Two Bar Mitzvahs (No Weddings #3)(61)

“Missed you too. I’m so sorry you had to handle this alone.”

I pulled back and kissed her softly. “Not alone. You were here, if only by text and phone. Mase has been awesome with this. With him here, I had the time to escape for a couple of hours today.”

When I released her, she stepped over to my bed and sat on the edge, looking up at me. “That’s right, you went out to lunch.”

“Yeah. And I went to Loading Zone afterward to help Ben out a bit.”

“Who’d you have lunch with?”

“No one. How was your lunch with Lila?”

Hannah didn’t reply. Instead her eyes narrowed imperceptibly. For a few seconds we stared at each other. And I had no idea what was happening as her expression hardened further.

“Cade, you were with Madison at Starbucks. I saw the two of you together when I drove by from Lila’s back to the shop. She was sitting across from you at a table. You were leaning back and laughing.”

I shook my head. “She stopped by, uninvited. I didn’t have lunch with her.”

Her brows drew together. “Why didn’t you just tell me she was there?”

“Because you asked me who I had lunch with.”

“So I have to ask when you see Madison? I know you’ve talked to Madison before without telling me. Why are you still keeping things between you and Madison from me?”

I blew out a hard breath. “I’m not keeping anything from you, Hannah. This is the first time I’ve seen you alone since lunch, and Madison surprising me for a few annoying minutes didn’t pop into my mind—I’d blanked it out.”

She frowned. “What about the other time?”

“You mean on Monday?”

“Yes. Monday. When Kristen and I were going over cake details last night, she mentioned that you spoke with Madison on Monday. I just went with it, acting like I already knew about it. But I felt blindsided. I should’ve known about it. You should have told me.”

I thought back to the nightmare of Monday afternoon. “Yeah, I confronted Madison in the lobby of the country club.”

Her brows raised. “Yeah. I got that part.”

Whoa. I took a deep breath, trying to remain calm. She was pissed. I got it. “As I was leaving the parking lot, Mase called and texted. My house was going under water. I shoved all things Madison into the back of my mind to deal with everything else.”

She still held a deep scowl on her face. I tried to read her but failed. In a sudden movement, she burst up from the bed and nearly knocked me over. I took a step back as she paced back and forth. When she stopped, she stared hard at me. “Cade, I need to be able to trust you.”

I blinked. “Hannah, you should trust me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“What about the hallway conversation after the tasting that I overhead? I had to pull that out of you too. When your ex tells you she wants you, and you don’t tell me that happened, what am I supposed to think? That’s three instances where you and Madison have been face to face that you haven’t told me about. How many others are there?”

Fuck. Do all women have an ingrained ability to remember old resolved screw-ups to recycle at a later date?

Not wanting to miss another detail, I scanned through my memory. “None. And I didn’t mean to keep any of them from you. In my mind, none were an issue worth mentioning.”

She scoffed. “Bullshit. If my ex told me he wanted me back, you don’t think you would have a right to know that? Don’t you think I would want to share it with you?”

My shoulders slumped. “You’re right. I would’ve been pissed as hell. And it was wrong of me not to tell you. I’m really sorry.”

She huffed out a breath through her lips. “I’ve been trying to blow off Kristen’s surprise comment, but it’s been bothering me—why you hadn’t told me, if there was a reason you were hiding it from me. With my past scar tissue, I pushed it into the back of my mind, trying to trust you as I waited for you to tell me. After today’s lunch with Madison, it all came rushing back.”

I took a step closer to her, softening my voice. “I had no idea. And I had truly forgotten with the craziness of the week. Guys can be dense sometimes. I’m a world-class idiot for not realizing how important the information was to you.”

Moisture welled up in her eyes. Her face tilted down to the floor before lifting back up to meet my gaze. She lowered her voice to a near whisper, repeating, “I need to be able to trust you.”

She didn’t need to say anything more. I pulled her into my arms, and instead of fighting me, she clung tightly. “I know you do, Hannah. Please, believe me. There is nothing going on. Madison is a nonissue for me—for us. But I promise to do a better job of keeping you in the loop. Speaking of which…”

I went on to update her with all the details of the conversation with Suzanne, the complaint she helped initiate with the board, and my subsequent phone call with the club’s legal counsel.

On a shaky breath, she nodded. “What do you think’s gonna happen? Do you think we’ve just pissed her off that much more?”

“I don’t know. I voiced my wishes to the attorney: that she be fired and that I never see her again.”

Hannah pulled back and gave me a tentative smile. “I totally second those wishes.”