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Narrowing my eyes, I school myself from showing the anger that strikes me hard and fast. “Jeremy?”
She grimaces. “I hate that name.”
“Jeremy? As in Lauren’s ex?”
She nods. “He was a former student there, and he’s kept up with the connections. He didn’t have money to pay off or bribe anyone, but he made up a bullshit story about something I did. I think stealing from the classroom fund. I don’t know. I wasn’t allowed to have the details. But he sowed the seed for some kind of scandal and I was ‘let go.’”
I manage a faint hold on my fury. It’s got to stay bottled up inside until I can really let loose on how pissed off I am. She’s opening up and sharing the truth, though. If I blow a gasket, she’ll shut up again.
“He messed things up for me as a way to get revenge on me for helping Lauren to get out of marrying him. Not once, but twice.”
I lower my head. Fisting my hands, I try to breathe through the rage that fills me. That asshole! The damn asshole who just doesn’t know when to stop!
She touches my forearm briefly, and I exhale a long, hard breath through my nose to face her. Maybe I’m not hiding my anger that well. She winces. “Please don’t say anything. You cannot tell Caleb or Lauren. They’re happy, and they deserve that after all they went through. I don’t want to ruin their bliss.”
Yet? Because she will tell them one day, right? No matter how mad I am, I respect that this is her news to tell, not mine. “What are you going to do now?”
She swats at a bug and tips her head to urge me to continue hiking. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
My heart hurts at the hopelessness and defeat in her tone. I feel the same way. After my breakup with Johanna, I wasn’t sure what to do, what to think, and where to go from there.
“I understand how you feel,” I confide.
She glances up at me. “You do?”
I nod. I’m not surprised she might be curious to know why, but I’m not ready to tell her about Johanna’s impact on me.
We leave the terse topic at that, and eventually, we make it back to the chalet. I mull over all that Aubrey shared, and I envision many scenarios of what could happen. If I went after this asshole. If I avenged her loss of a job. If she stood up for herself and tried to get her position back. If Lauren and Caleb would suffer from this news or just take care of it.
I’m glad when we find Lauren and Caleb at the chalet. Seeing them is a clear indication that Aubrey and I no longer have privacy to speak about things she wants to keep hidden. Until I know how to react further to what she told me, I fall back into my usual mode of lurking and listening, instead of initiating conversations and calling the shots about what we should do.
“Well, don’t you look cozy,” Aubrey teases with an exaggerated once-over of Lauren. The blonde grins, happy and without a hint of being in pain as Caleb opens a bottle of wine.
They totally ducked out to screw all afternoon.
“You’re just in time for a drink,” Lauren replies, winking.
Aubrey rolls her eyes then leans close to stage-whisper to me. “This was a setup.”
I almost smile as I say, “Obviously,” and nudge her to enter the room.
Chapter 11
Aubrey
Later in the evening, I sit out back on the outdoor patio of the chalet. Caleb and Lauren are still cleaning up after dinner, and I sense that they need the time alone. They’re giggling and laughing, snuggling up to one another like lovebirds. Dalton went into his room to tend to something for work, and since hanging out in the living room would make me feel like a third wheel, I escaped outside.
A small fire burns in the air-flow firepit, and with a bottle of wine, I sigh and sink into the cushions on the lounger. Silence surrounds me. The only music I have as a soundtrack to my relaxing moment are the crackles and pops of the fire and the distant calls of the wild. Overhead, a navy-blue sky full of stars covers me, and I can’t help but feel like a small speck in a grand, vast universe. Just me and the world.
I could get used to this.
I tense slightly when I hear the sliding door open, but it’s only Dalton, not the couple who’s goofing around so loudly inside. Since I told him the truth, I feel different about this tall man. Actually, I’ve been on edge with him from the moment he cut me off on Meadow Lane. I still don’t feel like I’ve gotten to know him any better than before. If I did, would I lose some of this guardedness I feel toward him? Am I going to be like this with all men, hating and grumbling about every man because one—Jeremy Freaking Klein—ruined my future?
That wouldn’t be fair, would it?
Dalton sits next to me, saving me from having to answer myself. His presence pulls me out of my head, and when I hold up the bottle of wine and he nods, I pour him a glass. Words aren’t necessary, and I kind of like that. He’s not a hard man to appease. He’s not coming out here seeking conversation or trying to get in my space. Dalton is a rare gem in the way he understands the quiet is okay, too.
We relax in the quiet, sipping wine, and then his phone ends that peaceful spell.
