Chapter 27

Katy is dancing around the kitchen. This isn't new for her. She does this all the time, usually as she sings along to whatever she's listening to. But this is… different. A bit wilder. Perhaps even a little manic. The takeout bags sit untouched on the counter, the table set for us.

"Katy baby?" I call loudly so as not to startle her.

She spins around and skips over to me, a smile lighting her face. "Hey, lover boy." She jumps up into my arms, making me catch her. "Glad you're home. I'm starving."

My eyes narrow. "You okay?"

"I feel like you ask me that a lot."

"I've had a lot of reasons to ask."

"True." She gives me a sweet kiss and then wiggles out of my arms. "So Cricket was here," she says flippantly when that statement is anything but.

She starts opening to-go containers and I move in behind her, kissing her neck just beneath her jaw, which distracts her enough to allow me to make her a plate. I can smell the remains of whatever she tried to cook for us lingering in the air, and the fact that she spent her day off doing that for me and then had to deal with Cricket makes me want to hold her and never let go.

"Thank you." She takes the plate from me and goes to sits while I make my own.

"And?" I press when she doesn't follow that up. "What did she want? Why was she here?"

"She wanted to try to seduce you because you're hot. She probably likes you because who wouldn't, even if you can sometimes be a bit of a jerk, and she wants the fellowship and figured your dick was the fastest track to winning it."

My eyebrows jump. "She told you all that?"

She lifts her fork and uses the side of it to try to cut her burrito only to give up and lift it with both hands. "No. Of course not. Cricket is a bitch, but she's not stupid."

"Katy. I love you, but right now I'm having a little trouble decoding you." I take my plate and sit down.

"I know. I'm fine. I promise. I just had a lot to think through and process about it because there's more going on than her simply showing up at your door. I told her you were my boyfriend."

I nearly choke on my bite of burrito. "You did?" For some reason that makes me laugh. Maybe because Katy was so hell-bent on keeping us a secret. At least for a while longer.

She shrugs. "I opened the door in your sweatshirt. But more than that, I wasn't going to let her think you were in play. I also told her you're no longer in charge of the fellowship. She didn't like that." Her head tilts contemplatively. "Well, she didn't like any of it, actually. I think our being together pissed her off. She has a lot of resentment she needs to learn how to work through. But whatever. It's done and she can't say or do anything about it."

"True." I take another bite and wash it down with a sip of my water. "I'm glad you told her. Still, it was weird for her to just show up like that out of the blue."

Katy turns serious, her eyes searching mine in rapid flicks, and I wonder if her trust in me was shaken. Maybe that's why she's a bit off, almost jumpy. She's here and she doesn't seem mad, but that doesn't mean she wasn't hurt or possibly a bit worried given the pasts we've had with others. I'd fly off the fucking handle if some asshole showed up here looking to get in her pants. Katy isn't just my end game; she is my only game.

But have I done enough to prove that to her?

"Bennett, there's something we should talk about. The reason Cricket showed up here… It's something I think you need?—"

Before she can finish, I rise and cut her off with a searing kiss. My hand cups her face, and my forehead melds to hers. "You know I don't want her, right? You know it's only you and will always only be you?"

"I did know that, and not simply because I couldn't see you liking a woman who's named after a bug."

I chuckle against her lips.

Her fingers comb through the back of my hair, and I shift until I'm standing. In one motion, I lift her out of her chair and drop straight up into my arms. I can't wait till I can do this and feel her belly bump against me, but we're not there yet.

"You did?" I ask, retaking my seat with her straddling my thighs.

"I trust you," she tells me, and my heart leaps in my chest. "In my heart, I knew you'd never do anything to betray me."

"Never," I swear and drag her lips back to mine, kissing her so deeply she has to gasp against me to catch air. Within seconds, our clothes are torn off, and we end up in a messy tangle of limbs and panted breaths. After that, we finish our dinner and then spend the rest of the evening wrapped around each other on the sofa while watching some Netflix show Katy's obsessed with.

Everything is perfect between us. Too good to be true. But you know what they say when something is too good to be true…

It startswith a call on my way to work. A call I'm not paying attention to because I'm stuck in traffic and running a little late, which automatically grates on me. But with cars moving at a snail's pace and cutting in and out of lanes, the road has my entire frustrated focus. Which is why I don't think too deeply about it when I answer the random phone number across my screen.

