Page 38 of Dash

A moment ago, I’d been soaring on the gift of his lips, but even then, I’d known it was only a reprieve from reality. Now we were back to being opponents facing off in the duel of a lifetime.

“Tell me.” His voice quaked through me, cracking thewalls that had contained my outrage to this very moment. “How did I betray you?”

“You went behind my back.” It took all I had to say it out loud. “You deceived me.”

“Facts,” he demanded. “Give me facts.”

“The photos.”

He stiffened to his full height. “What photos?”

“They told me everything I needed to know.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Yeah.” I scoffed. “My father said you’d deny any knowledge of them.”

“Your father?” His frown turned into a scowl. “What does he have to do with this?”

“He told me the truth.” My nails bit into my palms. “You betrayed me. On the day that you took another lover, you destroyed me.”

***

Dash

Her accusation clouted me in the solar plexus. The knockout punch robbed me of air and left my chest smarting. For a moment, all I could do was stare at her.

Was this the same woman who’d been calling my name and writhing in pleasure moments ago? The same sweet-tasting beauty I’d been worshiping with my mouth, the woman who’d driven me to pain and hope with her reactions? Had she just accused me of taking another lover?

“What did you say?” I managed to ask, even though I could hardly breathe.

She lifted her proud chin and held my stare, but her eyes welled with tears. “While you were sending sweet messages and pledging me your eternal love, you were having a fuck fest with another woman.”

“Another woman?” My heart pounded like a beast in mychest. Her accusation struck me as a total injustice. She might as well have hit me over the head with a bat. I asked a question I’d already asked too many times lately. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Her snort was the definition of contempt. “Don’t deny it, Dash. We’re both adults. So what if we have to work in concert? We’re never getting back together.”

“Can the Taylor Swift lyrics and rewind for a moment.” I fought the vortex of confusion threatening to swallow me whole. “What is it that I’m not allowed to deny?”

“Dubai. Egypt. Rome.” She spat each name with disdain. “We’d talked about going there together some day. Remember?”

“Of course I do.” How could I not remember the dreams that fueled the happiest time of my life? “We were gonna get married and travel the world together before we had a family.”

Her eyebrows met atop her nose. “Instead, you took her.”

“Her?” The planet spun around me as I fought to understand the full scope of her outrageous accusations. “Her who?”

“Stop acting like you’re all innocent and shit.” She twisted her mouth in disgust. “You know who. The woman you were banging for a full year before Nix died.”

“What woman?” I couldn’t make sense of anything she said. It was as if she were speaking in a different language that didn’t compute in my head. I couldn’t put together the pieces of the puzzle she was throwing at me. Thena had been the one. Theonlyone. There had never been another woman. Not for me.

I took responsibility for Nix’s death, for being away too often, for leaving her alone when I went on back-to-back deployments year after year. I acknowledged that I was rude and rebellious to her father, but hell, he deserved it, especially when he tried to put her down. I admitted that I came across as busy and remote at times, that my emotional communication neededwork, and that my love language lacked verbal fluency. I could never find the right words to describe the magnitude of how I felt. I conceded that, for many years, I’d worked too hard and pushed too fast in my quest to be worthy of her. I owned all of the things that had gone wrong with us before and after Nix died, but betrayal? Infidelity?

It hadn’t even crossed my mind.

“Athena, I swear by all I hold dear” —I forced the words out— “I’ve got no idea of what you’re talking about.”

“A dashing case of amnesia.” She scoffed again, an acerbic sound that made my skin sizzle with fury. “How convenient. Let me remind you. It happened during your last deployment. I have the pictures of you and your lover checking into all those fancy hotels.”

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