Page 97 of An Adventure For Aster

“Of course I trust you,” he said. “But what I don’t like is that when someone from your past who hurt you and has your family against them shows up and you don’t tell me.”

“I don’t need you to save me.”

He walked in past her as they’d been talking by the doorway when he’d shut the door.

“I don’t like your choice of words. What did he say that you had to save yourself?”

She was almost scared of him right now. Not that she thought he’d physically harm her or anything, but he was definitely menacing looking. His eyes were darker than normal, his brown hair was a mess as if he’d been running his hands through it, and there was a muscle ticking at his jaw that she could see under his trimmed beard.

She took a deep breath. She’d been dealing with her brother her whole life and could handle Aster too.

“Nothing,” she said. “Come in and sit down. First I want to tell you that you have no right to come in here and accuse me of anything. Or of doing anything wrong. I haven’t.”

He nodded and moved past her to sit down. “Fine. You didn’t do anything wrong, but I still want to know why almost a week ago your ex came here to talk to you and you never mentioned it.” He held his hand up. “I don’t care that he went to see your mother and talked to her. That is out of your control. Idocare that he knew you were dating someone and still sought you out. No way it was to catch up on old times.”

She wondered if Aster was jealous but decided to not call him out on that just yet until she knew more.

“That’s right. Out of my control. All of it was out of my control. I could tell my mother didn’t want to tell me about it but felt she should give me a warning. At that time she hadn’t told my father. I didn’t know she was going to.”

“Your brother said it slipped or something in front of your father and he got the rest out of her.”

“So it was Brooks?” she asked. She wanted it confirmed.

“Does it matter?” he asked.

She liked he was loyal, but it was misplaced right now.

“It does to me,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Fine. He knows you’re going to get mad at him and didn’t care.”

“Do you care if I’m mad at you?” she asked.

“I’ll deal with it. Or we’ll deal with it after I get more information.”

“What? Brooks didn’t give that to you?” she asked. No way he knew. She didn’t even tell her mother everything. She kept it simple that Colton showed up and she shut the door in his face. Now she was glad that she’d done that.

“No,” he said. “I’d want to hear it from you anyway.”

“Now you want to hear it from me. But you came barging over prior assuming I’ve done something wrong or kept something from you.”

“Not wrong,” he said. “But you did keep something for me.”

She couldn’t argue that point. “Maybe I didn’t want you to know and feel sorry for me,” she said quietly.

“Why the fuck would I feel sorry for you over that? Don’t tell me you still love him.”

“No,” she said. “I stopped loving him years ago.”

“But not when he broke up with you?” he asked. “You still held out hope he’d come back. You told me that. That you stuck up for him because you didn’t want your family to hate him because you still saw a future together?”

Raine sighed and wished she hadn’t told him that but wouldn’t take it back or deny it now.

“I was hurt and upset over what he’d done. I’ve told you all of that. I don’t need to relive it or say it again and again. I felt like a fool for not seeing what was in front of me, but looking back I don’t know that I wouldn’t have seen it.”

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked. “If you’re not jealous.”

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