wouldn’t be able to act as one for her—it would be a conflict of interests, given your past history.”

“I’m not leaving, Lowe,” Grayden asserted, a stubborn upward tilt to his chin as he drew himself up to his full height, placing him a few inches over the sheriff.

Exasperation rippled across Lowe’s jowly face. “Has it occurred to you that she might not want you here? I have to say, taking into account the way everything played out between you two, I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t.”

An emotion flickered in Grayden’s hazel eyes too fast for me to process it. “If you’re trying to manipulate Addison into demanding I leave, it won’t work. She knows better than to talk without legal representation present.”

“As I said before, she doesn’t need it—I just mean to ask her a few questions.”

“Go ahead,” Grayden invited, his tone as smooth as the short brown hair he’d slicked back. “But I’ll be right here while you do.”

Lowe’s gaze narrowed. “How do you think my niece will feel when she hears you rallied to the defense of a woman she hates? Do Felicity’s feelings matter to you at all?”

“You won’t guilt-trip me into walking out of here.”

“You turned your back on Addison once before. What’s the difference?”

Oh, low blow. Accurate, though. Once, it would have stung to be reminded that Grayden had broken every promise he’d made to me when he’d scuttled back to his ex-wife. But now? Now I could think of him and feel nothing—no regret, no sadness, no anger.

Lowe sniffed. “Who is it you’re really protecting, I wonder? Her, or Dax Mercier? Are you worried she’ll spill something about your old buddy that will put him in prison where he belongs?”

Grayden’s eyes flicked to the manilla file the sheriff held. “You don’t know that Dax has anything to do with that.”

“It has his name written all over it.” Lowe turned back and pulled something out of the file. A photograph, I realized, as he held it up.

Damn. The dude in that picture had taken one fuck of a beating.

“Tell me, Mrs. Mercier, how would you feel if someone had done that to one of your loved ones?” asked Lowe. “How do you think his family feels? Do you really believe your husband should be allowed to get away with that?”

What I believed was that the guy had brought this on himself.

“Did the victim finger Dax as the culprit?” Grayden interrupted.

Lowe’s face tightened. “No.” He dropped his arm to his side. “He claims he remembers nothing. But it’s fear keeping him silent.” Lowe tilted his head at me. “Is that what’s keeping you silent? Or do you just not care?”

I kept my expression neutral as I stared back at him, honestly wondering if he truly thought I was going to tattle.

“Obstructing justice is a serious crime, you know,” Lowe warned me.

“So is wasting police time,” Grayden chipped in. “That is essentially what you’re—” He cut himself off as the door swung open with a squeak of hinges.

A tall, suited-up, familiar figure loped inside. Dax. His mismatched gaze locked on me, glittering with anger, and gave me a quick head-to-toe inspection. Satisfied I was fine, he drank in the rest of the room. His eyes briefly narrowed on Mimi—whose smirk slipped away—and then lasered in on Lowe with a predatory focus.

Dax coolly hitched up a brow at him. “Want to tell me why you’re harassing my wife?” he asked, a deadly note to that otherwise velvety tone.

The sheriff straightened his broad shoulders. “Questioning her over a crime doesn’t count as harassment.” Again, he held up the photograph.

Dax’s expression didn’t alter in the slightest as he studied it. He then looked at the sheriff blankly.

Lowe’s mouth went tight. “If you didn’t personally do this, you had one of your people do it,” he upheld. “Either way, you’re responsible.”

Grayden cleared his throat. “You said yourself that the victim named no one. You have no proof that Mr. Merc—”

“I don’t need proof,” the sheriff snapped. “This reeks of Dax. He wanted revenge, and he took it. That’s his pattern.”

His expression still inscrutable, Dax looked from him to the deputy. “You can leave now.”

I almost snorted at how readily the deputy headed for the door.

Lowe, on the other hand, jutted out his chin. “You can’t throw me out. I’m not done questioning—”

“If this was about merely investigating a police matter, you wouldn’t have sought Addison out here at an event she’s managing,” said Dax, an edge of agitation to his words. “This is you using your authority to yank her chain and cause issues for her company. Simple. And I won’t tolerate it.”

