Page 44 of The Villain

“I’m sorry about your mom.”And I’m sorry I wasn’t there.I’d written the words so many times in those first few months after I’d heard the news, but I never sent them. Not when she wrote to tell me. Not when she wrote about the funeral. Not when she begged me.

“Thank you. She was sick for a long time.” Judy Holmanwas a saint, and everyone used to say that was why God called her home sooner than the rest. “Part of me used to wish she’d been alive to meet Brandon, but not anymore. Obviously.”

Two times, Judy had survived breast cancer, but the third time…the third time was it. And it was quick. They’d found the cancer right after I’d left for basic training, and she was gone by Christmas.

Athena shifted in the water, and a wince creased her face.

“How’s your hip? You went down pretty hard.”

“Less bruised than my pride.” She sighed heavily. “What am I missing?What is it about me that only attracts men who want to use me or hurt me?”

The band around my chest tightened. “That’s not true.”

“It is true.” She couldn’t see me, but somehow, her stare felt like she saw right through me. Right through all my lies to the truth. “Every man I’ve loved has hurt me.”

I tensed. “You loved Ray—Rick?” That didn’t fit with what she’d said before.

“No.” She reared up, sloshing water against the side and dipping the surface low—dangerously low—on her chest. “Not him. Before I met Brandon, I loved someone who…hurt me.”

My heart beat heavily, all its sharp, broken pieces puncturing fresh holes inside me.This was it.The moment I had to face the man in the mirror and the pain I’d caused her, and I deserved to do it without the opportunity for forgiveness or redemption. Because God help me, I knew she’d give it.

I didn’t trust myself to hear my name from her lips or what it would do to me, so I asked instead,“What did he do?”

Her lips peeled apart, her chest rising and falling tempestuously—and temptingly—at the edge of the water.“Why are you going to arrest him, too?”

“Maybe.” I gritted my teeth. “Maybe something worse.”

“He…”Left me. Abandoned me. Promised me the world andbroke his promise.I filled in all the appropriate possibilities, and she went with none of them. “Disappeared.”

What? No.Anger bolted through me.Disappearedwasn’t enough—wasn’t bad enough.

“What do you mean?”

“We were high school sweethearts, and after graduation, I left for art college, and he joined the military. I thought we were going to make it work, but I never heard from him again. I wrote to him. Waited to hear from him—for him to come home. Even when my mom died… nothing.”

“He sounds like an ass,” I ground out, my fist flexing on the edge of the tub. “As bad as the rest of them.”

She laughed softly. “I don’t think so.”

Goddammit, why couldn’t she just hate me the way I deserved?

“I think he didn’t know how to tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“That I wasn’t worth it.”

There it was—the exquisite pain I’d been searching for.

“You’re wrong,” I said, my voice hoarse from stretching through all my sharp barriers.

“How do you know?”

This time, I didn’t even try to stop myself from reaching for her because, fuck it. Fuck everything except making it crystal fucking clear to this woman that she was worth everything. Every goddamn thing.

She shivered at the first brush of fingers, and I felt like an ass for surprising her with the touch, but I didn’t stop. I brushed damp strands of hair from her cheek and then continued trailing my finger along the side of her face. Her ear. Her jawline.

“Because you’re perfect. And any man who can’t see thatisn’t a man but a fucking fool.”And I was the biggest of them all.

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