Page 75 of Vengeful Seduction
My legs went out and I fell onto a chair, pretty much collapsing onto it. I could try to lie, I supposed, but what was the point? She was smart enough to put the pieces together, especially with Brent having told her what he had.
I didn’t want to lie anyway, even if she would believe me. She knew me for what I was, and maybe it was for the better.
For a moment, we were all just frozen there. Frozen in place and trapped in this moment in time by the horrible situation.
The situation I had caused.
Chapter 22
Kaye
Part of me had hoped David would deny it. Part of me had hoped he would look me right in the eyes and tell me I was crazy—tell me Brent had made it all up and I was a fool to believe him.
Please let him tell me that.
If he had, I probably would have believed him. If I hadn’t read the truth in his eyes anyway. What I’d read in those dark eyes instead had shaken me right to the core, until I felt I had been robbed of my breath—possibly of my very soul.
Brent was telling the truth.
As I lay on that couch after Brent’s confession, I kept praying that this was all just a terrible nightmare and that I would wake up on our bed, in David’s arms, and everything would be okay.
Or I might wake up and find my husband hadn’t lied and Brent had. I was okay with hating Brent, but not with hating David, my husband, the man I thought I knew.
But the sad and sorrowful truth was that David had never loved me. He had lied to me—used me—just for money. He was nothing more than a ruthless capitalist who had been willing to do whatever he had to in order to get what he wanted. He had married me for money, not for emotion. Not for love, the way I thought he had.
Love was the reason I had married him. I didn’t care about the money that his income would give me if our marriage didn’t work out. I always knew it would work out—I would never let it go. But I had been dead wrong, hadn’t I?
“How could you?” I whispered, and the only thing I could think of to do, suddenly, was to get out of there. Watching David collapse onto his chair as his plan came undone around him should have been deeply rewarding.
It wasn’t.
Even after everything he’d done to me and everything he’d tried to do—even with how he’d tried to cheapen me and use me and ruin me, I couldn’t hate him. I knew I should. I knew what Angela, or Joan, or any of the other women I worked with would say.
They would tell me to get mad. To get revenge. To take the man who had hurt me for everything he was worth.
I got to my feet, walking around Brent, but on the side that was furthest from David. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t speak to him. I had really said all there was to say, and maybe it would be best to leave with the tattered remnants of my dignity.
What little there was left of it, anyway.
I walked up the stairs, still so stunned by how quickly everything could fall apart. There was anger there, too, but it was cold and remote, not lending me any of its strength or fury to do what I had to do.
“Kaye! Wait!”
David was on his feet as I turned back around. My heart was completely broken, but it still recognized the sound of his voice. I was going to have to watch that.
“Damn it, you’ve done enough,” Brent hissed, and he launched himself between the stairs where I still stood and David, who was walking toward me. Brent actually pushed himself between us before David was even close to me.
“Get out of my way.” David squared off against his best friend and my shattered heart lurched in my chest. God, no. Please let this not evolve into a physical altercation. On top of everything else, I wasn’t going to be able to handle it.
Brent threw the first punch, and I let out a startled little shriek. In my line of work, I’d seen the end results of more than a few of these quarrels and I knew it wasn’t headed anywhere good.
Something broke through the chill of betrayal when I saw Brent’s fist connect with David’s face and when I saw David clench his hand into a tight little ball and start to swing it at the man who had been his best friend.
I still loved David.
I cared about Brent, too, but David held my heart. I didn’t want either of them hurt, though, and I ran down the stairs so fast it surprised me when I didn’t trip and go flying down them.
Without hesitation or conscious thought, I wrapped my arms around David and swung my body around his, deftly inserting myself between the two of them before either of them could land another blow.
