Page 81 of Temporary Vows

The last time we stood together in this office, we ended our friendship. He came to beg me for help, and I turned him down, closing the door on our twenty years of friendship.

A week before that, I’d walked in on him in bed with Catherine. Strange how the friendship didn’t officially end then.

My mind flicks back despite myself.

I think of him, her, and the lies between us.

Neither of them ever told the same story twice. Not about how long it had been going on between them. Not about when it started, not when it ended. I never believed either of them.

I still don’t.

Not that it mattered.

The shitty thing was, Catherine and I were destined to end from the beginning.

She wanted something I was never going to give her. That had been clear long before I walked in on them.

That moment just finished it. The real loss was Jack.

I don’t allow many people to get close to me. He was an exception. Sure, we grew up together so it was easier, but I saw him as no different from one of my brothers.

Elodie signed the contract earlier today. It actually fits that he’d come to see me.

I expected we’d run into each other at some point. Just not now. And not here.

“Your secretary let me in,” he finally speaks.

“No, she didn’t. She told you to wait.” That’s exactly what Elena would have done, especially with him. She knows Jack. She’s been my secretary since my rookie days.

Jack tilts his head and almost smiles. “I didn’t feel like waiting.”

Typical Jack. I can see some things never change. He’s always stepping over lines like they don’t exist for him.

I walk further into the room, my gaze dragging over him from head to toe. He looks… off. Thinner. And like the years have not been kind to him.

With the way he lived his life, it doesn’t surprise me.

I stop a few feet away, and for a second, neither of us speaks.

“What do you want, Jack?” I refuse to beat around the bush.

His mouth twitches and the tension settles back in. “You know I’m here to talk about Elodie.”

“What about her?” I hold his gaze, unmoved.

He exhales through his nose, like he’s trying to decide how to play this. “I want to be angry with you,” he says. “But I don’t have the right. You helped Elodie out in a real big way.”

I don’t hesitate. “You’re right. And you don’t have a right to be angry with me.”

His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t push back. Not with that. “Marriage, Dorian?”

“Yes.”

“You knew she was going to pick the easier way out.”

“You think that was the easy way?” I ask flatly.

“Of course, it was. As opposed to working two jobs to pay you back. Yes, damn straight, it was the easy way out,” he seethes. “Why in hell couldn’t you pick somebody else?” He sounds like an echo of my father, except Dad didn’t sound so bitter.