Page 150 of Tangled Up In You

He straightened up and looked at her. “You said you weren’t innocent.” Why was he asking this question? Why wasn’t he letting it go, like she had let Sammy-the-Stripper go? Because he wasn’t someone who let things go. Jesus, he’d been stuck on the unanswered questions of his mother’s abandonment of him for over twenty years.

“I thought you wanted to move forward? Not look back?”

The physical reaction he had to her clear desire not to answer the question distracted him for a moment. It felt like a hundred pounds of sand slowly moving through his body and weighing him down. To combat it, he stood and pulled her with him, to better look at her in the pale winter light coming through the windows.

“Tell me,” he said, feeling the blood drain from his face in anticipation.

She hesitated, obviously debating whether he would drop this or not. But she knew him better than anyone, so she finally said in a small voice, “It was just one time and it will never happen again.”

“You slept with someone else?” he asked.

Tears filled her eyes as she ever so slightly inclined her head.

“Who?”

“Can’t we leave it at that? You had your one time and I had mine?”

He shook his head. “Tell me who, Sophie.”

“It’s not even important, Gavin, because it doesn’t change what I want. I want to be with you. Ichooseto be with you.”

Her argument went unheard, as all he wanted to know was who she’d let touch her in a way only he ever had. And who she had touched in return.

“You tell me who!” he shouted. She flinched and crossed her arms over her chest, but this defensive reaction didn’t move him either. He grabbed her firmly—too firmly—by her shoulders. “I need to know,” he said.

“No, you don’t. We can just move on and?—”

“There’s no moving on from this unless you tell me who it was.”

She stared into his eyes for a long moment. “Conor,” she whispered.

It was what he’d expected her to say. Of course that was who it would be. The answer was there all along and he had refused to entertain it. Yet it still hit him as a shocking blow. He released his grip on her and stepped back several feet, looking away.

“Don’t,” she said, going to him. “Please, baby, don’t pull away from me now.”

“Get away,” he told her, brushing off her attempt to touch him.

“Talk to me. Please.”

The betrayal took his breath away for a moment. “And it had to be Conor, why? It had to be my best fucking friend since I was seven years old?”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why? Wasn’t it any good, Sophie?”

“Don’t do that,” she begged.

The regret and sadness was plain on her face but it did nothing to change things. All he wanted was to strike back against this treachery, to unload some of his pain onto her.

He moved to her aggressively, backing her up against the wall. “Tell me you didn’t like it,” he said, his face close to hers. “Tell me you didn’t like the way he fucked you.”

She turned her face away from him and shut her eyes as the tears fell down her cheeks.

“When was this, anyway?”

“What?”

“When was this wonderful union between you two? And exactly how pregnant are you, again?”

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