Page 19 of Three Sweet Nothings (The Blindfold Club)

Chapter

SEVEN

KYLE

It was a dick move, but I wanted to watch Ruby stomach some of her own medicine. I took a drink of my champagne while she simply stood there, dumbfounded.

Her recovery was quick, and her anger came right back. “I called you,” she accused. “I called you a bunch of times.”

“Yeah, you did.”

That seemed to piss her off more. “You didn’t answer.”

“When I first got to your place and you weren’t there, I thought it was because I was early. After a while, I got worried, and that’s when I discovered my battery was somehow dead.”

It wasn’t like I could ask to borrow someone else’s phone and call her. I didn’t have her number memorized.

“I couldn’t remember where I packed the charger, and my car . . . Everything I owned was in there. I had to tear it all apart to find it, right in the street outside your building.” My stomach churned with unease, like it had then. “Shit, I was worried about you the whole time, thinking any minute your car was going to turn the corner and we’d laugh about how stupid I looked with my shit all over the sidewalk. Only you never came home.”

Her eyes had gone impossibly wide, and she reached out, latching a hand on my forearm. The turmoil in her voice cut into me. “Because I was waiting for you at your place. I had no idea—”

“I knew you wouldn’t blow off saying goodbye to me,” I said, getting louder and more worked up than I meant, because this was the heart of my issue. “Hell, you’d told me you loved me, Ruby. So something awful must have happened to stop you from coming home.”

“Oh, God, Kyle—” Her face twisted with hurt.

“So, I finally found the charger buried in a box, and then got someone to let me into your lobby so I could plug into a wall outlet. As soon as I had enough power, I saw the twelve missed calls from you.” My hands had been shaking as my mind ran all sorts of awful scenarios. “And there was the one voicemail.”

She straightened abruptly, pulling away like I was on fire. Her expression shifted and she whispered it with dread. “I was so angry. I . . . I don’t even remember most of what I said.”

“Yeah?” I spat out. “Well, I do.”

Her recorded tirade was like being run over a mandolin grater. Every sentence she spewed was another pass on the metal edges, taking chunks out of me.

“Whatever it was,” she gasped, “I didn’t mean it.”

Irrelevant, logic screamed at me. It was too little, far too late, and technically not even an apology. I put up a hand, waving her comment away. “Forget about it. It was a long time ago.”

I would act like I’d moved on, and pretend it was all water under the bridge, but that was what it would be. An act. Her words were still sharp in my mind. I’d cared about her so damn much. If I’d been able to fit my feelings for her into a tidy little box, the word love would have been scrawled across the side in black marker.

“What did I say?” Her expression was a mixture of fear and desperation. “Please, you have to tell me.”

“You opened with a strong barrage of insults. All the different ways I was a pussy. I’d thought it was some sort of a joke at first, but then you said where you were, and I figured out what had happened.”

“That,” she whispered, “I sort of remember. There was more?”

Oh, yes, there was. “You said you were glad I was leaving so you could move on and find a better guy who deserved you. I was just a good fuck you were having fun with.” Her face went ash white, but I pushed on. “Then, you told me you never really loved me, and you’d only said it because I was pathetic and so, so desperate to hear it.”

Ruby banded an arm around her stomach like I’d slugged her in the gut. Yeah, that was similar to my reaction the first time I’d heard it. She gasped, drawing in her breath as if it were painful, and her gaze dropped to my feet.

I tossed back the rest of my glass of champagne, giving me something else to do rather than stare at the woman who looked like she was going to be sick. If I was capable of falling in love, it should have been with Ruby. But it hadn’t happened.

At least, not for her.

The silence stretched between us, so tense I couldn’t tolerate another moment. “Coming up here was a mistake.”

She shook her head and lifted her gaze to meet mine, her eyes wet with tears. “I’m so sorry. I was hurting and I didn’t mean it, not a word.” She spoke it with conviction. “You have to know that.”

Part of me wanted to believe her, but I steeled myself. “You made it pretty clear I didn’t know you at all.”

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