Page 19 of Exposed

She fell for her bodyguard? A guy on her dad’s payroll? Hired muscle? The guy was probably a murderer. Just like her father.

“You can’t quit my dad’s business. And Miller wanted out. I got him out. I set him up at a lake house. And months later when I realized I wanted to be with him, I drove to his lake house. And we…”

“You got married?” I tried not to spit the words out. I tried to keep my voice even. But I was pretty sure I failed at all of it.

“Not right away. Not for a while actually. But yes, I married him.”

Not right away? Not for a while?Yes, I’d screwed around after her death. But marriage? She’d promised me. She’d fucking promised me the rest of her firsts.

“I tried to keep my promises to you. It tore me up inside. Sometimes, in the silence, I could hear your voice in my head. Calling me a liar.”

Because you are one, Brooklyn. You’re a fucking liar!I bit the inside of my cheek so the hateful words wouldn’t spew out of my mouth. But none of that mattered. “So you’re happy? You’re in love with another man? So what are you doing here?”

“You didn’t let me finish my story…”

“What are you doing here, Brooklyn? What are you doing on my lap? Why are you crying in my arms instead of your husband’s? Are you just torturing me? Because you’ve done enough of that for the past 16 years.” Each sentence made my chest hurt more.

She wiped the tears off her cheeks. “I’m not cruel, Matt. I never meant to hurt you. I can’t apologize for falling in love with Miller. I won’t. I refuse to apologize for being happy because you know I don’t believe in wasting time. But I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’m sorry that you’re still hurting.”

She was acting like I was treating her like a punching bag. But I was holding her in my arms as I listened to her tell me she was in love with another man. I was trying to talk it out. I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

But how was I supposed to handle her stabbing me in the heart over and over again? And blaming it on me. She saw me doing one dumb thing and it ruined our lives. No, just mine. She was off living happily with someone that wasn’t me.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Brooklyn. I told you that I’m still in love with you. And you’re sitting here telling me you’re in love with someone else. You said you weren’t married anymore. I’m just trying to understand.”

She shook her head. “He’s dead, Matt.”

I could see it on her face. How broken she was.

Fuck.The rest could wait.

I pulled her face back to my shoulder and let her cry. Just like I had when she’d told me about her mother. Just like I had after her uncle passed away.

And I knew why she was here. In my car. In my arms. Because she needed me.

I closed my eyes tight.

I’d told her I loved her.

She hadn’t once said it back.

Brooklyn didn’t love me anymore. She was in love with someone else. She was mourning him like I’d mourned her.

It had been 16 years and I still wasn’t over her.

I held her tighter as she cried. Knowing that her heart belonged to someone else. And it might never belong to me again.

But I could do this. If this was how she needed me, I could be there. I’d take her any way I could get her.

I wasn’t sure how long we sat like that, intertwined. But she eventually lifted her head off my shoulder.

“I really do need to go,” she said.

I would have reached out to brush away her tears, but they were already dried on my shirt. She didn’t move even though she’d just said she needed to go. I wanted to ask her where we were supposed to go from here. But it was like when she’d run up to me in the graveyard. I didn’t want to break the silence. And I was a little scared of the answer.

“There’s a lot more we need to talk about,” she said. “Can we maybe…I don’t know…”

I took a deep breath. “Just name a time and place and I’ll be there, okay?”

---