Page 36 of Fractured Trust

“The man I cared for—loved—would never have manipulated me that way. I was never the woman for you, Deacon, as much as you might have romanticized me for some reason. How could I be when I was so deeply in love with someone else? What we had, what we felt for each other all those years? It was an illusion. It wasn’t love. Not bone-deep love. It was comfort, security, it was trying to make something out of what we thought we needed. And that was why it was never going to work.”

“Are you going back to him?”

“I can’t answer that. Not only because I don’t owe you that information, but because I honestly don’t know what the future holds. The only thing I know is that I need to rediscover who I am and what I want out of life.”

“Do you hate me?” His voice was a rasp.

“Our whole marriage was based on a lie, and I’m not sure I can ever forgive you for that. But I don’t hate you. I can’t. I don’t want to live with that in my life. I’m already carrying too much regret in my heart.”

She gathered herself together. She’d gotten what she’d come here for. Now she could close the door on this chapter of her life. It was too late to change what had happened, but not too late to start building the future she wanted.

Summer turned and walked to the door, opening it, then paused to look back at him. “I hope you find someone you can be happy with one day, Deacon. Someone who loves you, not just because you want them to, but because they can’t imagine not loving you.”

Then she walked away.

The whole flight home, Summer’s thoughts and emotions tumbled around in her head, alternating between guilt and anger. At Deacon, at Noah, for smashing back into her life and confusing everything she thought she knew, but most of all at herself.

Why hadn’t she answered Noah’s calls back then, spoken to him after she’d seen that damn photo? If she had, would she have even believed him when he explained to her what had happened?

Even in her own head, she couldn’t answer that question. She’d been so anxious, so mixed up back then. And Deacon had fed her doubts. The casual remarks about what the guys would be getting up to on tour, what it must be like having all those fans clamoring for their attention. Then a comment, thrown in as if it was an afterthought:Not Noah of course. Why would he want that when he has you?Which always had her questioning whether shecouldever be enough to stop him wanting that.

And she was already primed to believe the worst. By the pain her mom hadn’t been able to hide from her, no matter how hard she’d tried. By the loss of her dad—the almost inevitable drift that had started the night she’d listened to her parents argue and woken to find him gone. A loss that had only been cemented when he’d moved away with his baby boy and young girlfriend—later his second wife—so they could be closer to her parents. Not that he’d lasted the distance with her either—he was on wife number three now, apparently.

Summer’s gut clenched and rolled, remembering Noah’s expression when he’d found out the why of what she’d done. He had every right to be hurt and angry. Because if she’d loved him the way he deserved, she would never have let Deacon get to her.

But she had.

Noah should have walked away the other night. Not kissed her. Not filled her with the kind of pleasure she hadn’t experienced in so long.

Summer’s chest and throat tightened. Her eyes burned, but no tears fell. By the time she got back to her apartment a few hours later, her emotions were so mixed up inside her she thought she might scream. She wanted to scream. To scream and cry and rage at everyone and everything; to release the pressure. But the tears wouldn’t come. It wasn’t until she’d poured herself a glass of wine and sat down on the couch, hoping to distract herself by watching a movie, that finally,finally, the barrier broke. She didn’t know what triggered it, but it started with a burn behind her eyes, then a single tear dripping down her cheek. She barely had time to put her glass down on the side table before they were streaming down her face.

She dropped her head into her hands and sobbed.

Chapter 16

Noah knocked on Summer’s door. He’d given her a couple of days—given thembotha couple of days—and now he needed to see her. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her—her touch, her taste; fuck, thetasteof her—since he’d left her apartment. Patience wasn’t a virtue he was overly familiar with, and what he did have had just about run out.

He’d spent hours over the last few days drumming in his personal soundproofed music room, not stopping until sweat had dripped from his body, needing the rhythm to soothe his rattled emotions, to calm the desire to go back right that second and take what was his—take back what she’d given to Deacon.

He wasn’t sure what was going to happen between them. Didn’t know what their next step should be. All he knew was he’d had a taste of her again and going without now was impossible. He still had questions. Hell, so many questions. He still didn’t know how she could have traded him in so quickly. He couldn’t have been imagining how she’d felt about him back then. She’d loved him, just as deeply as he’d loved her. He believed that. So how could she have moved on with Deacon so quickly? How could she havemarriedhim?

The familiar pain filled him. Even though he’d come to terms with what had happened, understood what had made her break it off, the hurt lingered. Forgiving and forgetting were two very different things. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to wipe the memory of seeing her wrapped in Deacon’s arms from his mind. But he wanted to fucking try.

The sound of her footsteps approaching the door distracted Noah from his thoughts. After a second where she probably checked who it was through the peephole, she unlatched it and opened it for him.

What the hell?He could see the tension in her immediately, her eyes a turbulent swirl of emotions he couldn’t begin to catalog. What had happened between when he’d left her the other night and now? He didn’t know, but obviously she was hurting, and regardless of how confused his own emotions were, that was unacceptable. He reached out for her, gathered her in his arms, and pulled her against him.

“Summer, what’s the matter?” He smoothed his hand up and down her back, even as he dropped his head to her hair and breathed in. His dick twitched in his jeans, clearly not understanding that this wasn’t the first step toward getting to fuck her again.

“I’m okay, Noah. It’s just been a rough day.” She hesitated, then tentatively wrapped her arms around him, and the sensation of having her hug him was at once so familiar and so foreign, he almost didn’t know what to do with himself.

“What happened?” he asked gently.

She sighed, her breath warming his skin through the thin cotton of his t-shirt.

“I flew back to Chicago this morning.”

Noah pulled back, using his hand to tilt her face up. “You went and saw Deacon?”

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