5. Chapter Never
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER NEVER
(TIFFANY)
I sit up at the sound of insistent knocking at my door. Very few people can get up here. If it is Ben coming back, I don’t think he would knock. That narrows it down to less than five people. One is on the other side of the country, and another is in the hospital.
I wipe away the tears from my eyes. Whoever it is clearly wants my attention badly. As I reach the door, my phone starts buzzing and lights up on the coffee table near where I was sitting a moment ago.
I glance at it and see Dec’s face on the screen. Opening the door, I see Dec himself standing on the doorstep, his phone up to his ear as he calls me.
“Oh, Tiff.” His face is full of sympathy, and I can barely stand it.
“Please don’t, Dec.” I feel the tears start to fall afresh, and I know I won’t be able to stop them so I don’t even try.
He sweeps into the room, closing the door behind himself. He puts his arms around me, hugging me tightly to his chest.
“I’ll kill him,” he says fervently.
Dec clearly got Jasmine’s message about Ben cheating on me.
“No, you won’t,” I sigh, breaking our embrace and heading back to the sofa.
“Yes, I will. I don’t like seeing you cry.”
Dec sits next to me and puts his arm around my shoulders, pulling me toward him, so my head rests on his chest. His heart beats rhythmically in my ear, and it’s oddly soothing. I continue to cry, and he simply holds me while I do.
“He never would’ve done it if he wasn’t high,” I tell Dec once I’ve finally managed to pull myself together.
“I get that he was on drugs, but he knew you weren’t there. He knew it wasn’t you. I don’t understand how he can ever have wanted anyone but you, no matter how high he was.”
Dec’s words are full of venom, his entire body coiled tight like a spring, and his anger is like something tangible in the room around us.
“He’s sorry. He apologized to me, but I just can’t get that image out of my head, Dec. Ever since he told me, it’s all I can think about. ”
I shudder as visions of my ex-fiancé fucking another woman come flashing through my mind.
“I see him touching her. I see him kissing her. It’s like watching a movie that picks up right when that picture was taken. They go somewhere quiet in the club and… fuck, I just see it all.”
Dec puts his other arm around me to hug me tighter as I start to cry again.
“I’ll kill him,” he repeats, whispering it into my hair.
“No, you won’t,” I say again through my tears. “He’s been your friend for years.”
“Yes, but you’re my friend, too. Plus, he’s in the wrong.”
His words are comforting, because some part of me is aware that our entire friend group is going to have to choose sides in this.
It’s warm and safe here in Dec’s arms. I can’t believe how badly everything in my life has been fucked up in less than a day.
“I don’t even know what I’m going to do now, Dec.”
“Have you canceled the wedding?”
The reminder of my wedding sends a shooting pain through my chest. “Shit, Dec, give me five seconds. We literally broke up two hours ago.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I was pressuring you. I’m just trying to figure out what needs to be done.”
I appreciate his concern, but I can’t even face the reality of the fact that the wedding I’ve waited for years to have won’t be happening now.
“I went to Ben’s,” he says, sounding guilty, and I snap my head up to look at him.
“What did he say?”
“He wouldn’t let me in.” He gives me a chagrined smile. “It’s probably for the best. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I want to kill him.”
I can’t stop myself from laughing, but as I do, I catch sight of a framed photo of Ben and me in London that’s sitting on the mantelpiece nearby.
“How can I stay here, Dec? Everything here reminds me of him. It’s just so full of us .”
The tears are threatening to fall again as I look around my apartment. There are so many reminders of Ben. The crystal vase and rose he gave me for our anniversary last year. The painting I bought at an art show we attended together three years ago. The tapestry I purchased on our trip to India. The sofa we sat on together for our movie nights… the one I recently sat on when I ended our relationship.
“Come out to the Hamptons with me.”
The suggestion comes out of nowhere, and I blink at him in surprise. “What?”
He stands up from the sofa, grabs hold of my hand, and pulls me up to stand before hugging me again.
“We’ll go out to the Hamptons. Nobody will bother us there. No paparazzi, no drama. We’ll tell the others where we are, but they’ll know not to bother us, and we can switch our phones off. We can do whatever you want, get drunk, go swimming, play pool. None of the bullshit you’ll get if you stay here.”
His offer is tempting. The picture he’s painting is an attractive one. Dec’s family property in the Hamptons would be the perfect place for me to heal and lick my wounds.
“Are you sure?” I ask him.
“Positive,” he replies with a smile. “Pack your bags, Sexy. We’ll go now.”
I don’t know how much to pack, so I end up bringing a fairly big suitcase full of casual clothes, along with some bikinis and underwear. Dec’s maid will wash my clothes for me if we stay too long, but I know in my heart that I won’t want to be away from the city long enough for this to truly be a concern.
Before I know it, we’re sitting in Dec’s powerful, red sports car and speeding away from New York. I relax into the buttery leather as the distance between us and the city increases. For the ten years I was together with Ben, I’d thought nothing could ever break us. All it took was some fucking drugs and one monumentally stupid mistake on his part.
I begin to cry again, and I’m frustrated with myself for not being able to keep my emotions in check. Dec reaches his right hand over to hold my hand in his .
“You’ll be okay, Tiffany,” he assures me. “It’ll take time, but you’ll survive, I promise.”
He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses it softly before resting our joined hands between us. My heart does a strange flip-flop at this gesture. My emotions are in complete turmoil. That’s obviously why I’m feeling so strange.
