Page 25 of Rusty's Command

“You’re so full of bullshit.” Her chest was set to explode.

“Will you keep your voice down?”

“No, I will not,” she screamed, her throat burning raw. The cry bounced back at her, echoing eighteen years of buried pain.

Scrambling to her feet, she would have stormed off if she could see anything in the pitch blackness. Instead, she stood there, trembling with rage, trapped in the dark with her past nightmare on repeat in her mind and Pickle leaning into her shin.

Rusty huffed out a breath. “Sienna, you and I had a summer fling. Four amazing, incredible weeks together, but that was all it was ever going to be. You were heading back to Oakridge, and I wasn’t leaving Hawaii.”

The casual mention of her hometown caught her off-guard.

He remembers that detail after eighteen years?

She filed that away, determined to ignore its significance. “We were still together when you fucked that woman I caught you with.”

“I didn’t fuck her. Not then, anyway.”

“Oh, so you admit you wanted her.” The words came out as sharp as thumbtacks.

His silence filled the darkness, heavy as lead. The absence of denial was confirmation enough.

A rustling noise indicated he’d stood. “Yes. You’re right. She caught my attention.”

“Is that what you call it?” Sienna’s voice dripped with venom. “You had your hands all over that woman.”

“Her name was Hannah.”

The name dropped between them like a stone. “Oh, that’s just great. You still remember her name.”

“Yes. We were together two years and were engaged to be married, but then she?—”

The words caught in his throat.

“What? Oh wait, let me guess, you’re going to tell me she broke your heart when she had an affair?” Sienna loaded her sarcasm like armor.

His moan carried such raw anguish that it pierced straight through her defenses.

“Yes, actually,” he said. “She’d been having an affair with her boss for three months before I caught them together in his office. That was four nights before our wedding. Hannah hung herself the next day.”

The revelation knocked the wind from her lungs and wiped away every thread of anger.

“Oh God. Rusty, I’m so sorry.” Her rage gave way to so many emotions she couldn’t slot them into place . . . empathy, sorrow, compassion. Then came the understanding—deep and complete—of why he’d changed so much, why the carefree twenty-year-old with wild red hair had transformed into this controlled, guarded man.

The weight of his loss hung in the darkness between them, making her earlier accusations feel petty and small.

“I’m sorry that happened to you.” The words felt inadequate against such a tragedy.

“It was a long time ago,” he said, but his rough voice betrayed his attempt at dismissal.

“That doesn’t make it hurt any less.” The space between them felt different now, charged with something other than anger, something fragile and raw.

“No, it doesn’t.” His voice cracked slightly. “I spent years trying to understand why she cheated, but I should have considered how she’d handle?—”

“Hey. It’s not your fault.” The words burst from her lips. She knew how much blame could burrow deep and poison everything it touched. She reached out and found his arm in the darkness. His skin was warm beneath her palm, solid and real.

“I must’ve done something wrong for her to do what she did.”

“No.” Her voice softened, eliminating all traces of their earlier argument. “There is never an excuse for cheating. Ortaking your own life. The fallout they leave behind is cruel. If only they knew how much their actions just break something in us when they leave.”

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