Page 10 of Tell Me Something True

Christ, but that was so far off the mark, he didn’t know whether to laugh his ass off or sit on the pavement and bawl like a baby.

Neither would change the situation.

Either would be a loss of control.

“Not quite.”

His plans, the ones he’d shared with her all those years ago, had been simple.

Become a cop, return to Mount Laurel where he’d spend his life serving and protecting the people he cared about the most, surrounded by his family and friends.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tabitha said. “It looks to me like you’re right on track with that ten-year plan you had.”

Except his ten-year plan had included being married by now. Maybe even having a kid or two.

It had included being married to her.

Those plans changed when he’d realized what a fool he’d been for her. He’d learned valuable lessons about trust. He’d survived his first, his only, heartbreak. He’d moved on.

He’d fully believed he’d gotten over her.

Until fifteen minutes ago when he’d turned on his barstool and saw her standing there.

“What do you want?”

Her brows drew together. “What do you mean?”“I mean, why did you come after me?”

“I want to talk to you.” She shifted closer. Laid her hand on his chest. “I want to hear what you’ve been up to. How you’ve been. I want you to stop being so angry with me.” She tipped her face up and met his gaze, her voice dropping to barely a whisper. “I’ve thought about you.”

He went stiff with shock, his neck and shoulders tightening with denial. His blood boiling with fury. But he refused to let any of it show.

Refused to give her any piece of himself ever again.

“Did you think I’ve been sitting around waiting for you?” he murmured, hoping like hell she couldn’t feel the thudding of his heart beneath her hand. “That after ten years without a word I’m pining for you?”

“I doubt Mount Laurel’s king of one-night stands has enough free time to be doing any pining. Or, from the sounds of it, much sitting around.” She paused, taking a long moment to send him a knowing look. “More like he’s trying to fuck someone out of his system.”

Nothing like having your ass chewed right up then handed back to you with a few words.

But she wasn’t the only one who could hide. Who could pretend.

And he was quickly learning she wasn’t the only one who could lie.

“This might come as a shock to you and that ego you’ve acquired,” he said, tossing her earlier comment about his ego back at her, “but when I’m with other women, you never even cross my mind.”

Her look went from knowing to sympathetic. As if she saw right through his bullshit and pitied him for trying to fool her with it.

For trying to fool himself.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” she said quietly, “if you still think about me.”

His denial flew, fast and furious up his throat, but instead of bursting out his mouth, the lie stayed there, choking him, refusing to be let free.

And in that silence, she sensed her opening.

“It doesn’t have to mean you forgive me,” she said, “if you stop being so angry with me.”

Having her this close, the warmth of her fingers seeping through his shirt, that new scent of hers surrounding him, made him realize the truth.

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