Chapter 13
Kat
Oh,no. Hell no. Alex Blake didn’t get to wrench everything personal out of me, then decide to take a well-timed bathroom break when the conversation turned his way.
I waited outside the men’s room of the roadside stop while the men who passed me gave me weird looks. Alex looked surprised when he came out and saw me. I just raised my eyebrow at him and followed him to the fast food counter, where he ordered two coffees and handed one to me.
“Well?” I asked, taking my cup. “Where’s Damon?”
His gaze was cold. “Kat,” he said, a warning. But Alex didn’t scare me. I’d had him nearly begging me not long ago.
“Where is he?” I asked again.
A muscle in his jaw flexed as he turned away from me, heading back to the car. “I don’t know.”
“You paid someone to keep tabs on me. Surely you know where your own brother is.”
“I don’t,” Alex said. “I stayed away from him after the divorce. I heard he was dealing drugs, and doing them. He didn’t call me. Eventually, he left Chicago. I haven’t seen or heard from him.”
“So what?” I said as both of us got in the car. “You tracked me easily enough. You’re saying Damon doesn’t have a driver’s license or any other paperwork you can track?”
Alex put his coffee in the holder and started the SUV, his expression still grim. “I don’t know, because I haven’t tracked him.”
I stared at him, truly surprised. “What?”
“Damon and I were finished,” Alex said. “What he did, trying to take you away from me, breaking up you and me—that ended us. There wasn’t anything left to say. Do you know he never apologized, or even admitted he’d lied?”
I felt my own jaw clench, my teeth grind in sudden anger. Fucking Damon Blake. Telling Alex he’d slept with me, then never admitting the lie, even all these years later. And suddenly I was twenty-two again, and the words came out of me before I could stop them. “He did lie.”
“I know.” Alex had started the car, but he hadn’t put it in gear, and we were still sitting in the parking space. He was staring out the windshield, and then he glanced at me. “You haven’t heard from him? Ever?”
“No.” It was the truth. For someone who had supposedly been wild for me, willing to try and steal me from his own brother, Damon had ignored me after the divorce without a second thought. It was almost as if ruining Alex’s life was the goal of the whole thing, instead of actually getting me to leave Alex for him.
Which wasn’t very flattering for my ego. Then again, I didn’t care. I was better off without Damon Blake. Without both brothers, probably.
But I looked at Alex now, at the quiet pain that lay in the line of his posture, and I didn’t quite believe that. “Damon could be dead,” I said. “Or he could be married with kids.”
“I know,” Alex said.
“You could have nieces and nephews.”
“Too bad for those kids, if they exist.”
“You looked for me, but not for him.” I wasn’t done. I had questions, so many questions. “Why?”
Alex took a breath. “Because I hurt you, and that mattered.” He looked at me, those gray eyes solemn and hard. “You mattered. I needed to know that you were safe, that you were all right. After you left your family, I wanted to know you had a life that turned out okay. I just needed to know that, so I could sleep.”
Our gazes locked, and we sat there for a long moment, as cars passed outside the window and our coffees cooled. Just Alex and me, and all of our history, here in this car. No games, no pretenses, no lies.
I’d spent years of my life avoiding this moment. I’d spent my time alone, never knowing where Alex was. I’d kept moving forward, refusing to go back. All so that I could avoid this—being face to face with him, with our past, with our mistakes. I’d always believed that being face to face with Alex again was the worst thing that could happen to me.
And now that it was happening, it wasn’t so bad after all.
“We should probably go,” I said. “We need to get to Dallas and?—”
“I’m sorry,” Alex said.
I stopped mid-sentence, stunned.
Alex swallowed. “I never said it,” he gritted out. “That I was sorry. That I was a fool about you and Damon. I never said it, and it’s bothered me ever since that day in the courthouse.” He looked at my surprised face, and then he turned back to the wheel, putting the car in gear and covering his eyes with sunglasses. “You’re right. We need to get to Dallas.” And he hit the gas.