Tears leak from the corners of my eyes, and his face falls. He thinks I’m upset with him when that couldn’t be further from the truth. I shake my head. “I—I’m so sorry, Nate.”
“You don’t have to be sorry for me,” he says, his tone soothing, like I’m the one who needs comfort when he’s the one who was sexually assaulted. And I’m a hundred percent sure it was the work of my brother. “I don’t know why the fuck she targeted me, but I’ll find out.” He presses his forehead against my knuckles. “I swear I never would have touched her, corazón. I had no idea what I was doing.”
My stomach twists in a knot. I can’t let him hurt any more than he already has been. He deserves to know the truth, even if that might spell the end of us. “It was Bryce.” The words are a mere whisper, as though that will somehow make them less painful to both of us.
Nathan blinks at me. “What do you mean it was Bryce?”
Oh dear god, I’m about to break both our hearts. “He had this idea about a honey trap.”
Nathan pulls back, his entire body rigid. “A honey what?”
My cheeks burn with heat and shame. “Th-the cheating clause. He had an idea to use a honey trap to get you to cheat, but I—”
“And you fucking knew about this?” Despite knowing I deserve it, I flinch at the harshness of his tone. I deserve far worse.
“In the beginning, yes, I knew he was thinking about it,” I admit. “But once we were married, I told him it was a stupid idea. I pleaded with him not to go ahead with it.”
“But you knew when I proposed to you, when I asked you to never lie to me? You knew that your brother was planning our demise all along? Just to get his hands on a few million dollars?”
Tears roll down my cheeks. “No. Yes. I never agreed to go along with his stupid plan. I just wanted to stop fighting with him, so I let it go. I was only trying to protect my sister.”
He pushes to his feet. “Spare me the goddamn fake tears, Melanie. You fucking used me!”
I stand too and walk over to him, but he backs away. “I didn’t want to use you, Nate. I never would. As soon as you and I started to …”
“What?” He snarls. “Fuck?”
“No! As soon as I realized that we were in this for the long haul and that it wasn’t some stunt, I knew I needed to make sure he wouldn’t go ahead with it. That day when I left my mom’s house so upset—when Teddy brought me to you, remember? I went over there, and I begged him not to go ahead with it. I made him promise, and he did. I swear.”
He stalks closer and towers over me, shaking with rage. “You lied to my face. Not just before we were married but that day when I asked you what happened. You could have told me the truth.”
I can’t breathe. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
His face twists in a snarl. “You lied. You were going to use me for money.”
I nod, shame-faced because those things are technically true.
“You sat back and let me walk into a fucking trap for some woman to drug me and do who the fuck knows what else!”
I shake my head, tears blurring my vision. “No. I had no idea he’d do that. I would never hurt you. He promised he wouldn’t go ahead with it. And I swear I had no idea he’d go that far, Nate. All he said was he’d have a hot woman hit on you. That was it, I swear.”
He scoffs. “You expect me to believe a word that comes out of your lying mouth?”
“Nathan. Please listen to me.” I grab his arm, but he shrugs me off.
“You know what the worst part of this whole thing is, Melanie?” He spits out my name like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. “The worst part is that I was fucking devastated when I thought I cheated on you. Thinking that I’d done something to hurt you caused me pain like I’ve only ever felt once before in my entire life. And it was wasted on you.”
“No, Nate.” I shake my head. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t fucking believe you.” He grabs my purse from the small table beside the sofa and shoves it into my hands. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
“Nathan, just let me—”
“Get the hell out, Melanie, or I’ll have someone come drag you out of here.” His vicious snarl makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I swallow down the wail, filled with frustration and injustice, that wants to roar out of me and wipe the tears from my cheeks.
I did exactly what my brother wanted, and he still found a way to fuck up my life.
Nathan turns away from me, and my heart shatters into a million pieces that I already know can never be put back together.
Chapter
Forty-One
NATHAN
Istare at the cell phone in my hand and try to remember if I called my brother or he called me. My chest is tight, my heart racing and lungs burning for oxygen, but I seem to have forgotten how to breathe.
I’m snapped back to reality when I hear Elijah’s voice distantly yelling my name. I stare blankly at the screen for a long second, then hold it to my ear.
“She knew, Elijah,” I rasp.
“Nathan, you’re not making sense. What?”
“Mel fucking knew!” For lack of a better target, I direct my venomous rage at him.
“Knew what? About what happened in Chicago?”
Sucking in a series of deep breaths, I take a few beats to regain my composure before telling my brother all about my lying bitch of a wife and her family’s scheme to fleece me for whatever money they could get their filthy hands on.
