She sighed and shook her head. “When my divorce attorney’s private investigator discovered that your girlfriend, Kendalle Scott, lives in a 7-million-dollar beach house in Malibu that you bought for her in cash and she’s driving a brand new Lotus Esprit that’s registered in your name, that’s when the bomb went off, babe. Boom. Done!”
She shook her head again and cast her eyes down, not noticing that he had held his hand up to stop her, looking horrified. “And even with all of that, Sull, I can’t blame all of this on you.”
She finally looked up and met his troubled eyes. “I take responsibility for my part in the decline of our marriage and our relationship. I could have flown out more. I could have been more present for you. There are plenty of things I could have done differently. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. But when it comes down to it, if I had been more true to me from the beginning, we could have avoided all of this. And I take full responsibility for that.”
Her green eyes narrowed. “But not once did I violate our marriage vows. Not once. When I gave you my heart, I meant it. But I have to take it back, Sully. I cannot keep living like this with you. It hurts too much. We’re different people than we were when we first got together. I think you can agree with me on that. Life happened. And now here we are all these years later in a shitty-assed marriage where we cannot get along no matter what we do.”
He shook his head as tears started flowing from his eyes once again. He buried his head in his hands for a moment and then he ran his fingers through his shaggy, highlighted dark blonde hair.
His demeanor then shifted as he looked at her and stood up defiantly. “I don’t agree with you or any of this, especially the bullshit about Kendalle Scott.”
She shook her head and snorted. “Oh yeah? Is that ‘cuz I just busted you?”
He composed himself and then started chuckling. She frowned, confused by his reaction. He pulled out a chair and took a seat, facing her and meeting her eyes. “Babe, Kendalle Scott is not my girlfriend. Yes, she is a girl and yes, she is my friend, but I have never had sex with her and I never will. I can guarantee that. And I know she would definitely guarantee that to you too.”
Kit shook her head, unable to understand what was going on. “Then who the fuck is she? If she’s not your girlfriend why has she been out here on the road and why is she living in your house and driving your car? Sean told me he saw her backstage with you and you kissed her!”
Sully couldn’t help himself, he burst out laughing. He shook his head, seeing Kit’s confusion. He reached out to stroke her cheek and she recoiled.
He held up his hands. “Ok, ok. I can see why Sean may have thought something’s up and why that private detective made that assumption too. I get it. If you don’t believe me, you can head on over to Bryan’s room or call him and ask him about Kendalle. You can ask Giselle or my mom too.”
He met her eyes. “Kitty, Kendalle Scott is one of my oldest and dearest friends. She moved to Evergreen Park from Minneapolis when we were ten. She knows me and Bryan. She lived down the street from me…”
Kit wasn’t convinced. She folded her arms across her chest and shook her head, her green eyes narrowing as she interjected. “I heard she’s stunning.”
Sully snickered and nodded. “Oh yes, she is. She’s a blond haired, blue eyed goddess with a rocking ballerina body. She was my first crush. She’s also very gay.”
Kit’s eyes widened. “What?”
He nodded. “Yes. It’s always been that way. Long story short, she got a scholarship to ABT when we were sixteen and moved to New York. She became part of the company a year later and worked her way up to principal dancer. We’ve kept in touch all these years. We reconnected about six months ago in Minneapolis.”
He sighed and met her eyes. “She’s going through hell right now. Her partner of eight years, the love of her life, Magda, died suddenly last year and it left Kendalle heartbroken. Then shortly after that Kendalle found out she has stage four lymphoma. Her chemo treatments in New York weren’t going as well as she had hoped and she heard that there was a great oncologist in L.A. So, she decided to head there and get a change of scenery. Before she started her second round of chemo, she wanted to get out of the city, so Bryan and me encouraged her to stay on the tour with us that way we could help keep her spirits up.”
He met Kit’s eyes. “Has she stayed in my suite with me? Yes. She slept on the fold out sofa. I offered to take the sofa so she could have my bed, but she told me to get good rest so I’d be at peak performance. She gets it, being that she used to perform and tour regularly.”
He nodded. “Last time I saw her was in Malibu right before I went back out on the road. You were sleeping and I headed down there to check on her. She’d had a really tough reaction to her chemo a few days before and the friend who normally is there checking in on her had to go out of town unexpectedly. I’m
