Chapter Fourteen #2
“She copped a feel of my ass. It happened at that birthday party Keosha gave for Tyler. I figured Sarah had had one drink too many. But then one day I stopped by your apartment and you weren’t there.
She invited me to come in and wait for you, claimed you had just made a quick trip to the store.
That’s when she tried coming on to me again. This time she was sober.”
Leslie crossed her arms over her chest. “And just what did she do?”
He wished when she’d placed her hands across her chest the action didn’t reveal a pair of full breasts he used to enjoy sucking.
“Sloan? What did she do?”
Bringing his focus back to her question, he said, “She tried to kiss me. It pissed me off, and I told her in no uncertain terms I didn’t appreciate it and not to ever do it again.
She began crying and apologized and said she wasn’t sure what had gotten into her and promised it wouldn’t happen again.
She asked me not to mention it to you because she didn’t want to lose your friendship. ”
Fire appeared in Leslie’s eyes. “Well, she would have definitely lost my friendship. I could see you ignoring that time she was drunk, but not the time she tried to kiss you. You should have told me, Sloan.”
He rubbed his hands down his face. “I told you why I didn’t tell you.
She started crying and apologized, Leslie.
She said it wouldn’t happen again, and I believed her.
I saw her a number of times after that whenever I came to see you, and she never tried anything else.
In fact, she went out of her way to avoid me.
I had no reason to think she would have done it again or anything else remotely as devious. ”
“But she did, didn’t she?” she snapped. “You should have told me. If you had told me, at least I would have been prepared for the lies. Thanks to you, I wasn’t, and you had the audacity to get mad because I believed her?”
“Yes, I still felt you should have trusted me.”
“But there was no reason for me not to believe her, Sloan. She probably felt emboldened knowing you hadn’t told me about the incident, just like she’d asked you, which was why she decided to carry things further.
Those text messages alone weren’t what made me break things off with you and leave school.
What hurt me more than anything was finding those panties. ”
Frowning, he sat up straight in his chair. “What panties?”
“Her panties. According to Sarah, that weekend I went out of town with the debate team, you offered her a ride home when you stopped by the café where she worked at closing time. Instead of taking her straight to our apartment, you took her somewhere for drinks. She claimed the two of you had a little too much to drink and decided to sober up in the parking lot instead of immediately driving home. She said one thing led to another, and the next thing she knew the two of you were making out in your car, right there in the parking lot.”
“And you believed that?” he asked incredulously.
“I didn’t until she told me where to find her panties. In your car. And I did find them, Sloan. They were just where she said they would be—stuffed under the cushion in the back seat.”
Sloan stared at Leslie. This part about Sarah planting a pair of her panties in his car was news to him.
How could she have done that when she’d never ridden in his car before?
When he’d left for the cabin, he had left his car with Leslie.
She had driven him to the airport and three days later was to use his car to drive herself there.
She was to leave it parked at the airport when she caught the plane to join him in Kodiak.
“If that’s true, I have no idea how they got there.
You had the car while I was gone. Did you ever give her a lift somewhere? ”
Leslie shook her head. “No.”
“Then she apparently got the keys without you knowing and put them there.”
He watched her draw in a deep breath. “I guess that’s what she did, Sloan.
All I know is that night when I ran into her in LA, she’d been drinking, and that’s when she told me the truth.
She wanted me to know the text messages and panties had been used to deliberately break us up, and she even seemed pretty damn happy about it.
Sarah showed no remorse at all and didn’t say why she’d done it.
I wish you had told me about her coming on to you. You didn’t, and I was blindsided.”
“You didn’t have to leave town without telling me where you’d gone, Leslie. You could have confronted me about Sarah’s lies when you saw me at the cabin.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute. “I felt I had to leave, Sloan. Sarah claimed the only reason she was finally leveling with me about what the two of you had done was because she’d missed her period, and if she was pregnant, the baby was yours.”
“What!”
“Yes, that’s what she told me. And just the thought of her having your baby was something I couldn’t handle. I refused to stay around to find out if she was pregnant or not.”
Sarah’s lies had been deeper than he’d known. All this time he had assumed Leslie had left because of fake text messages and phone calls. “When did you find out she didn’t have my baby?”
“I figured it was a false alarm when Keosha never mentioned anything whenever I talked to her.”
“Did Keosha know the full extent of Sarah’s lies?”
Leslie shook her head. “No. I never told her about anything but the text messages and phone calls. I made Keosha promise not to bring up your name in any of our conversations.”
Sloan rubbed his hand behind his neck, feeling tension building there.
He’d made Tyler and Redford promise the same thing about Leslie.
The kitchen got quiet as she stood, and he watched her carry her bowl to the sink and rinse it out before putting it in the dishwasher.
Then, without even looking at him, she walked out of the kitchen.
Sloan opened his mouth to call her back but then clamped it shut. She was right, and he couldn’t argue the point. He should have told her about Sarah coming on to him. Because he hadn’t, she hadn’t known just what a vile person Sarah Olsen truly was.
Hell, he hadn’t known. He’d honestly believed Sarah had regretted her actions. In the end, he’d been wrong. Sloan knew he couldn’t fault Leslie for being taken in by the woman, because in the end, he had been fooled by her as well.