Page 74 of Returning Your Love
“You—Jesus, Jamie!” Shuddering, he turned his face from me as though he couldn’t stand the sight of me. “Fuck!” Chaz stormed to the other end of the living room but stopped in the hallway, wrapping his arms around himself as though trying to keep his insides from spilling out onto the floor between us.
Hazel eyes welled with tears, his face a sickly gray, leached of life.
Nausea erupted in my stomach, and tremors took over my body. “Chaz?—”
“D-Don’t.” He held up a hand, and the hurt in his gaze constricted my lungs. “How…” He swallowed hard. “How could you betray her—me—like that?”
I should have kept my mouth shut and taken the truth to the grave where it wouldn’t have caused any damage. Here I was, hoping to protect Chaz from more pain, and all I’d done was make shit worse.
Mistake?
You bet your fucking ass it was.
“I’m sorry,” I croaked.
“Get out of my house,” he stuttered, choking on the words as tears slid down his face.
“Chaz, please.”
“Get. Out!”
Pain ripped through my chest as easily as my hands had his shirt what felt minutes earlier. Lightheaded and reeling, his cum dripping from my ass, I grabbed my clothes and struggled to tug them on, unable to find any words that would make this right.Every thought escaped me other than giving Chaz exactly what he had demanded of me.
I shoved my shoes on, fumbled to pick up my keys from where they’d fallen to the floor, and turned toward the front door without looking at him again. Couldn’t bear to see the additional pain I’d caused, how my horrifying admission had let him down when all I’d hoped was to set him at ease.
What had I expected? For him to say, “Yeah, me too”? He’d loved Shelly enough to marry her. Of course he would be horrified to hear his best friend had wanted her gone.
The damage had been done, and now there was nothing I could do or say. I’d fucked up beyond redemption.
Chaz didn’t utter a word, and I shut myself out of the home he had shared with Shelly. My lungs ached to scream into the cold night sky. Hand fisted around my keys so hard the metal bit into my palm.
I’d always prided myself on my loyalty, and I had broken faith with him in the worst possible way.
I didn’t deserve Chaz’s love.
Or forgiveness.
Chapter 26
Chaz
My best friend…he’d wished my wife was dead.
What the actualfuck? That was not the man I’d known since childhood, not even close.
He’d wished her gone from Pippen Creek, no longer a part of my life. Well, he’d gotten what he wanted, and the woman’s heart along with her unborn child’s no longer beat. And the father of that baby was probably broken beyond repair.
And me? I was just downright pissed over his betrayal of both me and my wife.
Anger seared through my veins, devouring all other emotions in its path. I clung to the rage as it burned the others to ash easily blown away on a wind through my mind.
How could Jamie Forester stoop to that level of shittiness? Hell, I’d wanted my freedom more than he ever could, and I’d never once hoped something bad happened to Shelly.
I’d striven to make things better even though we’d been miserable.
Hadn’t I?
Second-guessing started up in my brain, loud as fuck between my ears. I remembered the negativity and complainingshe’d heaped on my head every night when I got home. Pleasing her had been an impossibility.