I become utterly aware of his presence in the too-small space of his car. He exudes sex at all times, but it’s like I’ve only now felt any of its force. My breath catches in my throat for a second as I’m deluged with images in my mind of Dec and me making love.
What the fuck, Tiffany Carter?!
That came out of nowhere. So dumb. I’ve literally just broken up with Ben, my fiancé, the love of my life. Dec is like my brother… but is he like my brother? I glance over at him and view him in profile as he watches the road.
He’s incredibly handsome, with his short, black hair and chiseled features. Okay, objectively, he is hot, but I’ve never seen him in that way. We’ve flirted off and on over the years, but never in a serious way. I was committed to Ben and loved him. Neither Dec nor I would ever betray him that way.
Well, you’re not with Ben now, are you?
My brain helpfully supplies that fact for me. What the fuck am I doing? Running away to the Hamptons with Dec is crazy .
“This is a bad idea.” I unintentionally give voice to my thoughts while I pull my hand away from his.
“What?” He looks over at me. “Why?”
Damn.
He wasn’t present in my brain over the last five minutes, so he has no clue what I’m talking about. He doesn’t know that I’m currently imagining what he would look like stark naked in front of me.
“Running away like this. It’s not going to solve anything.” I stretch for a reason that has nothing to do with my apparently raging hormones.
“Maybe not, but you’ll be safe, Tiffany. The Hamptons are perfect for that.”
We continue driving in silence. After a few minutes, we pass a town sign, and I realize we’re barely halfway there. How can I last another hour in the car with him? Why have I practically forgotten that Ben exists over the last fifteen minutes since Dec kissed my hand? It’s as though Dec has managed to take up residence in my brain all of a sudden and evicted Ben. I feel like a complete traitor to the man I’ve loved for a decade.
I look over at Dec again, and he meets my gaze. Once again, my breath catches in my throat at the naked desire reflected there.
What the hell?
Suddenly, all the jokes he’s made over the years about finding me sexy, wanting me to leave Ben for him, and him fantasizing about me. They all take on a whole new meaning. He hasn’t been serious… has he?
I know he’s fervently loyal and would never have slept with me when I was with Ben, but that isn’t why he came straight to me when he’d been told we’d broken up.
Isn’t it?
My mind is full of questions, and I just can’t top the images of me and Dec fucking that are playing there. I know all the places in his family’s Hamptons house that we can do it.
What the fuck am I doing?
This is Declan . Why the hell am I sitting here, fantasizing about having him deep inside me when I literally started this day engaged to one of his best friends?
“You’re quiet.” His velvety smooth voice seems to resonate deep within me.
How have I never realized how sexy his voice is before?
“I’m just thinking,” I reply honestly.
“About what?” He raises an eyebrow at me.
“You don’t want to know.”
He looks over at me, his curiosity plain on his face.
“Actually, I do. Tiff, you’re being weird.”
Maybe I imagined the lust in his expression before? Perhaps my sex-filled brain provided it as an explanation for how I’m feeling. He seems completely back to normal now. I find I don’t want that to be the case, though, and in my infinite wisdom, I decide to poke the bear.
“Why do you say the things you say to me?” I ask him.
“What things?” He keeps his face firmly forward, so I can’t read his expression anymore.
“The flirty shit you say to me all the time.”
“You’re going to need to narrow that down.” He shrugs a little too casually.
“Come on, Declan, you know what I’m talking about.”
“I’d like an example.”
I scoff at him. He wants an example? I have a laundry list.
“You call me ‘Sexy.’ You tell me you want my body. You ask when I’m going to leave Ben for you. You look at me like I’m a glass of water, and you’re a man who’s been walking through the desert for a month.”
The last one was unexpected, but I realize it’s also true. He does look at me like that… far too frequently. I’m looking at fourteen years of friendship through an entirely different lens.
He doesn’t respond at all, just keeps looking firmly forward at the road, and I see a sign that tells me we’re only forty miles out from the Hamptons. My heart is racing, and I can’t help but wonder what will happen when we get there.
“Are you going to answer my question?” I prod him .
“I say that stuff to everyone, Tiffany. I think plenty of people will tell you that.”
“Ah, so I’m not special, then?” I raise an eyebrow at him, and he laughs.
“You know that’s not true.”
“Tell me how and why I’m special, Dec.” My voice is husky with lust.
I’m in ludicrously dangerous territory right now. Anything he says will damage our friendship in one way or another. While this went by as an unacknowledged thing, we’ve been safe to be friends. I’m forcing him to shine a light on it right now.
“There is no other woman in the world that I would take to the Hamptons,” he begins softly. “That’s how. As for why? If I could answer that, maybe I could have spent the last ten years watching you and Ben a lot less closely.”
He gives me a wry grin, and I’m barely capable of coherent thought. What he’s saying to me is too much, yet I’m the one who forced this conversation on us both.
“We’re almost there,” I note as we turn onto the road that will take us to his property. “You’ll be able to escape me soon.”
“What made you think I want to?” He smiles at me with a full and amused grin.
I’m breathless, and all of my nerve endings are on fire. Something insane has happened in the last two hours. I started this trip a broken woman and have somehow ended it a lust-filled sex demon eager to fuck my longtime friend.
Dec pulls the car to a stop under the porte-cochère at the front of the main building. He turns the car off, and we sit in silence for a few moments. He stares out the windscreen as though he doesn’t dare look at me.
“Are you coming inside?” he asks me.
“That depends on how talented you are, I guess,” I quip as I open my car door and step out.