Lowe’s nostrils flared. “You’re not above the law, Mercier, you are—”

“Rapidly losing my patience with you,” Dax finished, his face hardening. “You really don’t want me to push me further. Not unless you want certain things about you to come to light. Your wife might be interested in hearing that your Saturday poker nights aren’t really poker nights at all, though some ‘poking’ is involved.”

Watching Lowe’s face flush, I inwardly smiled. He should have expected that Dax, who made a point of sniffing out the secrets of his adversaries, would have something on him.

“You’re still here. I’m struggling to understand why.” Dax pursed his lips. “Maybe you’d prefer it if I made a call to your wife here and now.”

His face morphing into an almighty glower, Lowe jabbed a finger in his direction. “This isn’t over.”

“Then your marriage soon will be,” said Dax matter-of-factly.

Cursing a blue streak, Lowe stormed out.

Grayden cast me a tormented look and then turned to Mimi. “Come on, let’s go.”

Ignoring him, she nervously licked her lips and zeroed in on Dax. “I know about the pact.”

“Do you.” Dax didn’t phrase it as a question. It was more of a bored statement. He made his way to me, his eyes roaming over my face. “Are you all right?”

Removing my headset, I sighed. “Yeah. Just annoyed.”

“I have no idea why you acted all secretive instead of just telling me about the pact,” Mimi said to him. “We’re friends. Practically family.”

I snorted. If circumstances were different, Dax might have one day been her brother-in-law, but she did not think of him as family. We all knew it.

“Mimi,” Grayden clipped, “it’s time to go.”

Again, she completely ignored him. “You’ve done some crazy stuff, Dax,” she said with a smirk, shaking her head in incredulity, “but marrying a woman you basically put on reserve? That’s wacked.”

His eyes darkening to flint, he cast her a glare. “What’s wacked is that you would dare come here. You know you’re supposed to stay away from Addison. Yet, here you are.”

She rolled her eyes. “So she got her boo-boos hurt by what I said last time we talked. It ain’t a huge deal.”

Uh, like what she’d said was nothing? Unreal.

His gaze iced over. “Don’t try to trivialize what you did.” The words were quiet. Deep. Dripping with anger. “The things you said might have fucked up my marriage.”

“This isn’t a marriage,” she snarked. “You made a pact, you stuck to it. That’s it.” She looked away with a sniff. “I should have guessed it was something like that, really. An emotionless union would of course suit you just fine.”

“Mimi,” Grayden cut in, a plea in his eyes. “Don’t do this. Let’s you and me just walk on out of here.”

“Why?” she demanded, whirling on him. “Why should I have to stay quiet? Why would you want to leave when we both know you hate this situation as much as I do? You’d take her back in a fucking heartbeat if—”

“Enough,” Dax bit out, pinning her with a somewhat callous look. “Out. Both of you.”

Mimi turned back to him, clenching her fists. “But I—” She stopped speaking when he slashed an arm through the air.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Dax asserted. “I’m not interested in hearing what you have to say about anything. I have officially hit my limit where you’re concerned, and I want you gone from my life.”

Mimi blanched. “You don’t mean that,” she breathed.

“I gave you chances. Too many. It was my mistake, and you’ve been making Addison pay for that. No more. I’m done with you.”

She slowly shuffled back, her expression wounded. “How can you say that to me?”

“Very easily. You made it easy when you started fucking with my wife.”

“Like that ring she wears means anything,” Mimi scoffed, the words coated in pure scorn. “She’s nothing to you but a backup plan.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

“Bullshit,” she sneered.

“No bullshit,” he said, his voice grave. “Pure truth.”

Mimi gave him a Come on look.“If she left you tomorrow, it wouldn’t even be a ping on your radar.”

“Addison isn’t going anywhere. Ever. I wouldn’t allow it.”

“Oh, please. It never bothers you in the slightest when women walk away. You might have married this one, but you didn’t do it because you care for her.”

Yeah, ow. Not that she was wrong, unfortunately.

“The only woman you have, and will ever, truly give a crap about is Gracie,” Mimi added, bitterness lacing each syllable. “No one will come close to mattering to you the way she did.”

“Once upon a time,” began Dax, “I would have agreed with you. But not now.”

I tensed. Whoa, back up.

For a few beats, Mimi only stared at him. “You … What’d you just say?”

That was my question.

Dax didn’t repeat himself. He held her gaze, his own sober and unblinking. The resoluteness in the depths of those eyes had my pulse quickening.

