Page 61 of Taming Achilles

“When?”

“She called me as I was leaving your wedding.”

“And you’re fucking her.”

“Aye.” It wasn’t an accusation, so much as just another question in a long line that he’d have to ask. I wasn’t fucking her either. That was crass and a vast understatement of the religious experience that happened each time she undid the buttons of her blouse.

But I wasn’t ready to fight about semantics … yet.

“When we were engaged?” His eyes darkened. Was he jealous? Now that I knew they weren’t banging in the sheets, that couldn’t be the reason.

“No.” My answer made him lean back in his chair as though he was relieved.

“Is it new?”

“Also, no.”

The advantage of having a best friend was that monosyllabic grunting could tell paragraphs and sentences.

“When did it end?” He meant before his engagement to her. He was trying to gauge exactly how angry he had to be at me.

“Days. Maybe a week.” I tilted the glass in my hand, the ice clinking against the glass. “Do you remember when I was in Venice?”

“Yes, you said you were working your way through the local female population,” he said with a chuckle. “I take it you were with one non-local.”

I felt the heat come up my neck and into my cheeks. I had waxed poetic about the allures of Italian girls. Venetian girls, in particular, to cover up that I was meeting Pippa. I hated lying back then. Now, I hated that I had de-valued what those getaways meant to me.

“And how long had that been going on? You and her, I mean.” He got up from his seat and went to the bar, pouring himself an identical glass of Macallan. A glass to match mine.

I felt the strange relief of finally being able to say something. Finally being able to tell my best friend the most significant thing in my life, the thing that coloured all my decisions. Even though I knew that it would cost me everything.

“Since we were sixteen.”

He slammed the bottle of Macallan 25 on the table with a loud clatter. The glasses danced before settling back on the surface.

“Since St. Michael’s?” He turned, his eyes wide in shock, before it melted into a simmering anger. “You’ve kept that from me since we were sixteen? That’s over twenty fucking years.”

I raised a brow at him. “It hasn’t been easy.”

“Clearly.” He leaned back on the bar, brought the glass to his lips and downed half of the generous pour down his throat.

After he winced from the burn, he looked over at me.

I was dreading his judgement. He wouldn’t be out of line to cast me out of the penthouse - his penthouse, really. Or his house in Scotland, which most of us lived in at least part of the year. He couldn’t kick me from Caledonia Security, but I’d probably bow out of that voluntarily if that was what he wanted.

Still, I couldn’t regret Pippa. Not even at the possibility of losing everything else in my life.

I had fought hard to regain control of myself. To learn how to function without her. Now I was right smack where I started, knowing that a little bit of her was better than nothing at all.

“Stand up,” Cal motioned with one hand as the other put his glass down on the bar.

I put my whiskey on the armrest, and stood to pay the piper. I put my hands behind my back, my right hand holding my left wrist. With a tilt of my jaw, I presented my face braced for pain.

He pulled his hand back and with a roar, his fist slammed into my nose with a sickening crack.

My head reared back from the impact. I fell forward, one hand on my nose, the other on my knee as the pain jutted from the bridge of my nose up to my eye socket, to my temples. Jesus, he hits hard.

A door slammed open and out came Lea like an avenging angel. She should really start walking around with a sword.

---