Page 93 of Falling Too Late

W-R-E-N.

“A reckoning.”

CHAPTER 35

ALEX

Her brow furrowedat my words for only a moment.

She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It had been years since I laid my eyes on her up close. She looked the same, but different. Her hair was straightened, and I wanted to take her to a shower just to watch it frizz and curl.

I loved her curly hair and hated this straightened version of it. This wasn’t her.

This wasn’tmyWren.

She left you there to rot.

Betrayal lashed through me like a lightning bolt, allowing me to lock down my wayward feelings for her.

I thought I had put them all in a box and taped it shut, but seeing her now was like a wave soaking the measly cardboard container I had put them in, and it was disintegrating before my very eyes.

I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to do this to her here. I wanted to confront her someplace without onlookers. But when Foster had admitted to making a fake dating account using my photo to get closer to Melissa and presented me with the opportunity of seeing Wren, I’d taken it.

It was reckless and stupid on my part, but after seeing thethings in that unit, I needed to be close to her. My stupid fucking heart still wanted to protect her.

I still had no idea what fucking reason could have myheartavoiding me for the last five years. I needed this moment with her in front of him. I needed to see both of their faces. Gauge both their reactions.

I watched her. Her emotions were rapid, horror and shock most prevalent.

I didn’t know what to expect when I confronted her. There was a small part of me that thought maybe she would run into my arms, excited to see me. And if she did that, it would erase the years of betrayal I felt.

But it wasn’t excitement in her eyes. They kept drifting down to my arm, where I was hyperaware of the blonde's fake tits pushed against my elbow.

I didn’t move away from them, though, a sickly satisfied part of me relishing in the. . . What? Was that jealousy I saw?

She tossed back the remaining drink in her glass and for just a moment, her eyes flicked back to me, widening slightly.

I wasn’t going to wait any longer. Watching Jon fidget satisfied a part of me, but I didn’t have a lot of time before he or Wren would bolt. “Melissa, I didn’t make that dating account that you found me on. The PI I hired did.” I said this while watching Wren. I laid it all out for them. A part of me wanted her to know it hadn’t been me looking for an actual date. It was just another way to get closer to her. I sipped my drink. I was trying to savor this. I watched Jon’s face over the rim of my glass. He was getting angry.

Good.

“You work for Jon. I needed to get close to him because I knew, even after all these years, even after Wren turned him down two, three times now, he wouldn’t give up on her. His pride wouldn’t let him.”

“That’s none of your business.” Wren spoke with bite in hertone. Her emerald green eyes narrowed on me, but they flicked over to Jon, who sat as still as a statue.

Her defending Jon agitated me, and I rolled my shoulders.

Wren’s trust in me had been everything, and I had worked my entire early adulthood to ensure she trusted me.

Now, I could tell her the sky was blue and she wouldn’t believe me.

“See. I was right. Anyway, Wren.” I called her attention to me, wanting it to all be on me. She hadn’t left yet, so that told me she knew something was happening, if only subconsciously, my smart girl. “Did you know I was transferred ten different times?”

She stiffly shook her head.

“Well, I was. That first year after my sentence was the most. I was bounced all over the state.”

“You were bounced all over because you couldn’t be contained. You started fights everywhere you went.” Jon’s outburst was exactly what I wanted. I watched as Wren tore her eyes off me and to Jon. Out of every person on this planet, dead or alive, she knew me, she had to believe me.

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