Mike let out a dark chuckle. “Since when are you Mr. Reasonable? She’s been fucking a guy up in Reno for a year, Aston.”
“What?”
“Yep. She’s unhappy, underserviced or unsatisfied by your man, and she’s porking some medical sales rep every day and freaking night she can. Every chance she can get it, she’s hopping on it.”
“How do you know this?” I asked, not wanting to believe it.
“She meets Bexley for coffee and then hightails it out of there to fuck this dude.”
“Okay, enough,” I said sharply. “There’s no way either of them did this.”
I denied their involvement, even though Milly had crossed my mind. But he was talking about Bexley, and she wouldn’t do this to me.
Memories swept over me of Bexley crying . . .
At Milly and Mike’s wedding. When I let her go for good.
When Piper needed surgery, tears streamed down Bexley’s face as she waited at the hospital all alone.
For just a moment, the idea had legs. I’d hurt her, more than once. Was this a revenge scheme? After all, I didn’t know Milly was screwing around, so how could I be so sure about Bexley?
“It’s likely, Aston,” Doug said smugly over his cigar.
Looking at my guy, I said, “Bill?” but Doug interjected.
“What the fuck does this guy know? He’s been eye-fucking the redhead for ten minutes.”
Bill glared at him. “I’m hearing every single bullshit word coming outta your trap. How the hell would two bitches turn Federal into a drug trafficking operation?”
“I never said they were dumb,” Doug said with a smirk.
I didn’t correct Bill’s use of the word bitches before he abruptly stood.
“I smell a rat. Text me when you have a job for me, AP,” Bill said, then stalked out.
I knew him well enough to know he was doing this for Doug’s benefit, but I played along.
“So, you going to get me proof or what?” I asked Doug, leaning forward in my chair.
“Yep, but you’ve got to stay away from her.”
“Bexley?” I asked.
I imagined what he saw when he looked at me, with my cocked eyebrow and a smirk, but it was way different from what was happening on the inside. Anger roiled deep inside me—dark red anger, hot and violent. Toward my dad, and Doug, and even Bexley.
Doug nodded.
“No way,” I said. “Keep your enemies even closer and all that. You know the saying?”
He just didn’t know I was referring more to him than to Bexley.
Bexley
“Bexley, let me in,” Aston yelled as he pounded on the back door.
I sat with my butt firmly planted on the kitchen floor, my spine against the door, feeling each of his blows vibrating in my back. Thankfully, the kids were at school.
“I know you don’t work today,” he shouted.
How?
“Please,” he said. “I had to look into some shit last night about the case, and now I’m making a scene. I can’t afford to have a scene.”
I couldn’t let him in. Shouldn’t let him in. And I wouldn’t, because if I did, we’d sleep together.
Allowing him to come inside wouldn’t help anything. It would only make things worse. Somewhere deep in my heart, I’d known Aston and I were on a collision course, and the only place we collided and worked was in bed.
“Come on, Bex,” he called through the door. “I’m embarrassing myself, and I don’t do that.”
“Pretty sure when you got arrested, you did that,” I mumbled.
“I heard that. Come on, you never used to make me wait.”
My head clunked back against the door. I never made him wait. Maybe that had been the problem. No one ever made the great Aston Prescott jump through any hoops, except for his dad.
It quieted, and I could sense him on the other side. Somehow, he knew I was crouched down on the floor. The pounding ceased, and I closed my eyes.
“I’m sitting right behind you. I can hear you shifting around the floor through this cheap piece-of-crap door.”
That does it. I stood up and swung around to open the door, and the ass fell backward onto my feet.
“Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, AP.” I spat out his nickname as he scrambled to his feet. Looking him in the eye, I said, “You never used to call me cheap or make fun of my stuff. That was always your dad.”
Aston stood with his arm braced against the door frame. “Bex,” he whispered, “I didn’t mean that. It’s just that you could have had better with me, and this pisses me off.” He flicked his finger against the siding.
“This . . .” I mimicked him, plinking my finger against the siding, “is far better than anything I ever had before.”
“I know. I didn’t mean to marginalize that. It’s just . . . my head is so messed up. I’m being accused of something I didn’t do, and the more I look for answers, the more I’m not liking what I find.”
“What does that mean?” I stared up at him.
“Can I come in?”
“Why? So you can get me back in bed?”
“So we can talk.” He brushed past me, not waiting for an answer, and sat at my kitchen counter.
Slamming the back door shut, I said snidely, “How’s that cheap stool treating you?”
“Stop. I didn’t mean what you think.”
“Well, what did you mean when you said I could have had better with you?” I twisted my hair back into a messy knot and raised an eyebrow. “To me, it seemed a lot like you let me go.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“No, you did. You chose the company.”
He looked tired, his eyes dull and deep wrinkles at the corners. “It was all I ever worked for. You know that,” he said, sounding defeated.
Guilt dripped from my heart into my veins. It shouldn’t have, but it did.
I walked to the cabinet and pulled down my old coffeepot. It wasn’t a good time for the one-cup thing. I poured in the grinds and water and set
