A million memories hit me. Our whirlwind romance. Eloping after knowing each other for only two weeks. Being devastatingly in love with him, and then being simply devastated when he left me. I’d never loved anyone before or after him. Dated guys, sure, but no one had been like Rhys until Liam came back into my life. What we’d had was something you only ever see in fairy tales. Rhys had been my entire world, and I’d thought I was his. Obviously I had been wrong.
My family had been furious when we’d gotten married. Partly because I had barely turned eighteen when I met him, but mostly because we barely knew each other and none of them had even met Rhys before we eloped. I married him just days after graduation, and even though I’d been positive I wouldn’t end up going to college with my sister since Rhys’s job was in Tampa, college had ended up being an escape when he’d asked for a divorce just two weeks before classes started.
He’d fed me a line about how he couldn’t give me the life I deserved—complete with tears and the most heartbreaking expression I’ve seen on anyone’s face—and I never saw him again. He didn’t return to his apartment, which I’d been sharing with him over the summer, and his phone was taken out of service that day. I received the divorce papers in the mail just days later. That was the day I stopped believing in love.
My mom and sister were equally mad at him and sad for me, but my dad had been the confusing one. Where I thought he’d be happy that Rhys had left me, he’d done nothing but hold me as I cried for days. Only leaving my side if Uncle Mason was there to take his place. Neither of them ever said a word, but their worry and sadness had been unexpected.
And now, after four years, Rhys was standing in my room, in my condo, in motherfucking California.
“Why are you here? How! How are you here?” I asked him when I felt like I could finally speak again.
“Are you asking how I knew where to find you?”
“Yes, Rhys, I want to know how you knew where we were.” And I wanted to do anything but start crying again.
“Your dad told me.”
I waited for him to correct himself, or to tell me the real answer, but instead of speaking, he stared at me with the same heartbroken expression on his face as he’d worn on the day he told me we were over.
“Who was—”
“My dad told you where we were?” I asked, cutting him off. “Why?”
Rhys looked off to the side, his dark eyes wide, like he was having trouble understanding something. “He, uh . . . he knows how much you still mean to me. I hadn’t said anything other than your name before he was writing down the address here.”
The air left my lungs in a hard rush. It felt like he’d just punched me. “How much I still mean to you,” I said, the statement almost sounding like a question. “What do you—Rhys, you left me! You divorced me and then you just disappeared! I never heard from you again! I didn’t know where you went when you left, and you gave me no way of getting ahold of you so I could try to change your mind.”
Rhys’s expression changed to something between surprise and awe. “He never told you?”
“No—what? Who never told me what?”
“Your dad. He gave me his word, but you’re his daughter. I didn’t think for a second that he would actually keep it from you.”
When he didn’t offer more, I threw my arms out to the side. “Are you going to tell me what you thought I already knew, or just leave me wondering?”
Rhys looked around again, and his eyes stayed on the bed for a few seconds. When he spoke, his voice was dark. “I want to sit down while I tell you this, but if he has been in here with you, I will not touch that bed.” His eyes shot over to me and he took a step back. “Please give me the chance to explain everything.”
He didn’t wait for me to say anything else; he just turned and walked out. When I followed him, I found him standing in the living room, waiting for me to decide where to go from there. I didn’t want to sit on the couch with him, because I was afraid he’d get too close to me, and I couldn’t handle that right now. Turning, I went into the kitchen and sat down at the small table. As soon as we were sitting, he began talking.
“Kennedy, what did you think I did for a living?”
My forehead creased. “What did I think? You’re a cop. Or, you were.”
Rhys nodded and leaned forward to put his arms on the table. “A cop for the city of Tampa. You never found it odd that I didn’t know your dad or Mason, and they didn’t know me? We worked for the same police department.”
“No, because they’re detectives, you were on patrol.”
“The two still cross, Kennedy.”
I sat back in my chair, trying to put distance between us without being obvious about it. I didn’t understand what he was saying. I’d seen his uniform, I’d seen his patrol car . . . I knew he worked for the Tampa police. “What are you getting at? Did you steal the uniform and car?”
A startled laugh left him, and his lips curved up into the smile I’d fallen for so long ago. “No, nothing like that. What I’m saying is, we did know each other. When I met you, I had no idea that the two of you were related. I knew Detective Ryan. I’d had to talk with him and Detective Gates a few times when they were looking for certain gang members, but never once did I think you had any connection with them. Two days after we got married, I got called in to talk with the chief; do you remember that?”
“I don’t know—I mean, I guess I do. I knew you were supposed to be off work and you went in for a few hours, but that’s it. All I really remember from that day was going to tell my family later that night that we’d gotten married.”
“Yeah,” Rhys said on a sigh. “In that meeting with Chief, I was asked to change jobs in the department for one assignment. He told me some things about the job, and I immediately accepted it. I knew it was important, I knew it involved getting some bad people. I had no idea until after I’d agreed that I would no longer be able to have a relationship with you. For some reason, I never once realized the seriousness of this job until two detectives came in to talk to me about it. Your dad and uncle.”
