The Girl's Got Secrets (Forbidden Men #7)(111)

“Oh, so this was all to help me?” I snarled.

She flushed and let out a small sigh. “Of course not. But it did contribute to the reason I didn’t tell you immediately, until I passed the point that I could tell you without causing a huge ordeal, and then I was just too afraid to...because I knew you’d react this way.”

This way? So she thought I was overreacting, huh? I rolled my eyes. Nice. “Where does Incubus shirt girl fit into all this?” I had to know.

She blinked, confused. “She doesn’t.”

When I only lifted an eyebrow, telling her to try again, she gritted her teeth and growled out a sound. “I didn’t even know that song existed until after I joined the band, and Ten told me about it.”

I growled. Fucking Ten. “But you knew it was about you?”

She cringed. “After I read the lyrics, I knew it was a distinct possibility I was that girl, yes.”

“Un-f*cking-believable.”

I wiped my hands over my face and had to spin away because it was so hard to look at her and not see Elisa, not remember every detail of everything we’d done in my bed.

“I can vouch for that part,” Jodi spoke up. “She really had no clue she was the girl in your song until—”

I whirled to glare at her, promptly shutting her up. “You know...” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder as she backed toward the doorway. “I’m just going to leave you two alone to hash this out.” And she shot out of the room.

I glanced at Remy, who seemed to shrink smaller into herself as if she expected me to physically attack her.

I’d been inside this woman, seen her naked, touched her, tasted her, had the best sex of my life with her. I’d dreamed of some kind of future with her and had actually thought we’d been starting something big.

But it’d all been a lie.

I wasn’t sure if I bought her story about Incubus shirt girl, but I figured she was going to stick to her tale, so I proceeded to the issue that meant the most to me...and hurt the most to ask about. “And Elisa?” I whispered.

Tears filled her eyes as she shook her head. “You were never supposed to meet her. You weren’t supposed to return to the hotel room for your wallet and discover her in your shower. You weren’t supposed to go to Casta?eda’s and see her at work. And you were never supposed to take her home with you. I told you—dammit—did I or did I not warn you to stay away from her?”

I snorted and shook my head. “A little hypocritical of you, don’t you think, since you are her? Why didn’t you just f*cking pull away when I first kissed you?”

Her mouth fell open as if that was the most ridiculous question anyone had ever asked her. “Have you met you?” she cried. “You’re freaking amazing. No hetero woman in her right mind could even remotely resist all that.”

When she waved her hand to encompass me from head to toe, I hissed out a harsh laugh. “Right.”

“I’m serious.” Her face fell as she watched me, as if she knew then that no matter what she said, everything between us was over. “The last thing I wanted to do was fall for you. Hell, after one dipshit lead singer of a band crushed my faith in men altogether, I fully expected to despise you. But then I got to know you, and I...well, it’s just a testament of how amazing you are to break through the stereotype I’d set up against you, and you actually got me to like you.”

“Well then it must suck to be you, because right now, I’m not very fond of you in return. Jesus, I actually don’t even know a goddamn thing about you. You’re a complete f*cking stranger to me.”

“Asher,” she whispered, pressing her fist to her chest as a couple of tears slid down her cheek. I hated to see her cry, but the tightness in my own chest made it impossible for me to go to her and try to soothe her. She was breaking my damn heart here.

“You do know me,” she entreated. “You know everything there is to know about me. Everything I told you when I was Sticks, that was all me.”

“Except that you’re not really a man, you’re not really gay, and oh yeah...you understand English perfectly. Jesus.” I gripped my hair. “How many times did you laugh at me because I was too stupid to figure it out myself?”

“Never,” she swore, shaking her head adamantly. “I never once laughed at you.”

“I’ll bet,” I muttered. “I treated you like a guy. Jostled and joked, called you things I’d never call a woman.”

Remy hugged herself. “I didn’t mind. It let me know we were friends.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, nodding in agreement. “We were. You’d probably become one of the closest friends I’d ever had. And you just...you just took that away from me. Then you walked through this doorway and let me know Elisa, the one woman who rocked my world, doesn’t exist either.”

“No.” She shook her head some more. “They both still exist. Sticks and Elisa are still here.” She tapped her hands against her chest. “They’re just one person now. It’s just Remy.”

This time it was my turn to shake my head and say, “No. The only person I’m looking at is a f*cking liar.”

I turned away to storm out the door when she called, “Wait! What about tomorrow?”

I paused and glanced back, frowning. “What?”