The silence fell over both of us now that the conversation had been exhausted. I saw Coen on a regular basis, but I felt like I didn’t know him at all. He was a stranger, someone who’d betrayed me a long time ago. My loyalty to my family made me soft. Father was gone, and I was the eldest in the family. I felt responsible for Coen. Mother had already been through enough, and I didn’t want this drama to fall into her lap.
My brother turned his gaze on me, visibly apologetic. “Slate—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
He winced again.
“I pity you for what she put you through. I know you’re a good guy and you deserve better. But the only reason you’re trying to apologize to me is because she left you high and dry—and I was right. It doesn’t change the fact that you betrayed me. If she’d never left, I would forever be the recipient of your silence. I would never know your children, and when Mother died, we would never cross paths again. That future would have happened because of you.” I looked him in the eye. “I was the victim in all of this, the person who had to suffer the humiliation of your betrayal. I had to suffer being in the same room with the woman who took my brother away from me. I never cared that she left. It was never about her. It was always about you, my brother, my blood.”
“Slate—”
“You made me into a stranger. You made me your enemy. And that’s something I can never forgive you for.”
When I walked into the bedroom, Cherry was sitting up in bed reading a book, and she wore the one-piece white lingerie I’d left on the bed earlier.
I was too livid to appreciate the sight.
She shut the book and placed it on the nightstand. “Conversation didn’t go well?”
Clothes dropped to the floor as I prepared for bed. My jeans were tossed aside, and my t-shirt landed on the armchair. “What makes you say that?”
“Your shoulders are stiff, and you haven’t looked at me once.”
I pulled back the covers and got into bed beside her. “You know me well.”
“Very well.”
I turned off the bedside lamp and stared at the ceiling. Her lamp was still on, so the room was dimly lit. A beautiful woman in white lingerie was beside me, but I didn’t have a sexual urge anywhere in my body. All I could think about was the scar of betrayal that was still marked over my heart.
She snuggled into my side and tucked her slender leg in between mine. Her hand rested on my chest, and her face rested against my shoulder. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Alright. Goodnight.” She moved to her lamp, turned the switch, and then came back to me.
With eyes wide open, I stared at the ceiling and listened to her quiet breathing. I was used to the sound as it lulled me to sleep every night. I’d spent every night alone for the last five years, and despite how big my bed was, I had this woman on top of me like there wasn’t plenty of space on her side.
But now I’d gotten used to it.
Used to her smell on my sheets. Used to the quiet noises she made in the middle of the night. Used to the way she made the bed every morning even though my maid took care of that.
She didn’t pry into my anger and let me be.
But I couldn’t get the angry thoughts out of my mind. It seemed like they could only go away after they escaped from my tongue. “I told him the truth about you. Since Simone is going to lose her shit tomorrow, I decided to come clean.”
“Oh…”
“He was surprised at first, but then it made sense to him.”
“I guess he doesn’t have a high opinion of me anymore.”
“My brother is a jerk, but not that kind of jerk. He doesn’t think less of you. In fact, he told me he would do the exact same thing.”
“Well, that’s nice.” She kept her body wrapped around mine as the lace from her lingerie rubbed against me.
“Then he tried to apologize…but I wouldn’t let him.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to hear it. Five years have come and gone, and he never gave a damn. He only cares now because he’s been humbled by his humiliation. That’s an empty apology, and I’d prefer not to receive that.”
“Can’t he be humiliated and sincere at the same time?”
“No.”
She rubbed my chest with her delicate fingertips. “You were there for him when he didn’t deserve it. Maybe that made him realize how much of an ass he has been. Maybe it wasn’t necessarily Simone leaving him…but the fact that you were the bigger man. Maybe that’s what made him realize he was in the wrong.”