I sat there staring at him with wide eyes. “My dad and uncle? What . . . what was the job?”
“To go undercover,” Rhys responded immediately. “Your dad and uncle were going to be the ones training me over the next few months because of the work they’d done while they were undercover. At the end of that meeting and their going over what we would be doing for training and when . . . they told me to start cutting ties with everyone. They said I couldn’t tell anyone, but I had to start distancing myself from even my family.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not, Kennedy.”
“I had my dad look for you in the department after you left me, and he said you just disappeared! He said you stopped coming in for work and no one could get in touch with you!”
Rhys’s eyebrows rose, as if he were trying to get me to understand what I was saying. “Exactly. They knew where I went, but I couldn’t have any contact with them, just as they couldn’t have contact with me or act like they knew me if our paths crossed. But that night, when I got home, you were so freaked out about telling your family about our marriage that I don’t think you even noticed how dead I felt. Knowing that I’d have to leave you, and fighting with myself over whether or not I should tell you why. I didn’t want to go to your parents’ house after that, but realized that we needed to. I knew your family needed to see me—the guy who would soon be leaving their daughter—so they would have a face to go with the name of the person they blamed. And I needed to see them to know that you would have people there for you once I was gone. Imagine how much worse it got when you and I walked in, and there was your dad expecting you and wanting to know where you’d run off to for the past few days . . . the same man who just hours before had told me to cut ties with everyone in my life.”
I couldn’t say anything once he was finished. I couldn’t remember how to speak, and wouldn’t have known what to
say if I could.
When minutes passed without a word from me, Rhys cleared his throat. “The assignment ended almost two weeks ago, and I had to go through some debriefing and tests to make sure I was . . . well, to make sure I was still me. The minute I could, I found your dad and asked about you. And now I’m here.”
“So . . . what? Now that you’re here, things just go back to how it was? We get married again on a whim and see what happens? I had three months with you, Rhys. Three! And in those months, you took everything I knew and turned it upside down in the most incredible way before tearing my entire world apart! I waited for you for two years before completely giving up. I kept thinking that you would show up and it would be okay again. Or that it really had all just been some horrible nightmare and I would wake up in your arms again. But there was nothing. And you can’t come in here after four years expecting us to go back to how we were and try to make me believe that you still feel something for me.”
“Kennedy, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for leaving you, but I love you. I have always loved you. I have never met anyone—”
“No, you don’t and you didn’t. If you ever had, you would have turned down the job.” I stood from the chair and turned, but Rhys’s whispered words stopped me from leaving.
“Your dad was so sure that you would be waiting for me . . . that our marriage was something you still wanted.”
I looked back at the mixture of confusion and hurt on his face, and shook my head slowly, ignoring the tears streaming down my cheeks. “He was wrong. You shouldn’t have come back here, Rhys.”
“Kennedy!” he called when I began walking toward my room, and I whirled back to face him.
“You ruined me!” I screamed. “Don’t you get that? Leave!”
I didn’t wait to see if he did. I just walked into my room and locked the door behind me before sliding down it until I was on the floor. I sat there crying for hours with my heart torn now that my past had just collided with my present.
14
October 27
Liam
THERE WAS A soft knock on my office door three days later, but I didn’t respond to it. If it was Eli, he’d have come in without waiting for me to invite him. If it was anyone else, they could call me. A minute later, I heard another few knocks and then the door slowly opened.
“I have it shut for a reas—” I cut off quickly when I looked up and saw the girl standing in front of me.
Seeing her there felt like a weight settled on my chest, and conflicting thoughts rushed through my mind. I wanted to hold her, I wanted to yell at her, I wanted to demand she tell me now why she never told me she was married, and I wanted to press her against the wall and show her what exactly we’d had and what she had thrown away.
Instead, I cleared my throat and looked back at the screen of my computer. “I’m busy.”
Another minute passed without her leaving or saying anything, but the second I heard her voice, I couldn’t stop myself from looking up at her. “Do you remember that night in your apartment—the night I stopped fighting what you already knew I felt for you?” I didn’t respond, but she continued anyway. “You told me that you wanted to face whatever I was fighting from my past head-on.”
“But I didn’t know that I would be fighting your husband.”
“Ex,” she corrected. “Rhys is my ex-husband. And before you go repeating what you asked me the morning you found out about him, yes, I know he’s my ex. I am fully aware of it. But you don’t understand; I was eighteen when I married him and he divorced me three months later and disappeared until just the other day. I looked for him for two years after he disappeared before giving up, and only now do I know that he had to leave me because he had to go undercover—just like my dad and uncle.”
“Well, good, I’m happy for you. Now he’s back, and you can pick up your marriage where you left off,” I said, but it was obvious that the last thing I was feeling was happiness over the situation.
