Page 287 of The Sinner: James

“Was she in Washington, DC?” I ask, pushing it into his face.

The blood drains out of his face.

“Where’d you get those?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“It’s not what I think, Lex?? Of course, it’s not what I think. It’s what I fucking see. What the hell were you doing in New York? Did you hook up with her?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“So, what is this?”

“I did not hook up with her. I didn’t want to tell you I was planning to talk to her because you would’ve been against it,” he says.

A weight falls on my chest.

“You had no fucking business to talk to her,” I bark, barely reining in my fury.

“Maybe. Or maybe someone had to take care of your fucking business,” he retorts, unleashing his anger.

I’m seconds away from leaping at his throat.

Closing the space between us, I sink my gaze into his eyes.

Defiant, he doesn’t back away, and for the first time ever, I feel him against me.

“How many times have I fucking told you to stay away from her?”

“I did not go there to hook up with her,” he says again, his voice exploding with frustration.

I look at him, taken aback by his reaction, a bitter chuckle rolling off my lips.

“I don’t give a fuck what you tell yourself, Lex. I know what I see. Did you fuck her?” I ask, my voice hoarse.

We clash gazes in a standoff that is about to break the trust we’ve built for years.

He lets out a long exhale.

“No. I didn’t fuck her,” he says, regret lining his voice. “I told you I went there to talk to her about you.”

Shaking my head in disbelief, I step back, a twisted smile clinging to my lips, my fingers raking through my hair as I briefly tip my gaze down.

“Go fuck yourself, Lex,” I mutter gravelly. ”I didn’t ask you to go to her, so if you went there, you had your own fucking reasons.”

“Okay,” he admits in a softer voice. “You’re right. There was a personal reason, but it’s not what you think. I wanted to convince myself there was no chance she and I could be together. ”

I slash him with my glare.

“You wanted the truth,” he says.

“And?”

“And I got my answer. What you saw in that picture was me kissing her goodbye.”

“She was all dressed up.”

---