“I’m fairly sure you did.”
He looked away from her, his gaze settling on the horizon. “I snogged her at your party, which was a shitty thing to do, but I didn’t sleep with her.”
“Yes, you did,” she argued weakly.
He sat beside her again. “For our entire relationship, I felt as though you were about to leave me for Noah Treneary.”
“Noah was my best friend.”
“Didn’t I know it? Most of our dates involved you crowing about how great Noah was. I felt as though I was in constant competition for your attention. And most of the time I seemed to lose that battle.”
“You knew he was just a friend.”
“I thought so, but surely the rumours didn’t escape you …”
“Stupid, untrue rumours.” She took a swig of her beer. “Who cares what other people think?”
“Weirdly enough, I cared. Having people insinuating that my girlfriend was cheating on me was difficult to ignore. My mates all thought I was an idiot and that you were playing me for a fool.”
“We discussed it at the time and you knew there was nothing going on between me and Noah.”
“I know that’s what you told me …”
“But you decided to believe what your mates said instead of me?”
“It might have been easier to believe if Noah hadn’t been in my ear about you and him.”
“Whatever Noah said was a joke. It was nothing he wouldn’t say in front of me. It was always very clear that he was joking.”
“You’d never believe anything bad about him, would you? There’s no point in us having this conversation.”
“Noah didn’t do anything,” she said wearily.
“At your twenty-first party, he pretty much told me that you and he were together. He said you were planning on breaking up with me.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t have said that since it wasn’t true. I had no plans to split up with you. Even if things weren’t perfect between us, I thought we were okay.” She sat up straighter. “None of that excuses what you did anyway. You humiliated me and broke my heart. If you didn’t sleep with Cindy, you happily let me think you did.”
He inhaled deeply. “There didn’t seem to be any point in denying it. Clearly things were over between us, and I just wanted to get out without being the joke of the island. I was pretty certain you were sleeping with Noah behind my back.”
“I wasn’t.”
“He certainly wanted me to think that.”
“I don’t believe you.” At least she didn’twantto believe him. Her thoughts were a mess, and she didn’t know what to believe.
“It doesn’t really matter what happened back then,” he said, setting his bottle on the table. “But I would like you to believe that I’m sorry.”
Tears filled her eyes, though she couldn’t swear it was Felix who was making her emotional.
His hand landed tentatively on her knee, before searching for her hand and entwining their fingers together. “I don’t blame you if you never forgive me,” he said softly. “What I did was horrible. Of all the stupid things I’ve done in my life, that’s the one that haunts me. Iamsorry.”
With no idea how to reply, Seren turned away from him. Laughter drifted on the breeze, floating up from the beach where Kit was with Holly.
The feel of Felix’s thumb stroking her hand drew Seren’s attention. His other hand rose to gently caress her neck as he leaned in, slowly enough for her to object if she’d wanted to. There didn’t seem to be much reason to object, though. She’d missed her chance with Kit, and now he was probably kissing Holly while the sun set over the beach.
Felix wasn’t so bad really.
When his lips touched hers all she felt was an odd sense of detachment. She made no move to stop him when his tongue explored her mouth, but her heart definitely wasn’t in it.