Page 40 of Making Choices

“Because the beautiful doctor is making you feel things you thought you’d never want again?”

“What?” My mouth drops open as I try to work through her question in my head. It takes a moment to grasp who Cherub’s talking about, but when I do, the choice is made. I do what every coward does—I take the easy way out. “Yeah… the doctor. She’s taken me by surprise.”

The squeal of excitement that leaves her lips stabs me in the heart. “I knew it. That’s why I tried to suss you out last night.”

Scratching my chin against my shoulder so I don’t have to meet her eyes, I infuse as much humour as I can muster into my voice when I quip, “Last night you told me my first impression was woeful.”

“I was trying reverse psychology,” she crows, jiggling her shoulders in a happy dance. Her obviously braless tits bounce right in front of my face. “’Cause I knew you were lying about being interested in her.”

With a groan, I scramble from the floor to plonk my arse as far away from her on the couch as I can get. She slides over to me, eyes flashing with excitement. I stop her from getting too close by knocking my shoulder to hers. “Just hold off on plannin’ a double wedding, okay? I’ve only spoken to her two or three times.”

“In a day and a half… you’re practically engaged.” Cherub pokes out her tongue at me. “Jokes aside, I want to know everything you’ve said to her, everything she’s said to you.” My conscience pricks when the beautiful blonde’s face lights up with genuine enthusiasm and she pats my cheek. “You have no idea how happy I am for you.”

In a stilted tone, I do my best to waffle on some bullshit about meeting Bebe a second time in Fret’s room after they all left and hitting it off. I make myself sound like a regular Don Juan when I embellish how I helped the good doctor fend off her handsy boss. Every lie I tell tastes like dirt, yet I can’t help myself. I turn a couple fleeting flirtations and one brief interlude where I couldn’t get my dick hard into a series of meet cutes worthy of a romance novel.

By the time I’m finished, Cherub is staring up at me with hearts in her eyes.

With a perverse need that should disgust me, I feign sympathy as I poke a hole in her mood. “It feels wrong to talk about me and Bebe when you and Venom are breakin’ up tomorrow.”

Just like I knew it would, my mention of Cherub’s impending separation from her fiancé makes the skin around her eyes crease with pain. She plasters a fake smile on her face as she pretends I haven’t hurt her. “No. It’s fine. I want this for you… a second chance at love is exactly what you deserve.”

The ratty way I’m acting makes me feel sick, yet I can’t stop myself. Some part of me, deep down, in the dark recesses of my soul, where my love for Cherub has become a cancer that’s killing me, wants her to hurt like I am.

With feigned curiosity, I prod at her vulnerability again. “Movin’ on isn’t as easy as you make it sound. Could you be with someone else after Venom?”

Equating what I felt for Jenna to the love Venom and Cherub share is disgusting.

The two relationships aren’t in the same goddamn universe, let alone residing on the same planet.

I see agony flicker in Cherub’s blue eyes before she straightens her shoulders and grins. “Didn’t I tell you that you’re my back-up husband if this all goes wrong?”

It’s clearly a joke.

A way to play off how devastated she’d be if she lost Venom.

Knowing this doesn’t stop my chest from swelling at the thought of making her mine.

My tone is hard as I demand, “Be serious.”

Shock makes her gaze widen. The tension that winds through her as she thinks through my hypothetical pulls Cherub inward until she’s hugging her stomach with both arms. It diminishes her. Makes her fade before my eyes. The light that has been present within her for as long as I can remember, the same soulful light that illuminates the rest of us with her spirit, dims markedly.

I swallow down the bile that surges in my throat.

I did this to her.

Upset her.

Hurt her.

“There’s no one for me, but him,” she whispers. “I’ve made mistakes that almost cost me his love once before… I know what it’s like to face the idea of life without him. There is no second chance at love for me. It’s Zeke or nothing.”

As Cherub’s titanium truth fills the space between us, I rear back like she’s slapped me. Lost in her own agony at the thought of a future without her man, no matter how unlikely the scenario, my dream girl leans forward and presses a kiss to my cheek.

“I’m tired,” she murmurs distractedly as she stands. “Good night.”

Pressing my fingertips to the spot where her lips touched my face, I watch Cherub weave her way out of the den like she’s had the ground tilted beneath her feet. My selfish actions haunt me. They kick me in the balls. Fill my gut with acid. Make me wish I had the courage to take a blade to my chest.

I should cut out my heart and offer it to her on a platter as an apology for what I just did.

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