Page 62 of The Wrong One

I squeezed her hand. “I can’t just stop caring about you.”

“Did we really ruin this?” she asked softly.

“I don’t know.”

“We should have told him on our own terms,” she said with so much emotion in her voice it squeezed my heart.

“He’ll come around,” I said.

“How can you be so sure?” she asked.

“Because it’s what I want. I want to be with you. I want to share my life with you. I want to be the man you deserve and I’m going to do everything to prove I can be. I’ll prove it to you and Ramsey. Once he sees I’m serious about you, he’ll have to come around.”

“And if he doesn’t?” she whispered.

I took a deep breath. I didn’t even want to think about that. “I can’t choose between my best friend and the woman I’ve fallen in love with.”

She reached for me. We shared a passionate kiss that I had to cut short. I wasn’t going to risk Ramsey coming back in and finding us in each other’s arms. That would only add insult to injury.

She pulled back and looked at me. “What do we do now?”

I kissed her. “We get through this.”

“I don’t know how,” she murmured. “He was so hurt. So mad. I’ve never heard him talk like that to me or you.”

“I know,” I agreed.

“I don’t want you to be forced to choose,” she whispered with her hand on my cheek.

“I couldn’t choose,” I told her honestly. “I need a minute. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” she smiled sadly.

I kissed the top of her head and walked out of the lab. I needed a minute to get my head straight. I had a million thoughts running through my head and I had to find a way to make them all make sense.

I knew Ramsey was angry. I knew he was hurt. I knew he was going to try to push me away. I also knew that he was my best friend. He was the guy I could count on and the guy I could trust. We were like brothers. That bond was unbreakable. I knew he’d get over it. I had to believe that. I had to believe that he’d forgive me. I had to believe that he’d want me to be happy. I couldn’t lose him.

I took another deep breath and headed to his office. I had to get my head together and handle this. I walked down to the end of the hallway and knocked on the door, waiting for a response.

“Come in,” I heard his gruff voice say.

I opened the door slowly and peeked inside. Ramsey was sitting at his desk, staring at his computer screen with a grim expression. He didn’t look up when I walked in.

“Hey, man,” I said cautiously, closing the door behind me. “Can we talk?”

He sighed and finally looked up at me, his eyes cold and distant. “What’s there to talk about?”

I took a deep breath and sat down in the chair across from him. “Look, I know you’re angry. I understand why you’re upset. But you have to understand that I didn’t plan for things to happen the way they did with Izzy.”

Ramsey scoffed and leaned back in his chair. “Oh, so it just happened? You couldn’t control yourself?”

“That’s not what I meant,” I replied firmly. “I’m just saying that things got complicated, and I didn’t want to hurt either of you.”

He shook his head and let out a bitter laugh. “Well, you sure did a great job of that. You hurt me, and you hurt Izzy, too.”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” I said sincerely. “But you have to understand that I never intended for things to turn out this way. It just happened, and I didn’t know how to handle it.”

“I can’t talk to you right now,” he said. “I need some time. Just go, please.”

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