"Hello?"

"Well, look who finally picked up. I guess getting a new number was all it took."

Ice immediately slithers through my veins, hardening my grip on the steering wheel. "A new number I'm about to block. Bye, Liz."

"No! Bennett wait. Please, wait. I need to talk to you. I've been trying for months."

I grunt, running a hand through my hair before returning it to the wheel. "What do you want? Why haven't you gotten the message and left me the hell alone yet?"

"I know that's what you want. I know you hate me and feel you have every reason to do so. I'm not trying to win you back. I'm not foolish enough to believe that's a possibility. But because I love you and have never stopped, because I care about you, I also feel like I owe you."

"Owe me?"

"Yes. Bennett, I need to talk to you about Cayden."

A humorless laugh flees my lungs. "Honestly, I don't care anymore about the two of you. I've met someone else. I'm not saying that to hurt you, but I'm happy with her and?—"

"Bennett, did Cayden ever tell you why he was there in Boston? Did he tell you anything about what happened between me and him?"

That pulls me up short since that's not at all what I thought she was going to say. "Uh…" I drag a hand across my jaw as I think back. "He said he was here to apologize. To get me to forgive him. He said you forced the relationship between the two of you and he went along with it because he loved you. He claimed he had no idea about the tubal ligation and that you told him that if he didn't continue the affair, you'd tell me what was going on between the two of you and it would ruin our friendship."

She sighs. "That's what he said? That I had blackmailed him into sex with me or I'd tell you and ruin your friendship? How does that make any sense? I didn't want our marriage to end if you recall. How would telling you that have helped me? You didn't think that was odd?"

I hesitate because yeah, part of me did when he mentioned it. It just sounded… I don't know, like it didn't make a ton of sense as she just said, but I was too upset by everything in that moment to give it further thought.

"Please just listen to everything I have to say because it's important," she interrupts my thoughts. "I have no ulterior motive for doing this. Remember that. The first time Cayden and I slept together was after you and I had a fight. I left and got drunk at the bar and you called him to pick me up because you were still too pissed at me to do it yourself. Cayden came and we talked for a while, and one thing led to another. I regretted it terribly and told him it was a mistake and that it could never happen again. He disagreed and started blackmailing me."

"Blackmailing you?" I parrot, my brows raised and my eyes wide as I change lanes and inch along to a stoplight. "Cayden did this?"

"Well, threatening me is probably the better term. He told me he'd tell you about that night if I didn't continue to sleep with him." She swallows audibly. "I loved you and I didn't want to lose you, but at first, I told him no. I told him I'd come clean to you and throw myself at your mercy, but then he somehow discovered that I… I had taken a lot of money from my parents."

"You did what?"

She clears her throat, her voice low. "I knew they were losing their company, and I didn't want to lose all of my inheritance with it, so I… well, I misappropriated funds."

"Jesus, Liz. Seriously? You never mentioned this to me." I drag a hand across the back of my neck, twisting my head until my neck pops.

"I couldn't, Bennett. You know I couldn't. You never would have been on board with that."

"Of course I wouldn't have been on board," I snap. "For fuck's sake. Why the hell did you do that?"

"You grew up poor and became wealthy. You have no idea what it is to be threatened with the reverse," she sniffs defensively. "Your money wasn't my money. We had that prenup and always kept our incomes separate because of it."

I hold in my scoff and my snark because I would have given her my money. Though the why didn't you simply purchase fewer designer things is on the tip of my tongue. Frankly, I'm not interested in fighting with her, and my days of giving a shit about how she operates are over.

I redirect her. "So he discovered what you had done?"

"Yes, and he used that too. He threatened to turn me in to the FBI and SEC for money laundering. I would have gone to jail."

I'm having such a hard time making sense of this. Of the people I had spent so much of my life with. Liz laundering money, and Cayden blackmailing her into an affair. It's fucking madness, and it's making my head spin.

I shake my head, trying to understand everything. "So you started sleeping with him. Fine. How did the tubal come into play?"

"I didn't want a baby with him, and he refused to use condoms. I couldn't do that. I couldn't try to get pregnant with you while sleeping with him. The risk of the baby being his was too great. And…" She trails off to clear her throat. "I didn't want children that much anyway. I had told you I did because I loved you and was willing to have them for you, but with everything spiraling out of control, I didn't know what else to do."

