Fight or Flight(61)
He got to his feet, staring at me incredulously. “I lost my wife and you can’t give me this? And you say you’re not self-absorbed.”
Indignation suffused me, pushing me to be ugly, but somehow I controlled the feeling. “Go home, Nick.”
“No.” He stepped into my space, his legs touching my knees, and I felt a moment of panic at his nearness. “You need to hear what I have to say. You have to give me that, Ava. I’ve lost too much already. I need to say this to someone who knew Gem better than anyone.”
Sympathy I didn’t want to feel for the bastard cut through my anger. “Then speak and leave.”
“You’re right.” He raised a shaky hand to push back his overlong hair. “I was a coward. Gem and I, we talked about it a lot once you were gone. We argued about it. I was the one who convinced her not to tell you right away, delaying it by saying I needed time. But she started to work out the truth the longer we were together.” Nick’s dark eyes blazed at me. “The truth was, I didn’t know how to choose between you. I loved you both.”
“I don’t believe that,” I snapped. “You don’t treat someone the way you treated me when you love them.”
“You always saw everything in black and white, Ava.” He shook his head sadly. “People are more complicated than that. You … you always felt like you were seconds from slipping through my hands. Like something better would come along and you’d be gone. I never really had you. I had your body and Gem had your trust.”
“You both had my trust.”
“But you let her in in a way you didn’t let me in.”
I couldn’t argue with that, because it was true, but she was my friend and he was my lover. I let them both in, in different ways. “Maybe deep down I always knew you would betray me and that’s why.”
“No. You just didn’t love me the way I loved you.”
Bullshit! I had been so in love with him, he blinded me. “Oh, so this is your new way of justifying your actions?” I asked calmly, crossing my arms over my chest like I was merely amused by the turn in the conversation rather than furious.
“Gem loved me, Ava. She loved me in a way I knew you could never love me. I just couldn’t admit it out loud so I twisted everything in my head and I said some awful things to you. When Gem accused me of still being in love with you, I told her all the things I said when you and I broke up, and she was so mad at me. She didn’t know I’d put the blame on you. We didn’t talk for weeks. She thought about getting in touch with you a lot,” he told me softly. “She just never felt brave enough to do it.”
“Nick.” I sighed, feeling a tightness in my chest, an uneasiness in my belly. “What is the purpose of this?”
His expression turned fierce. “I don’t have a second chance to tell Gem I was sorry for all the stupid things I did. But I can tell you. I never stopped loving you, Ava. I loved you too much. When we were kids, I felt like you needed me. I felt like your protector and it made me feel good. But as we got older, you stopped needing me. You became untouchable. Maybe that’s what I loved.” He laughed bitterly. “Maybe it was the mystery of you that kept me dangling on your hook for so long. I lost my shit at you at the funeral because I was grieving for Gem while at the same time feeling things I shouldn’t be feeling when I saw you.”
That uneasiness turned to a chill, and I slid out from where he was leaning into me to round my desk, wondering if I was crazy to even think that my grieving ex-fiancé might be coming on to me. “Nick,” I warned.
“I cheated on her,” he blurted out.
I froze, staring at him in outrage.
“I was always looking for something when you left. I did love my wife, Ava. She made mistakes with you but we both know that she was so good and kind and loving. She loved me like no one has ever loved me and it made her betray you. She never got over it.”
“So you rewarded her by cheating on her?”
“I loved her …” He shrugged, his features strained with guilt. “But there was no excitement like there was with you.”
“Wore off, huh, once you two became legit and weren’t sneaking off behind my back?”
He blanched and I felt a wave of revulsion toward him because I’d hit the nail on the head. “It just wasn’t the same. Even you have to admit, Ava, sex between you and me is off the charts.”
Was this seriously happening right now? Was my ex-fiancé actually standing in my office talking about missing sex with me weeks after his wife had died in childbirth? I gaped at him, wondering how on earth I had been so blind to what a weak, selfish man he was for so long. I wanted to hurt him and not because he hurt me but because he hurt Gem. He stole us from each other and he didn’t even love her the way she deserved to be loved.
“The man you saw me with on Saturday?”
Nick winced. “Yeah?”
“He’s the best sex I’ve ever had, Nick. He made what you and I had in bed look like an inexperienced fumble in the dark. And even if I didn’t currently have that man in my bed, you would never be welcome back in it. So if you came here looking to satiate some need that has driven you for years to cheat on a woman who deserved better, then you can go to hell.”
He paled. “That’s not why I’m here.”