“Baby…” I start.
“What do you expect me to do now, Killian?” she asks, taking the Kleenex from me and blowing her nose.
“I want you to try to forget that shit downstairs. Forget all of it. Pretend it never happened. You were never supposed to know. I swear, I never wanted you to find out.”
“How could you lie to me like that? How could you… you showed him videos? Of us?” She flattens her palm against her chest with so much pain on her face that it physically hurts me. I’ve got a feeling like heartburn.
“Just an edited video of our heads. Some sound from our wedding. Sound from when I fucked you one other time. He’s exaggerating about what he saw. It was part of his punishment.”
“Part of his…” She shakes her head and lets that hang as she looks at me with shock, with disgust I think. “Making love to me to punish Ray?”
Fuck.
“No. No, baby. But he needed to pay. There was no way around it,” I defend. “And I’ve made him pay with pain, with showing him how happy you are without him. With taunting him. He knows he fucked up. He knows he should never have even-”
“You were gonna let the judge and jury decide his fate. You were gonna let karma do it. You lied to me. Over and over and over again. And you’re trying to make me happy is part of his punishment?”
“No. Making you happy is my priority. Punishing him is just a bonus.”
She spears me with a look of disbelief that hits me in the chest.
“I tried. I wanted to be the guy who kept violence out of it like you wanted. I was gonna leave him to rot in jail. I was.” I snicker. “I’d have made his life in there difficult, make no mistake. I had plans to make it very rough, make sure he knew that was down to me – the guy he underestimated, but yeah… all that changed when I found out he used trick fucking coins on me. You never should’ve been his.”
Her eyes bulge with disbelief. “So, this is my fault then? It’s my fault that you broke your word to me?”
“No. His fate is his fucking fault,” I clip. “Cocky prick played me so he could one-up me, and then fucked you over for three years. Then he fucked me over again in Atlantic City. I give him a chance to make it right, knowing he’d fuck it up again because that’s who he is. What does he do? Brings a goddamn gun to my fucking club, and Violet, the way he looked at you the night you let him have it, the night he brought me the cash he scammed? He looked at you like he wanted to hurt you and I was havin’ a hard time lettin’ that go, too. A very fuckin’ hard time. Had a gun right under my knee strapped to my desk like I do my desk in all my offices, and was this close to pullin’ it then and there.”
She gawks.
“He thought I was weak, that my rep was exaggerated or worse, that I’d lost my edge. Now he knows different.”
“So you orchestrated this whole thing,” she says softly. “Atlantic City. Moving me in with you. All of it. You tricked me into falling for you, so you’d win and he would lose. And then you’ve been recording me-”
“No. Uh uh. I orchestrated Atlantic City, yeah, but falling in love with you? That’s real. It’s real, baby. Believe that.”
She scoffs.
“Violet… every single bit of what we have has been real. Seeing what he’d done to you that night we finally met, I knew I had to do something to help you get out of that situation. I slept on that couch that night because I was sure if I left he would knock you around. My plan was to get you free of that piece of shit, and let you move on with your life. I felt partly responsible for your situation because of that stupid bet. And then I fell in love with you.”
She shakes her head like she doesn’t believe me. “You’re tracking me? Following me? Videotaping me at my job? How are you even doing that?”
“Sprinkler inspection, “ I mutter.
She gawks at me. “That’s loving me? Spying on me? Lying to me? Showing him videos of us-” Her voice cracks.
“Whoa. Back up, baby. Did you not just hear me say how I fell in love with you?”
She covers her face again and sobs.
And I try to take her into my arms again, because I can’t not attempt to comfort her when I see her hurting, and she pulls away, which feels like a kick in the chest.
“It started out for one reason that was about getting you free and clear of him and the reasons changed. I didn’t handle it all the right way, but I’m telling you my feelings for you are legit.”