Finally, I reach the garage and pull into my spot. I stare straight ahead through the windshield at the concrete wall, utterly floored.

After a moment, I lick my dry lips and say, "He blamed you for everything, Liz. He said he had no clue about the tubal until after. He said he tried to end it with you several times and you wouldn't back off. Everything was you and not him. Yet he told me he was in love with you the entire time we were married and that he was jealous of me."

In fact, he said sometimes he hated me. Right? He said that. And I didn't put it together. None of it. Despite what he had done to me, I blamed Liz for most of it and was too wrapped up in myself and what was going on with Katy to care about the things he said or the things he was doing.

"God, Bennett, it's so much more than that. Cayden is sick. He became completely, terrifyingly obsessed with me. He'd follow me everywhere I'd go, sleep in the back seat of my car in our garage, and send me inappropriate texts and packages at work. He was relentless, and when you found out about the tubal and confronted me, part of me was relieved. I couldn't keep it going."

She starts to cry, heavy, wet sobs into the phone. Liz had been pulling away by that point. She'd been losing weight. Not sleeping well. After I found out about the tubal and the affair, I assumed that was the reason for all of that.

It's nearly impossible to reconcile the man I thought I knew with the man she's describing. Cayden is an actor. He's always been one. He would sit beside me and listen to me lamenting Liz not getting pregnant. He'd offer comfort and suggestions and act like a best fucking friend would.

All the while he was fucking her behind my back.

And I had no clue.

What he wants the world to see—a charming, wealthy, brilliant neurosurgeon who committed his life to being a bachelor and a good friend—is not at all who he is.

"I'm so sorry," she sniffs, emotion clogging her throat. "I told you then, but I'm telling you again now. I never meant to hurt you. Not ever. I didn't know what to do. But after everything came to light and we got divorced, I told him it was over. I had someone go into his computer and wipe all my… transgressions from there, as well as any financial proof that could be found. It drove him off the deep end. He thought with you out of the way, he and I would finally be together, but I never wanted that."

My hands cover my face, and I breathe heavily into them. "Liz…" I don't know what to say. This is too much.

"One of your accusers came to me, and when I heard her story—that you had all but forced a sexual relationship with her—I was furious. I felt betrayed since you had done to me exactly what I had done to you, and yet you left and blamed me for everything."

I shake my head, my ire creeping back up. "I never touched those women. You were the one?—"

"It wasn't me, Bennett!" she shouts, cutting me off. "That's why I've been calling you. I thought the accusations were true, which is why I told you I was going to ruin your life. It's why I led the charge when they forced you out. I was furious. I was heartbroken."

"Except I didn't fucking cheat or coerce or behave inappropriately with anyone."

"No. You didn't." She blows out a breath, the sound crackling through the car speakers. "Shortly after you moved to Boston, it was discovered that the woman who still worked at the hospital had been doing something she shouldn't have been. She made a deal with the hospital, and in exchange for her slap on the wrist, she told them the truth. Cayden had paid both women to come forward with stories about you. They needed the money, and he took advantage. He was trying to ruin your life because I loved you and not him. And he hated you for it."

My eyes close, and my head falls back against the seat, my insides feeling like someone put them through a meat grinder.

"The hospital let him go and when I found out he came out to Boston, that's when I started calling you. I felt I owed you that much. Especially when I learned that you never did cheat on me. Cayden is a hateful, vindictive monster who's out for your blood."

I stare sightlessly up through the skylight, thinking all of this through. The timing of everything she's saying makes sense. I hadn't heard from Liz all summer, and there was a gap between when I left Mayo and came to Boston. Liz started calling me, and then a couple of weeks after that, Cayden showed up in the hospital, knowing who Katy was and exactly what floor I was on.

How long had he been watching me?

A shiver runs up my spine. He came to the bar that night. I called him and he showed up almost immediately. I told him I loved Katy. I told him she's pregnant. Fuck! And then Cricket showed up at my door last night when only Katy was there. Was that by design? Did he orchestrate that? How did she get my address, if not from him? I'm not listed anywhere because I didn't want Liz to come and track me down.

He's still trying to hurt me. But what if he's not done? What if Cricket was just the start?