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I pushed up to sit, not giving two shits I still had on sleep shorts and a camisole without a bra. Lloyd glanced down over my body, but I couldn’t rouse the energy to cover my chest—or even care he probably saw my nipples.
“Want me to have her wait in the parlor?”
“Would you please? I’ll be down in a minute.”
I pulled on a blue T-shirt of Gideon’s I’d stolen from his hamper weeks earlier. It no longer smelled like his soap, but I still searched for it with my nose anytime I pulled it on, hoping to get a whiff of him.
No such luck.
Throat tight, I shuffled down the stairs on bare feet, my legs weak.
I tried to mentally prepare myself for a showdown with Jenny but couldn’t figure out what to say. Heat rose inside me, the kind that wanted to destroy like a flamethrower to dry twigs.
Whatever love I’d had for her before had been burned to ash by her actions. It was time for me to hurt her heart like she’d done to mine.
Unleash, I told myself. Unload on her like you did to Mother all those months ago. Let her have it, and don’t hold back. She doesn’t deserve any less.
“How could you?” I asked through my teeth rather than break down in tears as I walked in to find Jenny hugging herself by the window.
She spun to face me, her face pale, eyes red. “The sheriff himself questioned me, Addilyn. He’s the law in this town! What was I supposed to do?”
“Keep your damn mouth shut to protect me! To protect Gideon!” I threw my arms up in the air and stood just inside the door. There was no way I could get any closer and not want to rip her eyes out. “You betrayed my trust, Jenny. I told you what happened in the strictest of confidence—and then I had to sit through the most horrifically embarrassing moment of my life in a courtroom full of people! Everyone knows Gideon all but forced me to give him a blow job—”
“You didn’t have to.”
Ignoring the unclean feeling crawling over my skin for giving into him, I clamped my lips shut and glared at her snippy tone. She was going to get pissy with me?
“You could have said no and walked away—but you didn’t.” Jenny’s chin lifted, and the heat in her eyes clued me in to where her anger stemmed from—same as I’d suspected the night I’d buried beneath my blankets and told her what had happened.
“You’re jealous.”
She glanced away, and I choked on a laugh.
“You’re jealous that he never gave you a second look except for when he was trying to get under my skin. You’re jealous that he’s always wanted me. Could you be any more petty, more ridiculous, Jenny?”
“You’re his stepsister,” she whispered harshly, hands landing on her hips as she found the guts to face me. “That makes him sick.”
“Two months ago you didn’t think so. You encouraged me to climb his body like a tree.”
“You could have lost your V-card twice over. Devon and Gideon. And me?” She snorted her disgust. “I can’t even get a guy to ask me out!”
Ugly, green jealousy. Gut-wrenching in its effects…
“You want Devon too?” I asked, my voice finding quiet as even more disappointment and hurt shredded my insides.
“Ever since second grade when he told you he liked you.”
I stared at my ex-best friend, the one person I’d believed would stick through me thick or thin. Our children were supposed to grow up together. Maybe even marry.
But Jenny crossed a line I never would’ve had I been in her shoes. Shameful secrets like I’d shared with her should never be uncovered by a friend, no matter the consequences of lying.
Pain jabbed at the back of my throat, and I wrapped my arms around myself as time seemed to slow down. Cold settled into my core.
“I want you to leave,” I told her, my voice raspy and sounding dead to my own ears. “And lose my cell number.” Trusting karma to deal with her, I turned and walked away with my trembling chin held high.
Horribly, devastatingly alone.
I asked Lloyd to have my cell number changed. Asked the housekeeper to lie about my availability if anyone called the landline.
