Stop it. You’re going to make yourself crazy.
Hailey deliberately forced another smile to her lips and said in as cheerful a voice as she could muster, “Sure, go ahead. The bathroom’s right over—”
She didn’t get a chance to finish. Taking the blanket that was at the foot of her bed, Dillon secured it around his waist. With it draped over his body, he walked into the bathroom.
Maybe he’d feel better once he’d showered, she consoled herself. The man who had made love to her last night couldn’t have just vanished without a trace. Not completely. Maybe he just needed a few minutes to himself so he could evaluate what he’d done, what had happened between them.
Maybe—
The sound of the running water in the shower was suddenly interrupted by the insistent beeping of a cell phone. Pulling herself together, Hailey looked around for her phone. Belatedly, she remembered that it was still in her purse. And she’d left her purse on the living room floor.
The sound couldn’t have carried this far, she reasoned.
But there it was again, that insistent beeping sound, demanding attention.
Where—?
And then she remembered. Dillon had brought his cell phone, along with his slacks, into her bedroom when they came in here last night.
There it was again. The jarring noise scissored its way under her skin. It didn’t sound as if whoever was calling was about to give up.
Given how early it was, she decided that Dillon was probably missing a call from one of his brothers. Knowing how dedicated he was to their projects, Hailey went looking for the cell.
He was probably going to use this call as an excuse to beat a hasty retreat once he came out of her bathroom, but she couldn’t very well ignore the call. The more she thought about it, the more she felt that it was probably something important.
Resigned, she began her search, trying to determine where Dillon had dropped his phone.
The annoying beeping sound stopped. The caller apparently had finally given up, she thought. And then she saw it. His phone was lying face down on her floor. Dillon must have accidentally kicked it as he made his way into her shower because the phone was partially under her bed with only an end peeking out.
She picked up the phone, went to place it on the nightstand. But the contact and movement had caused the last series of unviewed texts to pop up on the screen.
The texts were all from the same person. Someone named Julie. The last text was written all in capitals.
WHEN ARE YOU COMING HOME????
Hailey didn’t remember sitting down, but she must have. Her knees suddenly gave out and she found herself sinking back onto her bed.
She felt as if she had just been kicked in her stomach.
Julie.
The name seemed to dance in front of her eyes, mocking her.
Julie? Who was Julie?
Was Dillon already involved with someone else? Worse, was he married?
Was that the reason he had kept her at arm’s length—when he remembered his marital status? Because he certainly hadn’t acted like he was married last night.
She felt tears gathering in her eyes and she wiped them away. If Dillon was married, then why hadn’t he told her?
She was a great believer in privacy. Usually. But unable to help herself, she scrolled down through the messages that were available to her, the ones that had been sent and hadn’t been looked at yet. She couldn’t remember even hearing the phone beeping before now, but then, they had been rather busy last night, oblivious to everything else except each other.
The memory of that didn’t console her now. It made her feel as if she had been underhanded. Not as underhanded as Dillon, but hey, they couldn’t all be in his league, she thought, a stab of bitterness lancing right into her heart.
Again, she berated herself for reading his private messages like this. But in her defense, she was trying to find something—anything—to prove that she was wrong, that this wasn’t what it looked like.
But when the same message kept popping up all four times in progressively bigger text, she knew that this had to be exactly what it looked like. This Julie woman appeared to have far more of a claim on Dillon than Hailey did.
Hailey knew she had to be right because why else would he have kept this woman a secret from her?
Feeling progressively sicker, she desperately wanted to run away. She wanted to hide from this awful pain that was carving up her insides.
But damn it, this was her house, not his. If anyone needed to leave because of this awful discovery, it was Dillon.
Grabbing a robe from her closet, Hailey had just managed to shrug into it to cover herself and tied the sash at her waist when Dillon walked out. Bare-chested and barefoot, he was only wearing his slacks. His hair was wet from the shower.
Without saying a word to him, she got up and shoved his phone into his hand.
Dillon looked down at the screen. Seeing the row of texts, one after the other, he quickly retreated back into the bathroom without saying a word.
Feeling so awful that she found herself fighting a very strong, very real urge to throw up, Hailey sat back down on her bed, struggling to get a grip on herself.
She wasn’t going to cry, she wasn’t, she silently ordered herself. Hailey took in a couple of deep breaths, trying very hard not to dissolve in tears.
When Dillon came out again, she was just going to tell him that she wasn’t feeling well and would he mind leaving? Permanently?
Hailey fisted her hands beside her. She just couldn’t deal with this right now, she couldn’t.
But just as she couldn’t stop the tears that welled up in her eyes, she couldn’t lie or pretend that none of this was happening. She had just made love to a married man—or to
