Wilder

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and leaned against the cabinet. Rachel.

Just the thought of Paxton kissing my best friend was enough to send my stomach into convulsions again.

She loved reckless boys, and Pax was the definition of reckless. God, it all fit together. I met her a few months after that picture had been taken—and she’d told me how wounded her soul had been by a guy she wouldn’t name.

The same way I couldn’t name him.

What lengths had he gone to get her on board? Screwing you, my shattered heart answered. He’d kept me close, tried to keep me happy to show me the trip of my life so I wouldn’t leave before she got here. He must have known that she wouldn’t come if I left.

Every moment had been carefully calculated to get my best friend here—to get her back into his arms.

I was nothing more than the means to his end.

My head rested against the smooth wood, and I closed my eyes against the bright bathroom lights that made everything all too clear.

I loved him.

He still clearly loved her if he’d gone through all of this to get her back. But he loved me, too, didn’t he? That look in his eyes, the way he touched me, how careful he was with me…that was love, whether or not he’d admit it. Or was I making that all up in my head, too?

What a fucking mess.

What was I going to do? Stand around and watch when Rachel showed up next week? Watch them fall back together while I slept in the room next door? I loved Rachel, I wanted the best for her, to see some spark of happiness in her eyes, but this…could I give up Paxton?

Was Paxton even mine to give up?

Stupid. I was so stupid. I’d let myself fall into him, his touch, his words…everything. Even our first kiss had been my initiation. Of course he’d gone for it, kept me happy. Kept me close. I’d slept with him, given him everything I had, while he what…pined for Rachel?

He’d used me, and it felt so dirty, so wrong, so opposite of how I’d felt when he touched me. Had he been thinking of her, his endgame, while he’d been with me? Kissing me? Inside me?

My stomach rolled again, and I heaved into the toilet.

“Leah…” Brandon said from the doorway.

“Just go,” I said.

I wanted nothing to do with any Wilder men. I was done, as empty as my stomach finally was.

“Is there anything you want me to tell him?”

“Take that picture with you. He’ll get the point.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Leah

Madagascar

“Hey, this is Rachel. If I’m not answering it’s because I didn’t hear the phone, or maybe I just don’t feel like talking. Leave a message, and I’ll eventually return it.”

I hung up and cursed.

Why couldn’t this be like the movies, where the other character answered the damn phone so you could have the emotional moment? Where she told me that everything I’d learned was wrong, that she’d never been with Paxton, that there was some evil twin out there with an identical tattoo. Where everything he’d done for me hadn’t been only to get closer to my best friend. Where I was actually the main character and not relegated to secondary bullshit.

Real life sucked.

I looked around my room, my unpacked bags thrown haphazardly into the tiny space. I’d only been in Paxton’s room for a couple of weeks, but it was long enough for this space to feel unfamiliar, even though it was technically mine. I wasn’t sure even my heart was technically mine at the moment.

My gaze drifted to the clock.

Twenty minutes until the Athena was set to sail. The others waited on the pier for Paxton to make it back, but I couldn’t leave my room, couldn’t see a space beyond the door, or a time beyond the next breath, the next heartbeat.

Nausea twisted my stomach, but at least it kept me physically grounded to reality. Besides, the pain that registered in my brain was nothing compared to the agony my soul demanded be felt. Everything hurt, ached both with the need to see Paxton and the overwhelming urge to smack the shit out of him for what he’d done—what he’d kept from me.

God, had he thought about her when he was touching me? My chest constricted, my throat closing around tears I refused to shed.

I curled up on my bed, hugging my knees to my chest like it would help me hold myself together, and counted through my breaths, focusing on the numbers, forcing air through my lungs.

I’d come so far only to go right back to where I’d been two years ago, fighting to make it through the next minute.

Grief had taken me when Brian died, but this heartbreak felt so much sharper, like every nerve in my body had been sliced clean through and was screaming. After all, Brian had never chosen to leave me. Paxton had made the choice all along.

And if I could finally be honest, the way I’d loved Brian at eighteen was nothing compared to the way my entire soul belonged to Pax.

Or at least it did.

As the horns blew and we pushed off for sail, there was a knock at my door. I clutched my pillow to my chest and walked barefoot to the front of the cabin. “Who is it?” I asked.

“Leah, please.” Paxton’s voice came through the door, and I leaned back against the wall of the hallway, fighting every instinct to open the door. How could I even look at him, knowing what I did? Still loving him like the complete and utter moron I was?

“Go away,” I said.

“No. And if you don’t let me in to explain myself, I will sit out here all night. I will play obnoxious eighties hair ballads and scream your name until the captain is on us both.”