Chapter 52 Elena
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
elena
My fake husband asked me on a dinner date.
I’ve run through every version of this conversation on the drive to The Stillery, none of them landing quite right.
Now, sitting here with Isaac, I’ve got nothing but honky-tonk music and pool balls cracking together as background noise.
“When filming wraps, I’m going back home,” I finally say.
His brow pulls tight. “To LA or to your parents?”
“Las Cruces. Before—” I glance down at the soft curve just beginning to show beneath my loose-fitting black top. “Before the baby gets here.”
His jaw flexes. “You said you never wanted to move back there. Why the change? And please be honest with me. Something’s been up with you since the day after the wedding.”
“The fake ceremony you mean,” I correct, then chew the inside of my cheek. “It’s complicated.”
“Is it the ex? Diego?”
My spine stiffens in surprise. “No. Nothing like that. And he isn’t an ex.”
“But it’s him, right?” He shoves his beer bottle to the side, causing foamy liquid to spill over the top. “Because if it wasn’t, you’d just tell me.”
“It’s not what you think,” I snap. “Not everything has some neat little explanation that fits inside your cowboy brain.”
He leans in close. “I saw you, you know. Out the window at your parents’ house. Talking to him. Damn near kissing him.”
I open my mouth to tell him that wasn’t at all what it looked like, but before I can speak, a cloying voice cuts through the air.
“Well, if it isn’t Paradise Valley’s golden boy and his leading lady.”
Whoever she is, she’s all legs, headful of vibrant red curls and firetruck-red lipstick. She’s wearing cutoffs that should be illegal and a rhinestone bedazzled tank top that says Cowboy Pillows.
She stares at Isaac like I’m invisible.
“Saw you at The Sapphire Room the other night, she purrs. “I had just finished dancing, and I was coming over to say hi, but you already had some blonde on your lap. Carrie or Zoe, I think. Then you disappeared with her I guess.”
My face goes hot just as my chest goes hollow. I don’t give this woman the satisfaction of seeing how much her words hurt me.
I just arch a brow at my lying ass husband.
“Move along, Carly Rae,” Isaac says between gritted teeth.
The woman smirks like she’s just lit a match and dropped it in gasoline. She seems satisfied that her work here is done. I half expect her to mock wipe her hands in the “that takes care of that” gesture as she walks away.
“Well, you’ve definitely hooked up with that one,” I say once she’s out of earshot. He doesn’t deny it but it doesn’t matter. We both have a past. It’s the more recent past I’m struggling to process. I fix my stare on Isaac. “The strip club the other night, huh? Exactly which night was that?”
He looks like a kicked puppy. “It’s not what you—”
I smack my hand hard on the table to cut him off. “Which night, Isaac?”
His brows dip inward. “Nothing happened, I—”
“Just answer the fucking question!” I’m loud and I don’t even know if I said the words in English or Spanish.
Breathing is getting more difficult by the second as the images of what he was doing there, what he could’ve done, assault my mind.
His jaw flexes then he closes his eyes. “The night you told me this was all fake. The night I got drunk and—”
“Told me you loved me?” A high-pitched sound of disbelief escapes me.
“Yes,” he says. “But—”
My stomach churns. “No buts. Well, maybe the ones of the strippers who sat in your lap.”
“It was only one stripper that—” He stops abruptly, likely realizing he’s heading in the completely wrong direction, and backtracks.
“I was drunk. Heartbroken. Confused. You’d just told me we were nothing.
That it was all pretend. I felt like a fucking idiot for throwing my heart out there at a wedding you didn’t want.
I was nursing my wounds, and some girl sat down but I sent her on her way. I left alone. I came straight to you.”
“Right, straight from the strip club. Lucky me.” I laugh—sharp, humorless. “So much for honesty.”
“Elena—”
“Don’t. Don’t you Elena me.”
This is my out, I know it is. My chance to put the space between us to keep him safe. And it’s perfectly believable because, shocking as it is, I’m actually upset. And hurt.
It shouldn't hurt like this. It’s supposed to be fake.
But this pain is as real as anything I’ve ever experienced.
He reaches for me. I dodge the contact.
“I should’ve known,” I hiss in Spanish as I stand to leave. “Hombres como tú no cambian nunca.”
“What does that mean?” he asks.
I shoot him one last glare. “Figure it out.”
And I walk away. Out of the bar.
No looking back.
Because if I stay one second longer, I’ll break into a million pieces—right here in front of everyone.