I feel a stab of panic followed by anger as I pull her back roughly. “You kidding me with this, Luce? That guy cheats on you, and I take the blame for it?”
She lifts her chin. “You cheated on me once too.”
I let out an incredulous laugh and step back, running my hands over my hair in disbelief. And guilt. Not guilt over what she thinks I did, but guilt over how fucking…
Never mind.
I strike back, the guilt making me defensive.
“Damn it,” I mutter. “That’s what you’re turning this into. It’s not enough that I paid for my own actions back then, now I’m going to have to pay for his too?”
She swipes at her tears, and I register what kind of crying we’re dealing with here: angry crying.
Well bring it on. I’m angry too. At myself mostly, but a little bit at her too for being so…so…Lucy.
“Even now, you don’t deny it,” she cries. “Even now you stand there, look me right in the eye and tell me I’m overreacting!”
“It was six years ago, Lucy! We were kids.”
The wrong thing to say, clearly, because her green eyes go furious, and she steps forward to shove at my shoulders. Only the high heels and soft sand make her uneven, and she wobbles.
I reach out a hand to steady her and she rears back, as though stumbling into the Atlantic would be better than my touch.
“Well it sure felt very grown-up when you took my virginity,” she hisses.
I close my eyes, at the bittersweet memory. “I’m not going to talk to you about this now. Not when you’re upset over some other guy’s betrayal.”
She lets out a little laugh that’s more sad than anything else, and shakes her head. “I’ve heard that before. You’ve never wanted to talk about it, Reece. You’ve always acted like you didn’t have to. Like you never had to explain yourself to little Lucy Hawkins.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?”
I just didn’t know what to say. How to say it. I was nineteen, for Chrissake. Stupid. With her, with myself. But smart too. Because while the way we ended tore us to shreds, it was better then, that way, than later.
And there was always going to be a later. Lucy Hawkins was never going to stay. Not with a guy like me.
She shakes her head, her hand finding the sunglasses tangled in her hair, pulling them down to cover up puffy, angry eyes.
Without another word she turns away from me, but doesn’t move, and I realize her eyes are scanning the buildings on the beach.
“There,” she says, pointing to one of the huge hotels facing the water. “I’m staying there tonight. I’d say I’ve earned a little splurge.”
I follow her, because no way am I letting her out of my sight. Not when she’s so volatile.
I can’t afford the hotel, but I’ve been paying for my missteps with this girl for six years now.
Might as well put some of that guilt on my credit card.
Chapter 17
Lucy
Reece lets me wallow for a full twenty-four hours in Oscar’s betrayal, which, let’s face it, is longer than the asshole deserves.
Still, once the shock of seeing my and Reece’s history play out in front of my eyes wears off, I’m hit by the realization that Oscar’s betrayal hurt in its own right.
I mean, did I think I was going to marry the guy? Probably not. But I cared about him enough to find out if he was the one. Cared enough to make our relationship work, even with distance and the fact that our schedules had no overlap.