Page 96 of Playing A Risk
I consider her question. “I don’t know. Hurt, I guess.”
“Exactly.” Her eyes fill with tears again. “You’ve never trusted me.”
Guilt shreds my insides. “I… Dori… I… In my heart, I trusted you. It wasn’t about that. It was about facing it myself.”
“Really? Even that night on your couch when we were making out, before you would open up, you made me promise to be yours and leave all my feelings for Hunter in the past.”
“You’re right. I did that. What’s that got to do with this?”
“You didn’t trust me unconditionally. You had to bargain with me to reach a point where you trusted me. You didn’t want to risk telling me otherwise. I wasn’t worth it to you.”
“That’s not how I meant it to seem.” I spin away and curl my hands into fists. This isn’t going anywhere near how I expected. “Fuck, you know it wasn’t about that.”
She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t have to because every one of her words has sliced away another piece of my heart, showing me a reality where Dori finally moves on. And the worst part is, all the points she’s making are the cold, hard truth.
My body and soul deflate. I have nothing to stand on. I’ve let her down to the point I don’t think she’ll be able to forgive me, but I’m not giving up.
Conviction grows in my blood.
I pull in a breath and turn toward her. “Why didn’t you answer my email?”
Her brow furrows. “What email?”
“I sent you an email explaining some of this. You knew there was more to the story, yet you ignored that part.”
She lowers her head and wraps her arms around her waist. “I haven’t gone through my emails.”
I release a frustrated huff. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Was that your choice or Hunter’s?”
Her head snaps up. “Don’t bring him into this.”
“I didn’t.” My heart thumps harder as I point to her door. “You did by shacking up with him for the last two weeks.”
“It wasn’t like that. He was trying to be a good friend and help me through something that tore me apart.”
I nod as my eyes bore into hers. “Yeah, right. Those were his intentions.”
She doesn’t say a word. She just stares at me with silent tears streaming down her face, and it hits me. My insides twist.
I puff out a defeated laugh. “That’s what this is about. You two are back together.”
She swipes away her tears and squares her shoulders. “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, we are.”
“Are you sleeping with him again?” I shudder at the thought.
“That’s none of your business.”
I can see it in her eyes. She is. My heart heats and my jaw tightens. We’re pulled even farther apart and my hate for him takes over.
“Fucking great, Dori. You couldn’t wait until you had all the facts? You just jump back into his lying arms. He’s not agood man and you’re going to get burned because you aren’t the only one in his life.”
Yep, I took it there. Why not? I have nothing left to lose.
“Don’t try that with me. He told me everything. I know you were withholding information from me about Isabella. And before you start to argue, I know about Ava too. There’s nothing there, Jami, but it’s nice knowing you were okay keeping those things from me too.”
My stomach spits out acid, and I shake my head. “I only did that because he was doing it to me.”
“I know that. Again, he came clean with me about everything. Something I wonder if you would’ve done.” She raises her brows.
