The Letters (Carnage #4)(20)

The singer from the band.

Mac?

Maca?

Something like that.

I looked from her to him, he’d kissed her and he was holding her hand. I looked at her face. Her mouth was slightly open, as if she were about to speak, and her eyes were wide. My gaze swung back to him to find him looking at her as if she were the most beautiful, amazing creature to have ever graced the earth.

He’d kissed her.

He was holding her hand.

I couldn’t f*cking breathe.

“Gia, what’s wrong?” he asked her gently. Love, devotion, concern, and worship all too obvious in his voice. My heart stopped beating. For a few split seconds, I thought I was going to choke on it as it crawled from my chest and lodged itself in my throat.

Two days.

I’d been gone for two f*cking days.

I needed to get out of there.

I needed to … I had no clue what I needed, but it needed to make me numb.

I turned to walk away.

“Cam?”

That voice. Her voice. She was calling my name, talking to me. Hope began to infiltrate the empty spot my heart had just left vacant, and stupidly, for a few seconds, I allowed it to affect my way of thinking. I’d got it all wrong, they were friends, just her brother’s band mate. She’d probably known him for years. I had nothing to worry about. She wouldn’t do that to me, not my Kitten.

I swung back around, and the control I had over my own fists was hanging tenuously by a thread.

Bailey jerked in his stool. He could read me like a book. Him and I were the same, it was in our genes. We could read a person’s body language from ten feet away and sniff out trouble from twenty.

Because I needed to do something—anything other than stand there, dying—I held out my hand.

“Cameron King, joint owner of the place.”

“Sean McCarthy.”

My world ended. I nodded my head in acknowledgment of this fact.

“You’re Sean? The lead singer of Carnage. Of course.” I had no clue how I managed to string that sentence together.

He looked from me to her.

“Do you need a minute to talk?”

He knew. That f*cker knew about me.

I sure as shit knew about him. Sean. Her Sean.

She gave her head a slight nod in answer to his question.

I wasn’t sure whose head I wanted to rip off the most—hers, his, or my own.

He said something in her ear and then turned to me, “I’m gonna go get a drink from the other bar.”

Good. Fuck off and don’t come back. I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze.

“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Bailey stated in his rough voice.

“Cam.” She reached out to touch my arm, hesitated, and then put it back down to her side.

Touch me. Please touch me and tell me that I’ve got this all wrong. I need that. I need you, Kitten.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

No. No. No. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go.

I’d bought a house.

For us.

A f*cking house with stables.

She was killing me. Every word she spoke killed me a little more.

“I thought you were away till Monday. I wanted to tell you then, face to face.”

I thought she felt the same as I did. I thought what we had meant something to both of us. I flew home early. I bought a house. I bought a house with f*cking stables. For her. It was all for her. I needed to make her see. I should’ve gone after her Thursday night. I should’ve told her on the phone how I felt. I should’ve done things differently.

“I came home early to surprise you. I wanted to see you, to tell you, to show you how sorry I am for my behaviour on Thursday night. Kitten, you remember that? Thursday. Two f*cking days ago?” I was losing it.

I had never hated and loved someone so much in my life, would never have thought it was possible.

“Two nights ago, Kitten, when I stupidly thought you were in a relationship with me.” I punched my fist into my own chest, but it did nothing to subdue the anger building inside me.

Georgia flinched. “I was. We was …”

I glared at her whilst battling to control the rage burning in every part of me.

I picked up my drink from the bar and downed it in one go. I needed more—more than bourbon, more than beer. There was only one thing that would give me what I needed. One thing that would make me feel like I was invincible and not dying a slow, painful, excruciating death with every word that came out of her lying, cheating, whoreish mouth.

“Sean McCarthy, now why didn’t I work that one out?” I asked her through gritted teeth, barely holding back the need to throw up at the mention of his name. “I knew all about Sean. I just didn’t realise it was that Sean.”

Why didn’t I? How had I never worked that one out? Because I was a love-f*cked cunt that was why.

“I didn’t stand a chance did I? Me or a twenty-two-year-old f*cking rock god?”

“Cam, please. It’s not like that. I’ve known him since I was eleven years old. He was my boyfriend from the age of thirteen.”

She looked at the ground before looking back at me with those beautiful and oh so blue eyes.

“He’s the only boy I’ve ever loved.”