“My wife works in that office,” Heath snapped.
“So does mine,” Luca put in.
“Seriously?” both said at the same time, and I set down the weight before pinching the bridge of my nose.
“I realize that we shouldn’t have. I realize it was very inappropriate, but it just happened.”
“You just fell into her vagina?” Heath asked, and Luca let out a groan.
“Really? That’s what you’re going to say?”
“What else am I supposed to say? When he says that he sleeps with his ex-wife, not once, but a second time and says it’s an accident? I worry about this man.”
“The first kiss was an accident, and I told myself it was a mistake, and then I kept going. I like having sex with Paisley. That was never our problem. She has forever been the best thing I’ve ever had.”
However I knew as I said that, I wasn’t talking about sex in that instant. Because she had been the best thing I had ever had. And I had walked away from it.
“What the hell had you been thinking when you left her?” Heath asked softly.
“I want to say I hadn’t been thinking, but I thought too much all those years ago.”
“What happened all those years ago, man?” Heath asked, as both of my brothers set down the workout equipment to stare at me.
“It wasn’t the right time for us.”
“Bullshit,” Luca burst out, surprising all of us, considering Luca was the calm one of us.
“Bullshit,” Luca repeated. “I remember the way you two were. Yes, you fought, but in that playful way that you two sometimes do now. You two were fucking amazing together. And then suddenly you’re finishing up college and you’re ready to start your new phases, and you’re alone, and she isn’t coming by anymore. It’s just over and you’re not telling us what happened. Did you fucking cheat on her? Did she cheat on you?”
I didn’t even realize I was in Luca’s face before Heath was pulling us apart.
“Don’t you ever fucking say that again. I would have never touched another woman.”
“Then what happened?”
“She didn’t cheat on me. It wasn’t anything like that. I walked away because I had to.”
“Why? What was so important that you couldn’t be with the woman that made you happy? Then again, I don’t even know why our parents can never seem to love each other. So at the time, I figured it was just something our family did. But I see the way that I’m with Addison, and Heath is with Devney. And the way that you look at Paisley when she’s not looking. What the hell, August?”
I glared at my brother, trying to suck in breath, before I looked over at Heath who just waved at me.
“Well? Talk to us. What happened?”
“Have you seen Paisley?” I burst out.
“What?” Luca snapped.
“Have you seen her? And not just how beautiful she is, because she’s the most absolute beautiful woman I’ve ever met in my life. But she’s caring, and yet prideful. She raises her chin when she’s scared and she’s trying to hide it. And she is brilliant. She is a multimillionaire who is poised to take over the world. She was always good with money, and might have come from some of it, but what she has now? It makes everything else pale in comparison. She had everything going for her, and she was married to a future high school chemistry teacher.” I didn’t mean to put such anger in the title, but there it was, out, and there was nothing else I could do.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Heath growled. “Don’t tell me you broke up with her for her own good. Because I’m going to beat the shit out of you for even saying it.”
“She kept canceling things to stay with me. Because I only had certain weekends off during my internship. She was afraid to travel without me because my schedule didn’t work. It wasn’t like I could take PTO in order to go with her to some of these conferences. So she was alone so much, even when she was working even more hours than me, our schedules didn’t mesh, our lives didn’t mesh. She was exceptionalism personified, and I was the guy with a family who couldn’t stay together, and a job that I loved, but didn’t fit with hers.”
My heart raced as I said the words, even as I realized that it didn’t make any sense. And yet, there were more reasons. More reasons that made bile rise in my throat.
“You dumped her because she was too successful?” Luca asked, each word a staccato beat.
“I walked away so she could bloom. So she could thrive. And if I hadn’t, her mother—” I cut myself off before I could say anything else, and then Heath was in my face, Luca right beside him.