Page 71 of No Going Back
Dianna looked between them, eyes bouncing from Griffin to Janie. “You two know each other?” It was a stupid question to ask. Obviously they’d met.
But it was also obvious they’d done more than simply meet, and a few pieces slowly started falling into place.
She swallowed hard, eyes on Janie. “No.” She shook her head, struggling to believe exactly what was going on. “You would have told me if you thought—” She rested one hand against her head as her stomach rolled, fighting against the angel food cake she’d been so happy to receive from the woman she thought was a ‘real’ friend.
But would a ‘real’ friend be suspicious that you were dating their ex and say nothing? An ex they clearly despised and thought so little of?
No. A real friend wouldn’t do that.
Dianna turned to Griffin, bringing her accusations along with her. “Why didn’tyousay something?”
Griffin shifted on his feet, his focus leaving Janie to fix on her. “There’s more than one Janie in the world, Di. I didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think the woman who was working for me who was a little bit older than me, had a whole sleeve of arm tattoos, and dropped out of culinary school was the same Janie?” Her words were fast and rambling but so were her thoughts. She’d mentioned so many things to him. Things that were irrelevant at the time, but suddenly added up to a level of deception she struggled to stomach.
But it wasn’t just Griffin holding back on her this time.
She turned to Janie. “You knew it was him.” All their conversations came flooding back. The anger Janie still carried. The way she seemed to know exactly what was happening. Exactly what Griffin was doing wrong.
Because he’d done it to her.
She thought Griffin holding back his feelings was the issue they would have to work through, but that was before she realized he was keeping more than feelings from her.
And for someone who pushed her to dump a man who didn’t treat her right, Janie sure seemed fine with letting her make a fool of herself talking about the man they’d both shared a bed with.
“I want you to go.” Dianna pointed to the door, closing her eyes because she couldn’t stand to see anything else. “Both of you.”
They might not have lied to her face, but guilt by omission was a very real thing and it hurt just as bad.
Dianna waited, holding her breath, terrified one of them would argue with her. Try to convince her to change her mind.
But they didn’t.
A minute later the door opened and closed and the only sound in the store was her own choppy breaths.
She rushed to lock the deadbolt, flipping the sign just as the tears started to fall.
Heartbreak she’d kind of been expecting.
But betrayal she had not.
TWENTY-SIX
GRIFFIN
“YOU REALLY DON’T have to sit here and wait on me all day.” Amelie pulled the blanket covering her legs and belly a little higher, relaxing back against the pillow propping her upright on the couch. “I’m perfectly capable of laying here and doing nothing all by myself.”
“But then you would have to get up and make your own lunch.” Griffin carried over the grilled cheese and tomato soup he’d managed to create, carefully setting the plate onto the tray positioned over Amelie’s lap. “And then do the dishes.”
Using his daughter-in-law’s condition as an excuse, he’d moved back to Troy and Amelie’s house almost a week ago, packing up only what he absolutely needed and reclaiming the bedroom upstairs.
“Both things I can do because staying off my feet isn’t technically going to make a difference.” She gave him a weak smile. “I just feel like it can’t hurt and it makes me feel like I’m doingsomething.”
Griffin gave her a little nod. “I understand.” And he did. More than she probably realized.
So much of his life was out of his control right now, and being here with Amelie, making her lunch and doing the dishes so she could rest, made him feel like he hadn’t lost everything.
Only almost all of it.
