Page 57 of The Risk Taker

“Fallon slept with you because she loves you, Jamie. One look at you two and it’s easy to tell how crazy you are about each other.”

“Sara said something like that.”

Fuck me.

“Maybe there were other reasons she kept it from you,” Cole says.

“Like what?”

“Maybe you’ve been through enough, and she didn’t want to see you hurt anymore. You’re a protector at heart, always protecting your little brother, and maybe she was protecting you from him.”

“You think?”

“You’ll have to ask her, but yeah, I think.”

“She said she was ninety-nine percent sure of the affair, until Sara pretty much confirmed it.”

“That could be another reason she didn’t tell you. She has great intuition, but maybe she didn’t have proof.”

Is it possible that Cole is right, that she kept that from me because, one, she wasn’t sure, and two, she was protecting me? Christ, if so, I totally fucked everything up between us. The hurt look on her face, the way she fled after I told her to go. There’s no coming back from that. She should hate me. Fuck, I hate myself.

I grip my hair and tug. “I accused her of playing some fucked-up game with me.” The look on her face was pure devastation when she asked if that was what I thought of her.

Cole groans. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” A lump fills my throat, and pain spreads to my jaw, then settles at the base of my neck where a headache begins brewing. “Oh fuck, man, the hurtful things I said to her.”

“You were angry. She’s smart enough to realize you were striking out in the moment.”

“I fucking hurt her, Cole.” I stand, and pace to the window, catch a glimpse of her SUV as she drives back down our street, slowing to see the white Honda still in my driveway. Where the hell is she going? I need to go after her. “I really hurt her.”

“Then make it right.”

“How?”

“You’re a smart guy. You’ll figure it out.” Just then my doorbell rings and my heart leaps. “Maybe that’s her,” Cole says.

“Gotta go,” I say and disconnect the call.

I hurry to the door, pull it open and find my father on the steps. “Dad,” I say and look past his shoulders, but the SUV is long gone. “Did you pass Fallon?”

He nods. “She called me. She told me Sara had been here, and wanted me to call to make sure you were all right. I thought I’d come by instead.”

“She…called you?”

“She was pretty worried about you.”

After the cruel things I said, she called my Dad? Was worried about me?

I have no idea why that surprises me. Fallon is kind, caring, and always puts the best interests of others first. Which, of courses, was why she didn’t tell me her suspicions about the affair, or the baby. She was protecting me, goddammit.

I am such a fucking idiot.

“I hurt her,” I say, and sink to my knees in the front foyer as my heart gallops in my chest.

“Let’s talk,” Dad says.

I take a few deep breaths, push to my feet and eventually follow him into the living room. “Do you know where she is?” I ask.