Page 84 of Worth Every Moment
“Why am I on the wall?”
“Because you’re beautiful.”
Beautiful. The word is infused with such vitriol that it doesn’t feel like a compliment. It feels like he’s stabbed me with an icicle.Right to the heart.He knows me well enough to hit where it hurts, and he chose to strike the blow. He’s the one person who Ialways thought saw me as more than a pretty face, and I wanted him to own it. But he didn’t.
I press a hand against my chest to soothe the pain. I don’t want to be on the wall because I’m beautiful.
I want to be there because he loves me.
The thing is, I have no clue how to communicate that in a way that won’t make everything worse, and I’m angry and hurt enough that I won’t even try.
He’s still waiting for a response, but when it’s clear I have none, he turns away and stalks to the living area, pulling the stopper from a bottle of Macallan.
Don’t turn away from me. Not now.
“Did you masturbate to that picture?” I yell.
His expression is stony as he pours himself a glass. I expect him to throw the whole thing down in one, but he doesn’t. He takes a slow sip, closing his eyes as though he’s trying to regain his self-control. When he opens them, his gaze is hard and unforgiving. “Yes.”
“When we were friends?”
Another cool sip. “Yes.”
“How many times?”
This time, he swallows the remaining liquid in one. “I didn’t keep count.”
He pours another glass, and I watch him.Wanting him. Hating him. He must feel my glare, but he ignores me as he takes his glass, steps towards the full height windows that look over the park, and pushes a button on the wall. The glass slides back, allowing him to proceed out onto the balcony. He turns to me. “Goodnight, Erica. Sweet dreams.” He steps outside and closes the glass behind him.
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I’ve officially killed our friendship stone dead by telling her about the camera. Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut.Maybe I should’ve told her I came too.Told her that seeing her try to stifle her noises—God, how I’d love to hear them again—as her body quivered on my bed was enough to have me shooting my load all over my trousers.
Maybe I should have told her that she’s on the wall because I’m obsessed with her. Because I have been for years. Because she’s the only woman I ever want to come home to, the only one I want to share my life with, and the only way I could ever make it happen was to hang her on the fucking wall. Maybe I should have told her that I’ve never taken another woman in there because it would sully a space that was only meant for her, even if she never darkened the fucking doorway. And I know how pathetic that is—I’ve always known. It’s why I normally lock the door and why I had the cameras installed. No one but me and my housekeeper ever go in there.
I swallow a gulp of whisky, letting it slide down my throat, warm and blurring my mind. Taking the edge off. I shouldn’thave spoken to her the way I did. But damn it, I can’t live with what I saw, what happened today, and not address it. I couldn’t have ignored it; the guilt would have eaten me up. Whatever I thought she would do when I told her, denying the feelings that drove her to do it wasn’t it. I should march into her room and make her face the fact that there is something real here, however much she wants to call it fake.
Behind me, the glass slides open.She’s coming out?I don’t turn, but everything in me strains like a flower leaning towards the sun as she paces towards me until she stands beside me. She leans on the railing and stares out at the park beyond. The hum of black cabs racing through Hyde Park rises through the darkness.
“I deleted the footage,” I grind out. “If that’s what you want to know. You’re safe. No one is ever going to see it.”
“No one except you,” she says quietly.
My body pulses as images of her flick through my mind; her hair, her legs, the smooth expanse of her stomach, the way her back arched and her tits shook when she came. The memory is so vivid that I can’t shut it down. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life, whether I want to or not. I can’t put any of this into words, nor do I think it would be appropriate to try, so I say nothing.
“You think I need therapy?” Her voice is small, and the question makes my heart ache.Fuck.I can be a real arsehole sometimes.
I take a sip of my drink. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
She steps closer, and her shoulder rests against mine in a touch so slight I’m not sure it’s deliberate. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I finish my scotch and turn to face this beautiful woman, who’s been my friend for years. The fading summer light shimmers across her cheekbones, and a dull ache spreads through mychest. I don’t know if it’s guilt or regret, or something deeper still. But her long dark hair is all glossy and draped over one shoulder, and I have to bite my cheek to stop the impulse to twist it round my fist and drag her closer. “For what?”
“All of it.” Her gaze drifts from mine, and for a moment, the composed Erica Lefroy looks vulnerable. “You’re right. Obviously.” She waves her hand above her shoulder, gesturing towards my bedroom as if to say everything that happened in there proves it. “I’m attracted to you.”
The words light a fire in my gut, spreading through my entire body, and I wish I had another scotch I could down. I’ve longed for her to say something like this for years, and now that she’s here, confessing it, I’m so overwhelmed that I can’t think of a single thing to say.
