Worth It (Forbidden Men #6)(29)

He certainly hadn’t been...

Knox.

I blew out a breath and sent Aspen another one of my fake smiles. Her brow crinkled with worry. “So you just stayed with him all these months, living with him and letting him mooch off you because...?”

My gaze fell as my shoulders slumped with shame. “I don’t know,” I mumbled, drawing a line through the condensation of my Long Island Iced Tea glass with my finger. “Loneliness, maybe. Something to do.” My chest went tight. “Sometimes you just go with a situation because there’s nothing better for you. So you just...”

“Settle?” Aspen guessed softly.

I frowned, guilt niggling at me. “Well, now I feel like a total bitch, like I used poor Cam just to pass the time.”

“No, I know you didn’t. I mean, you supported him while he was out of work, feeding him and housing him and paying his car payment when you could barely afford all that for yourself. And you practically got him that new job. You defended him every time Noel talked trash about him, and—”

“Well, it turns out your hubby was right. Cam was a lousy boyfriend.” I gasped and looked at her as a sudden thought struck. “Or maybe he just knew. Maybe he knew I couldn’t love him, and...and that’s what drove him away.”

Aspen rolled her eyes. “If that were the case, then he should’ve talked to you about it, not found someone else behind your back while he was still with you. You are not to blame for what that * did today.”

“But—”

“Listen to me, and listen good.” Reaching across the table, Aspen grasped both of my hands in both of hers. “You did not deserve to be treated that way. And Cam was a complete idiot for not appreciating how beautiful, smart, charming, loyal, and lovely you are. If he thought your feelings for him needed to be stronger, he should’ve tried harder to win your heart over instead of turning to the first willing slut to open her legs for him. Because you are worth fighting for, damn it.”

“Wow,” I murmured, shaking my head. “If you weren’t already married, I would so turn lesbian right now to chase after you.”

Aspen snorted, then blushed for making the sound. Pulling her hands from mine, she covered her mouth with them and laughed outright. “Well...thank you.”

I smiled because she was so freaking adorable. “Have I told you how glad I am that Noel introduced us?”

She dropped her hands from her rosy cheeks and smiled back. “So am I.”

Remembering the first few weeks I’d known Noel Gamble, I shook my head. “At first, I thought he was a creepy cheater who didn’t even bother to hide his wedding ring because every time he saw me reading on my break, he became overly interested, asking me all kinds of oddball questions about whatever story I was on.”

Aspen let out a delighted smile. “The first day he met you, he came home that night and told me about the new waitress working at Forbidden. ‘I think you’ll like her,’ he said. And all he added was, ‘she reads.’ So I told him that meant nothing. We could have totally different taste in books.”

“Well, he definitely made it a point to find out exactly what stories I liked most.”

With a laugh, Aspen pushed back from the table and stood before moving to the cabinets where she already had dough rolled out on the counter. As she started to cut it into strings, she said, “I told him one time—just one time—that I’d always wanted a friend, you know, like a girl friend I could shop with, or go to the salon and gossip with, maybe chat about books with. I had no idea he’d make it his new life mission to find me one.”

I nodded. “That explains why he once asked me what my favorite stores were and where I liked to get my hair done.”

Aspen dropped the knife on the counter and whirled to face me, her mouth hanging open. “He did not.”

“He so did.” When she merely blinked, I said, “I think it’s adorable that he started vetting women he met, testing whether they were good enough to make friends with his woman, just because she wanted one.”

“He’s definitely something,” she murmured as if ready to scold him, except something sparkling in her eyes told me how honored she really was by what he’d done.

“He loves you,” I said, feeling an ache rise from the pit of my stomach. “A lot.”

Aspen heard the yearning in my voice and smiled sadly. “Yeah,” she said, right before adding, “You’ll find that someday. You’re too amazing not to.”

I already have, I didn’t tell her.

I was kind of tempted to spill my great love story. I’d never told her about my summer six years before. I’d never told anyone. But Aspen Gamble really had become the best girl friend I’d ever had in the past few months, and if I were to confide in anyone, it would be her.

But something held me back. It probably wasn’t very tactful to mourn over one guy when you’d just been dumped by another.

Any other promises? I’d asked him that day, the last time I’d seen him before the sheriff had dragged him out of my life in handcuffs and I’d never heard from him again.

Yeah, he’d said, grasping a piece of my hair and winding it around his finger. Though fear lingered in his eyes and his lips trembled with apprehension, he’d grinned at me. Don’t ever cut your hair short.