“Can your long memory also include tonight, when I had a gun pointed at your head and I decided to shoot someone else to save you, even though you wanted to kill me?” she requests.
To be honest, I’m disappointed she swerved the way she did. I had no interest in administering a loyalty test on Meg. I don’t want her useless, sham loyalty. For all her casually aggressive opinions, the woman doesn’t stand for a damn thing. In every regard, she is unreliable. Whichever way she thinks the wind might blow in her favor, she’ll go. The only person Meg is loyal to is herself. Whatever lingering affection she has for me, whatever sentimental tie contributed to her inability to pull the trigger tonight, it’s an inconvenience to me, not a fucking gift that I should remember fondly and appreciate.
I wanted Meg to pull the trigger.
I wanted Mia to see her pull the trigger.
That was the most important result of tonight’s production, so overall, it was a fucking failure.
I don’t say any of that. I’m tired of being here. I’m tired of talking about this. I want to move on with my evening and my life.
“Don’t fuck up again. Don’t even think about fucking up again. This is the last warning you will receive from anyone. If I so much as have a bad dream that you’re up to something sketchy, I’ll have you killed.”
“Mateo, I don’t want it to be like this between us.”
“You tried to take Mia away from me,” I state.
“And I am so sorry I did that.”
“I don’t care,” I state, plainly.
“You’ll see,” she tells me, with more spirit than I expect. “I’m going to show you. You don’t have to worry about anything like this happening again. I’m relieved to be alive. I just want to live my life and raise my kids.”
“Help raise your kids,” I correct.
She nods, not arguing. “I will be good to Mia. I will be good to you. I did a stupid, desperate thing. I know that. But I don’t want either one of us—and especially you—walking around, feeling uncomfortable in this house. I don’t want us second guessing each other and regarding one another with suspicion and barely restrained hostility. Neither of us can live like that.”
I smile faintly. “Speak for yourself. I already live like that.”
“Well, that’s… I don’t know how you do that,” she states, dropping her gaze and shaking her head. “I’d love us to be friends again.”
“I don’t want to be your friend,” I inform her. “You tried to extinguish the only light I’ve ever had in my life. If that’s what you think friends do, your friendship isn’t worth having.”
My impatience is kicking up. My need to get the hell out of this room and away from this woman.
My response to betrayal has evolved over the years. I’m more or less inoculated at this point; it doesn’t hurt, it just pisses me off. The first time someone betrays you is obviously the worst. It’s unbearable, difficult to believe, impossible to accept—and yet you have to, because that’s the only choice. Only fools ignore a threat because it makes them feel more comfortable to do so.
Walking through discomfort and outright pain with a straight face is how you know you’ve become an adult.
Me, I’ve been an adult since I was a kid. I learned young.
Meg’s had a handful of unfortunate events happen to her, but she’s a coward. They could’ve made her strong, fierce, but she ignored the call. She doesn’t walk through the fire and come out learning not to fear the flames; she willfully closes her eyes and pretends nothing is amiss so she doesn’t have to deal with the inferno blazing through her life and burning it all to the ground.
Now I am the inferno, and she begs to be my friend in hopes I’ll let her live comfortably ever after.
People are all so disappointing, with only one notable exception.
I genuinely enjoyed having Meg as a friend, but now I know she never was one.
I’m not going to fucking cry over it.
I want to leave, but I can’t take the baby. I peer down at him and see he’s fallen asleep. “Where should I put him?”
Meg shuffles awkwardly after my speech, not knowing what to say. She glances around for somewhere to put Roman, then points toward the bedroom and I follow her. A bassinet is set up in here. She picked it out prior to the honeymoon, and it was already set up in anticipation of the nice life I had planned for her. Everything she wanted could have been hers. I gave her a business of her own, freedom she couldn’t have while she was mine, all the money she required to feel safe.
Hell, I might have even let her have Rafe.