A weak, nervous chuckle fluttered out of her. “Right,” she drawled, all skepticism.

Again, he said not one word, letting his unwavering expression speak for him.

The faint amusement began to drain from her face. She forced a mocking smile, but it withered fast. “I won’t buy that she means anything to you.”

“You should,” he told her. “Fact is she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I all but gawked at him, my heart slamming so hard against my ribs I was surprised the bones weren’t creaking in protest.

Dismay settling into the lines of her face, Mimi took another step back. “No,” she rasped, emphatic. “I don’t believe it.”

He gave an uncaring shrug. “That won’t make it untrue.”

She gave her head a hard, fast shake. “You’re lying.” She slammed her manic gaze on me. “He’s just saying all this to hurt me, right?”

Uh … quite possibly, come to think of it. After all, she’d probably disappear for good if he could convince her of his claims. Dax didn’t exactly have an issue with being deceitful if it meant getting what he wanted.

“That’s all it is, isn’t it?” she pushed.

Digging my teeth into my lower lip, I cut my gaze to him. He wasn’t looking at me. Or her. His attention was on the object he was smoothly pulling out of his pocket.

He lifted it up for her to see. “Maybe this will answer your question.”

Her face scrunched up. “What is …?” She trailed off as she seemed to finally see what he held. And what he held made my breath catch.

He looked at me. “It’s one of your Christmas gifts. I’d just taken it out of its presentation box to get a proper look at it when Sabrina called, so I slipped it in my pocket and came straight here.”

A shaky breath left me as I drank it in. It was a compass. A gold compass practically identical to the one from the soppy movie we’d watched together. Which meant … which meant … which meant the fucker loved me.

I swallowed hard, my throat aching. “Shit, Dax, you know how to hit a girl right in the feels.”

One corner of his mouth inched up, but his smile froze when Mimi let out a mewl. Maybe she’d seen the movie, or maybe she was just coming to realize she’d been fighting a losing battle all this time—I wasn’t sure.

He met her gaze evenly. “My intent isn’t to hurt you. I just want you to face reality so you can move on. There never would have been a ‘me and you,’ even if there was no Addison. But there is an Addison, and she’s mine in a way that no one else has ever been.”

My heart squeezed painfully but in the best way. It wasn’t simply what he said, it was howhe spoke with such ease and matter-of-factness; with a complete lack of awkwardness or embarrassment.

“No, Mimi, don’t shake your head,” he went on, pocketing the compass. “Don’t shrug this off and tell yourself I’m lying. Hear what I’m saying: Addison is it for me. I love her. There won’t come a day where I don’t.”

Oh fuck, I might cry.

So might she, by the looks of things. I wasn’t a monster so, yeah, I did feel bad for her. But she’d ignored his rejections, overlooked his I’m not interested signals, and kept up the pressure … thereby pushing him into a corner. His only real option now, if he was to finally get through to her, was to be cruel to be kind.

“But you loved Gracie,” she croaked. “How could you just replace—”

“Don’t insult her memory by using her to put a negative spin on this,” he cautioned, his voice silken danger. “Don’t imply I’m replacing her in a blatant attempt to make me feel guilty. It’s both shitty and pointless.”

Her upper lip quivered. “You don’t feel even the slightest bit bad about loving someone else?” She practically choked on the latter three words.

“Why would I? Gracie wouldn’t begrudge me this.”

Mimi barked a laugh. “Oh, you do like to convince yourself she was some perfect creature.” She shook her head, a cruel curve to the set of her mouth. “She wasn’t. I know something about your precious Gracie.”

He sighed. “If this is regarding her friend Hartman, so do I.”

Mimi froze and stared at him dumbly for long moments. “You know?” she breathed. “But … you never said anything.”

“Neither did you.”

Ugh, who the hell was Hartman? I glanced at Grayden to find him looking equally baffled.

Apparently taking advantage of her state of shock, Grayden gently caught her arm. “Come on, Mimi.”

Her expression dazed, she didn’t fight him as he led her to the door.

He opened it wide but then stilled. He looked from me to Dax, swallowing hard, his eyes pained. There was something else in his gaze, though: resignation. He gave a quick nod and then escorted her out of the restrooms.

