Page 63 of Delicate Storm

“I never fucking cheated.”

I fold my arms over my chest and hit my phone with so much sass I’m hoping it magically transports over to him.

Christian groans deep in the back of his throat and it makes me smile. Maybe my silence did the trick.

“Fine,” he grates. “I cheated, but we were never exclusive exclusive, so it doesn’t count.”

“The‘people’thought we were.”

“Jesus, Paige. I need you to work with me here. Please.”

I don’t have to look at him to know he’s nearing his breaking point. If he was in front of me right now, I have no doubt his hands would be in his hair and he’d be tugging at the strands.

“Why did you call, Christian? What do you want from me?”

“My fiancée and I will be in LA late next month, and I want you to meet us for a drink.”

“What? Why the hell would I want to do that?”

“So that we can be seen together. A photo will leak, and the media won’t have any lies to spread about our time together. You told the magazine we were still friends. This isn’t a stretch.”

Dammit. I should have known that would come back to bite me in the ass. That’s all I said. That we were “still friends,” and I only said that so they’d stop asking for more juicy details. But lying about being friends is easy. Spending time together is not.

“What are you worried about?”

“That they’ll assume Nicola and I were together before you and I broke up.”

“So they’llassumecorrectly. We only broke up a few months ago, Christian. How are you engaged?”

“Does it matter?” he snaps. “Do you care? Am I breaking your frozen heart? You never really wanted me. Yes, we had an amazing sex life, but it never moved beyond that. If I’d felt even a spark of something real between us, I never would have strayed. I cared, Paige. I cared and I deserved better than that.”

Holy-fucking-hell. Talk about a slap to the face. “My heart’s not frozen.”I don’t think.

“Are you kidding me? I told you I loved you three times, and you never once said it back.”

“You said it during sex. I thought it was just one of the games we played. The game of pretending.”

Christian’s loud, unrestrained laugh echoes through the phone, and I start to question my memories of our time together. “The difference between you and me, Paige, is that I only played pretend when we were role-playing in the bedroom.You, you were pretending for our entire relationship.”

Jesus. My dead, frozen heart starts pounding in my chest. I thought we were on the same page. Did I miss something?

“I’m—” I cut myself off before saying sorry. He might be telling the truth, but our relationship had many issues; the feeling or lack of feeling argument is merely one of them. “I’ll meet you for a drink. But—and there’s a big but—you need to tell your parents to quit leaking stories about me. About us. What do you think will happen if your fiancée finds out? How will she feel having to read about our sex life?”

Christian grunts and I wait for his argument. “I don’t control my parents. You know that just as well as I do. If you have an issue with them, you need to work it out. They won’t stop until you do.”

“What kind of response is that? Just tell them it’s ruining your career or something. Better yet, how about I get it all out in theopen so they have nothing more to share. I could do a tell-all in a men's magazine. I’ll put all my bits on display while mentioning your name over and over. And your parents’ names. And…” I trail off, not wanting to bring up what I know.

“And what, Paige. And what? You won’t tell me. My parents won't tell me. Whatis it?”

Oh. So that’s why he won’t help me with them. Because it’s driving him crazy to be out of the loop. “If I tell you, I’m going to have to k—”

“Yeah. Yeah. I get it. Telling me would be like opening up, and you’ve never been the type to do that.”

Jesus. He’s really digging a knife into my chest. But he’s dead wrong. I cared. I may not have loved him, but I cared. It’s the reason I’m not telling him about his parents. Because if he truly has no idea, he’s going to need that plausible deniability.

“For this, I am sorry,” I say honestly, because I am. As for the rest… “I’m not meeting you for a drink. But feel free to tell the world we’re civil.”

“Paige, please?”

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