Page 29 of Playing A Risk
“Forget I asked. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
“It’s okay. I just have so much I’m trying tomake sense of. If that didn’t happen with Jami, I wouldn’t be standing here now.”
The words are a knife to my throat, but I swallow and stand tall. “But you’re forgetting one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“It did happen. You can’t change that fact.”
She deflates, and more tears fall. “I know, but it’s hard to face. I’ve known Jami most of my life. I never thought he could deceive me this way. How could I have missed it? There had to be clues and signs, but I can’t think of any.”
“Maybe he didn’t want you to see any.” I give her a little to chew on.
God knows I should tell her the rest, but I can’t risk doing that. It’ll backfire and make me look like I spilled Jamison’s secrets.
This time, I need to step back and let the cards fall as they come. Jamison needs to figure out his relationship with her and I need to figure out mine.
“Why would he hide this from me, Hunter?”
“Maybe he was waiting for the right time to tell you.”
Her gaze springs to mine. “The right time? He couldn’t find the right time to tell me something so important in the last seven or eight months? I don’t understand that logic. How did he expect us to start our own family when he already has one?”
Another one of her disclosures slaps me across the face. I close my eyes and shake my head to stave off the pain. I return to the daybed and sit, bending over my legs and running my hands down my face.
They were going to start a family together.
I’m not sure I stand a chance of getting her back after hearing that. She was building a life with him in her mind. Hell, she probably has everything laid out—from where they’ll live to where they’ll spend every Christmas. The thought kills me because she wasn’t doing that with me.
She rushes over to me. “Hunter. I’m sorry. It just came out.”
“Don’t. I should’ve seen it. You’re not the one to blame.”
She sits beside me and runs her hand over my back. “You couldn’t have seen it because I wasn’t showing you anything that would’ve given you that indication. We weren’t together, but I wasn’t with him either.”
Confusion swirls in my core. I rub my eyes and stare at the ground. “But we were together. Not sexually, but we were trying to work things out. At least, I thought we were, but maybe I’m the one making things up in my head.”
“There was so much manipulation going on at that time. You told me you’d ruin him if I tried to be with him. You threatened his livelihood. What other choice did I have? If I would’ve ended it with you, you would’ve destroyed him.”
“When I threatened his career, I had just learned you had slept with him. I wasn’t thinking rationally.”
I push off the daybed and turn away from her. “You know what? I was going to fight for you amicably and make it right with him, but he came after me. Still, that doesn’t matter. I manipulated you, and I’m sorry for that.”
“It didn’t have to be like that. You didn’t have to go that far.”
I stack my spine and face her. “I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. Because of that, I’ve made many mistakes. I’m sorry for those. I’d take them back if I could. My fear of losing you showed through my ruthless tactics.”
“Hunter…”
“If you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do. Sleep well and I’ll see you in the morning.” I leave her on the rooftop terrace to give us both some space.
She thinks she sacrificed herself for him back then. Correction. She believes she sacrificed herself tomeso he could keep his contract. And this is how he repays her. My stomach spews bile.
If I want her to get to a point where she would consider a relationship with me, I have to be more honest than he was. I can prove to her I’m the better choice.
She can love me as much as she loves him. She just needs to see I can be the man she wants me to be.
That’s if she ever really loved me.