Blowing out a long breath, I turned to Dax. “That was uber intense.” I lightly dug my teeth into my lower lip. “And you got me a soppy compass.”

His mouth bowed up. “I got you a soppy compass.”

“You love me,” I whispered.

“I love you,” he confirmed. Trapping my gaze with his, he caught my face between his hands. “And you love me.”

“Yeah, I do. But you weren’t supposed to know that.”

His lips kicked up a little more. “You gave yourself away.”

I felt my brow dent. “When?”

“When I came to you after Thaddeus crashed into your car. I saw it in your eyes. And I realized I felt the same.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

“At first, I was too pissed at Thaddeus. Then I decided I’d tell you Christmas Day. Figured it wouldn’t kill you to sweat a little longer.”

I gaped. “You’re such a dick.”

A low chuckle vibrated his chest. “So I’ve heard.” He dabbed a soft, lingering kiss on my mouth. “Can’t really deny it.” He smoothed his hands from my face to my hair, holding it out of the way as he studied my expression. “You all right after that scene?”

I inhaled deeply. “Yeah. I don’t think any of them will give us any more issues. Not even Lowe, despite his threat. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but who’s Hartman?”

Sighing, Dax ever so slowly released my hair. “Going through a dead person’s belongings can be hard. What’s harder is discovering something they were keeping from you. Gracie had an online friend—one she’d never met in real life. They spoke daily. She confided in him. Flirted with him a little.”

I winced. “Shit.”

“She was using a different identity, which meant she could claim to be single,” he continued, his voice remarkably even, his expression just as neutral. “And that’s what she did. They talked of meeting up, but she always made excuses at the last minute.”

A protective annoyance surged through me, hot and jagged. “Were their messages …”

“Sexual in nature? No. They didn’t exchange explicit photos or do anything other than mildly flirt. There were no ‘I love yous’ either.”

Well, at least there was that, though it didn’t make the situation much better.

“I think, for her, it was simply a bit of fun. Excitement. And maybe a way to get back at me for insisting on moving at my pace rather than hers.”

That didn’t make it acceptable. At least not in my book. “I’m sorry.”

He only shrugged, but I didn’t buy that he was over it. How could he be?

“Did you tell anyone?”

“No. What would be the point? It would color their memory and perception of her. I saw no need to do that. And it wasn’t as if she had a deep, dark, terrible secret.”

It was terrible in my eyes, because it was betrayal of a sort. Hadn’t he suffered enough of that?

God, this had to have exacerbated his trust issues tenfold. “How do you think Mimi knew about it?”

“Maybe Gracie told her about her ‘friend,’ who knows? I’m not surprised that Mimi said nothing of it to me. She loved her sister more than life itself. They were extremely close. She wouldn’t throw her under the bus like that. It wasn’t until recently that she even began hinting there was something I didn’t know.”

I wondered if maybe Mimi had started to resent that she’d held back Gracie’s secret, perhaps thinking that if only she’d long ago turned him against her twin then he might be married to Mimi now, not me.

“I think she thought if she prodded me with enough ‘maybe you didn’t know Gracie as well as you think you did’ comments, I’d pressure her into telling me. Then she wouldn’t feel quite as guilty for confessing.”

Possibly. “It must have been a shock for you to find out about Hartman.”

“Not as much as you might think. I’m not a trusting person. And when you walk through life expecting the people you meet to let you down or fuck you over, such things don’t hit you as hard.”

Maybe.

Dax cupped my chin and swept his thumb along my jaw. “You haven’t let me down. Haven’t screwed me over. Haven’t once broken my trust.” He dipped his face to mine. “And you love me.”

I curled my hand around his wrist. “Yes, I do.” And I saw now that Brooks had been right. I’d loved Lake and would have been happy with him, but he hadn’t been the love of my life. No, that was Dax. The contentment I felt with him … it beat anything I’d felt before with anyone else.

“The only thing about this situation that pisses me off is that I stupidly let you go once. I shouldn’t have.”

I understood why he had, though. He’d been even more closed-off back then than he was now. Probably because the hurt from all the betrayals and other shit he’d suffered growing up were still fresh. He hadn’t had the chance to work through them, process the anger, and develop an ability—however weak it had been—to trust.

An intensity blazed in his eyes. “I won’t let you go again.”

I smiled. “Good. Because I won’t let you go either.”