Kennedy shook her head as tears gathered in her eyes. “What I’m trying to tell you is that his reappearance had me too shocked to figure out what to say or do the other morning, and that’s why I wasn’t able to stop you from leaving. I never expected to see or hear from him again—especially not while Kira and I were here in California—but I didn’t want you to leave then, and I don’t want you to leave me now.”
I sat there for a while just staring at her as tears slipped down her face. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to say you’re still here with me! I want you to keep fighting for us instead of just leaving me!”
“I can’t, Kennedy! He was your husband, and now he’s come back for you. I can’t compete with that,” I said, my voice and body showing how defeated I felt.
A hushed cry burst from her chest, and she tightened her lips into a hard line as she tried to regain control over her emotions, but her voice still shook when she said, “That pain you used to talk about? That fear? That was me not wanting to have another Rhys in my life. That was me being terrified that my world would be shattered again by you, because I knew you had the capability of doing that. I knew it in the way you silently commanded control, I knew it in the way I easily and willingly gave in to you again and again, and I knew it in the way you made me feel just by being near me. No one had ever done that except for Rhys until you came into my life.”
All the air in my lungs left in a heavy rush. It felt like her words had just landed a blow to my stomach. Never once since Rhys had shown up at her door had I imagined that the entire time I’d known Kennedy, I’d been reminding her of him. “So is that why you fought me, or is that why you were with me—because I reminded you of him?”
Kennedy’s face tightened in pain at my words, but she nodded, acknowledging their truth. “I fought you because of all the ways you were like him. I’m with you because of all the ways you aren’t.”
My legs ached from the force I was using to keep myself in my chair instead of going to her, but just as she’d protected herself over the past five months, I needed to protect myself until I knew what exactly was going to happen with us. “Sit down,” I ordered softly, and waited until she did. “What happened after I left?”
“We talked. He told me about why he left and how he found me, and—”
“How did he?” I asked, interrupting her.
“My dad. As soon as his undercover assignment was over, he found my dad and asked about me. Dad gave him the address to the condo.”
I kept my face neutral, but behind my desk, I was clenching my hands into fists. “So I guess we know who your parents want you to be with.”
“Not necessarily,” she whispered. “Neither of them liked him when we got married because they didn’t know him, and they never got the chance to. I’ve talked to my mom about you a lot, my dad just knows of you because he doesn’t really care to know about Kira’s and my relationships. I think my dad just remembers how I was when Rhys left, and in his mind, he was doing me a favor by sending him to California. Besides, I think he sympathizes with Rhys because of his own time spent undercover—and he knows what it can do to a person and those closest to them. But that doesn’t mean he would rather I be with him than you.”
“So did you just forgive him when he told you everything?”
“No,” she responded immediately. “It made me more mad to finally know all that. I told him to leave.”
My eyebrows rose, and I straightened in my chair. “You did?”
Kennedy started to speak, but stopped and her face pinched together. Like she was worried that what she said next would crush my hopeful expression. “I did, but he never left. He’s been sleeping on the couch the past three nights. When I came back into the living room after leaving him out there and found that he hadn’t left, he told me he was going to stay until I was ready to talk to him again, and I haven’t been. And to be honest, I don’t think he’s ready to talk to me again either. He was really upset about you. He di
dn’t say that exactly—but it was obvious in the way he looked at me when he asked about you, and he gave me that same look when I told Kira where I was going today.”
As much as it pissed me off that he was still there, I couldn’t help but be glad that Kennedy hadn’t talked to him again even though he was waiting for her to. But not one part of me enjoyed hearing that he didn’t like my relationship with Kennedy, because I was right there with him. I hated his relationship with her. “If you didn’t want me to leave then, why did it take you three days to come to me?”
“Because I didn’t know what to do,” she said honestly. “And I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to you after you stormed out. Having my past and present collide was something I never thought would happen.”
I studied her for a few seconds, then asked, “Were you ever going to tell me? I mean—Christ, I feel like I don’t know a damn thing about you after finding this out.”
“You do,” she assured me. “You know more about me than Rhys ever took the time to try to know. And, yes, I was going to tell you about him. I told you during the movie on Friday night that I would tell you soon. I just didn’t know when that would be.”
I laughed in frustration. “So you’re saying it’s possible that one day you would’ve found a guy that you wanted to marry, and then sometime after the wedding, it may or may not have come up in passing that you’d been married once before? That’s something guys want to know right away! That’s something I would’ve wanted to know!”
“Would it have changed things for you? Would we still have dated if you’d known?”
“Yes, of course we would have. But finding out like this after I’ve already fallen in love with you? It’s bullshit, Kennedy.”
Shock covered her face, and for a moment, she didn’t say anything. “You’ve fallen in love with me? That—you can’t. You’re incapable of falling in love with anyone.”
I laughed once and threw my arms out to the side. “Since when?”