Page 77 of Dearly Betrayed

“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice sounding tiny. I keep apologizing, but nobody seems to want to listen. At least Casey manages to smile and rub her face, but she’s got more important things to deal with. “You should go back to your family. I’m not worth it.”

“Oh, stop.” She gives me a hard look. “Tell me what happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“From the beginning. Start from the top and tell me why you stole those documents and why you copied them. Tell me everything.”

I take a deep breath. Some part of me wonders if Casey was sent in here by Adler to get my confession, but even if that’s true, I don’t care. I’m not trying to hide it.

I start at the graveyard, at the moment I found out I was going to marry Jayson. It comes out in a rush, all the worry and the fear, how I only said yes to make sure no other Grady girl was put in my place. How I thought of it as a sacrifice, but I hated him so much already for killing my father.

“I wanted to hurt him,” I admit, feeling horrible. I hug myself like I’m trying to hold my guts in. I can’t imagine doing anything so stupid now, not to Jayson, but he wasn’tJaysonat that point, only the bastard that killed my dad.

She listens as I talk about copying the papers and hiding them in the wall. How I told Rian, but he convinced me to hold off on doing anything. And how things started to change with Jayson, and one day I realized I didn’t want to hurt him anymore—but the stolen papers were still there, and that conversation had been recorded.

“You threw it all out hoping you could get away with it,” she says quietly.

“I knew they’d hear the conversation, but I planned on saying I never followed through with stealing anything and I was just pissed off.”

“That’s why you tossed it.” She smiles slightly, shaking her head. “I guess you weren’t heading out to go shopping, huh?”

“No. I’m sorry I lied to you.”

She nods, chewing her lip. “I understand. I really do, probably better than any of the boys.”

“I didn’t mean to betray him. Or at least, I did want to hurt him, but once I got to know him, I began to realize I was falling in love. And now it’s like, I did something so stupid, hurt him so deeply, and I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to forgive me. I hate myself for making those copies. I wish I could take it all back.”

She reaches out and puts a hand on my ankle. “I believe you.”

“Really?” It feels so good for her to say that right now.

“Yes, I really do. I don’t think you would’ve gone to such lengths to get rid of all that stuff if you planned on hurting him. Maybe you’re an incredibly good liar, but—I don’t know, call it my intuition, but I think you’re telling the truth.”

“I messed up. I won’t deny it and I won’t pretend like I didn’t do it.”

“That’s good at least. They’d figure it out if you were lying and that would only make things worse. If there’s one thing they hate as much as betrayal, it’s liars.”

I groan and lean back in the bed. “What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Jayson would barely talk to me. He wouldn’t look at me at all. It was like I was a black hole and he couldn’t bear to turn in my direction.”

“Do you really want to fix things?”

I tilt my head toward her and consider her question for only half a beat before nodding. “Yes. I really do.”

“And you want to stay his wife?”

“Yes. I definitely do.”

“That’s good.” She looks relieved, like she wasn’t sure what I’d say. “Because if you wanted out, I bet you could get out. I mean, after this, they’d be happy to get rid of you, but they won’t kill you. That’d only start the war again and they still don’t want that.”

“I want to be here with him. Which is so pathetic, isn’t it? I went to so much trouble to get all those documents because I hated him and wanted to hurt him, and now all I want to do is sleep in bed with my husband again.”

Her smile gets bigger. “That’s kind of cute.”

“Tell Jayson that.”

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