“So what?” he yells, his hand pulling on his hair. “Was there—” He pauses, like a realization has just come to him. “Was there someone else?”
His words slap me across the face. But a second later, I realize they’ve given me the out I need. He’ll hate me for this, but if he thinks I left him for someone else, then he’ll have his reason, and I can go home and cry myself to sleep.
“Yes.”
He moves so quickly that I don’t get a chance to move away. In seconds, he’s in front of me, his hands pressing on the wall on either side of my head.
My heart starts to pound with stress and fear—and yes, desire. Having Adam this close to me after ten years is a lot to take. After spending as long as I have missing him, it’s hard to control my body’s natural reaction to him.
“You’re lying,” he hisses.
I swallow. I need him to get away from me, yet I also need him to never leave.
“What do you want from me?” My voice shakes betraying me.
His eyes narrow to slits. “The truth.”
“I gave it to you.”
“Yeah, but which is it, Evie? You weren’t happy, or you were cheating on me?”
Crap.
My chin wobbles. “Bo-both.”
Disgust covers his face. It makes me feel like shit.
He pushes off the wall, stepping away from me. I sag with relief, but part of my body screams for him to come back.
He leans against the sofa, eyes on the floor. “Who was he?” There’s no emotion in his quiet voice.
“No one you knew.”
He lifts his eyes to me. They’re laced with pain, and it nearly kills me. I have to press my lips together to hold it all in—the truth, and my tears.
“Are you still with him?”
I shake my head.
“Why did you leave Malibu?”
I take a breath. “I left with him because I knew you wouldn’t take it well.” Another lie.
He lets out a sardonic laugh. “What did you think I was going to do when you told me?”
I lift my shoulders. “I just…I didn’t want to hurt you.” It’s scaring me how easily these lies are falling from my mouth.
His eyes are fixed on mine. “Well, you failed. Because you did hurt me. You hurt me a fuck of a lot.”
I know, and I’m so sorry.
I look away, unable to hold his stare any longer.
“Why did your dad and Casey leave with you?”
My eyes flash back to his. “What?”
“It’s a simple question, Evie. Why did they leave with you? I get that you left with your lover boy, but why did they go? That makes no sense. Why would they have uprooted their lives to leave with you? Especially considering how things were with Casey, how sick she was.”
“They-they—I needed to get away, and they came with me. They’re my family.”
He rubs his fingers over his forehead.
Then, dropping his hand, he takes two big steps toward me. Leaning in, he says into my ear, “You’re a fucking liar.”
I don’t know what comes over me. Maybe it’s his proximity or the fact that I can’t get him to believe my lies—yes, I’m well aware of how laughable that sounds—but I push my hands against his chest, shoving him away.
He doesn’t go far.
“Fuck you!” I yell. “I don’t know what the fuck you want from me, Adam, but clearly, I can’t give it to you!”
I turn to leave.
But he grabs my wrist, yanking me back. “The only thing I ever wanted was the truth, but you seem incapable of telling it to me.”
“I’ve told you the truth!” I scream. “I was young, and I made a mistake! I left you, and I can’t change that now! So, just”—I’m panting now—“let it go.”
He drops my arm like I’ve just burned him.
“Let it go.” His face is incredulous. Then, he does the strangest thing. He laughs. And I don’t mean a small laugh. I mean, a full-on belly laugh.
“Adam?” I say confused.
He looks at me. He’s laughing, but anger is still firmly fixed in his eyes. “Trust me, if I could have let it go, I would have fucking years ago.”
I don’t know what to say to that, but truthfully, I’m in the same position as him. I couldn’t let go either. I know, for him, it was for a different reason. He couldn’t let go of not knowing the truth, why I left him, whereas I couldn’t let go because I never could find a way to stop loving him. Our reasons may have differed, but ultimately, we were in the same position.
He rubs the laughter from his eyes and moves across the room. Picking his drink back up, he takes a long pull.
“Where have you been all this time?” He holds the glass to his chest.
“San Francisco.”
Shock flickers over his face. “I was in San Francisco three years ago. I thought I saw you.”
He was there? He saw me?
“But you were gone so quickly. I called my PI, but he couldn’t find any trace of you there. I thought I’d imagined it…you.”
“Your PI?”
Hard eyes lift to mine. “I looked for you, Evie, for a long time. I hired a PI, but he could never find you. It was like you’d dropped off the face of the earth. Did you change your name?”
His eyes go to the badge on my uniform that reads Evie.
“No, I didn’t change my name.”
“Your surname?”
“No. It stayed the same—Taylor. Evie Taylor.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Accusatory eyes flick up to mine. “So, why couldn’t my PI find you?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head, swallowing down.
Well, I can think of maybe one reason why he couldn’t find me, but I can’t share that with him.
He stares at me, before looking away. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he mutters to himself. “He even checked for Casey, and Casey would have had to register, at the very least, with a doctor.”
“He checked for Casey?” The words whoosh out of me, and my heart starts to pound.
“Of course he did. I was desperate to find you. I would have done anything back then to know where you were.”
His impassioned words are like a punch to the stomach.
Deep down I always thought he would try to look for me. But thinking and knowing are two very different things.
My eyes lower to the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“For what, Evie? For cheating on me, for leaving me, for the PI not being able to find you?”
“All of it.” I force my eyes back to him. “I should have handled it better. I didn’t, and I’m sorry.”
His eyes search my face, and then he turns away, staring out the window.
“Casey? Is she…?” He leaves the question opened ended, and I understand why. He doesn’t know that she’s fine. Healthy. Alive.
“She’s fine. Good. Better. She’s starting UCLA in the fall. She wants to be a nurse. That’s why we’re here.”
“So, she got better?” He turns slightly to look at me.
“Yes.”
“She was dying, Evie. And now she’s well. Is that why you left? To get some life-saving treatment for her?”