Surrender (Club X #2)(64)
Author: K.M. Scott

“I know, honey. I know,” she whispered softly as she gently stroked my hair. “I know it hurts, but it’ll get better. It just takes time.”

How many times had I said that to her and thought what I was saying couldn’t have been helping. What a crock of shit it’ll get better. Your heart’s broken. It’ll never get better. You’ll never be the same again. You’ll always be broken.

I never want to feel this way.

And there I lay in her arms while she whispered words meant to soothe me, but they weren’t working. I still felt as awful as I had the moment I walked into his office and saw him sitting there with his eyes closed, a look of almost pain on his face as Lola…

I couldn’t finish that thought. Just thinking about that moment caused my chest to tighten. Like falling for him had put something in my heart so that every time I thought of him now, it felt like a hand was squeezing it tightly.

Taking a deep breath, I dried my eyes for the fourth time that night. “You must be asking yourself what happened to the old Shay you used to know. Imagine what Elliot would think. He’d probably have a good laugh at my expense if he saw me now.”

Carrie smiled at my mention of Elliot. “He’d be so jealous it would probably eat him up inside.”

“Why? Who would want to feel like this?”

Pushing my tangled and tear-dampened hair from my eyes, she said, “Not jealous because he’d want to feel like this. Jealous because he could never make you miss him this much.”

“I miss those days when I didn’t feel like this for anyone.”

“Oh honey, this is the best stuff of life. You’ll never feel more alive than you do right now. That feeling that your heart is being torn out of your chest tells you it was real. You love him. There’s nothing better in the world than love. Even when it hurts, it still makes you feel.”

Furrowing my brow, I shot Carrie a nasty look. “I had no idea I was best friends with a sadist.”

“Shay, I’m not happy you’re sad, but I am happy you finally found someone to really love. I was getting worried you’d never open up to anyone and instead choose the cold world of science over emotions, and yes, love.”

“I would have been better off sticking with the cold world of science. My research never betrays me by sleeping with another woman.”

“He didn’t sleep with another woman. Don’t make it worse than it already is. He let her go down on him. Entirely different.”

My stomach felt sick when she said things like that, as if his betrayal was any less terrible because his partner-in-crime wore clothes during it. “Again with making excuses for bad men, Carrie.”

Sliding off my bed, she began rummaging through my closet. “They’re not excuses. A blow job isn’t anywhere as bad as if you’d caught them having full blown sex in his office, or even worse, making love in a bed.” She poked her head out and held up a black sweater for my approval, as if she thought I was ready to get dressed and leave my bed. “I’m not saying what he did doesn’t deserve some punishment, but you did say he claimed to have to do it. You’ll wear this with jeans when we go out.”

“I don’t think so on both accounts. I’m not ready to go out, even if you put me in mourning clothes, and a man never has to let another women go down on him. How could I ever trust him again?”

She threw the sweater on the bed and headed toward the linen cabinet to get me a towel. “I’m not saying you can. All I’m saying is there are possibly things going on outside of what you know that mitigate the circumstances and might make you feel better about never seeing him again. That’s all.”

As she buzzed around my apartment, I thought about never seeing Stefan again. That pain in my chest that had finally receded came back with a vengeance, making me wince and want to cry again. There was no way I could forgive him, but thinking about never seeing him again hurt as much as the memory of what he’d done.

I heard a knock on my front door and looked at Carrie, who seemed surprised. “Did you order in?”

“No. I’d planned on getting you out of this house tonight, in fact. Do you want me to tell whoever it is that you’re unavailable?”

I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. Stefan had finally come to beg me to take him back. “You can tell them whatever the hell you want, just as long as they go away.”

“Okay. You sure you don’t want to talk?”

“I’m sure.”

Hidden in my bedroom, I listened as she answered the door, but I couldn’t hear what the person in the hallway was saying. Peeking my head out, I saw Olivia standing in my doorway talking to Carrie. Why was she here?

I looked a wreck, so I smoothed my hair back off my face as best as I could and brushed my clothes off from the two days I’d spent in bed in them and stepped out into my living room. “It’s okay, Carrie. Let her in.”

Olivia sat down and smiled the way she did that day she saw me at the hospital to visit Stefan’s mother. Always sweet, she had a look of concern in her eyes. I may have looked worse than I thought.

“Why are you here, Olivia?” I asked, too curious to remember my manners.

“I wanted to see if you were okay. Cash told me what happened.”

“How nice of the March brothers to share sex stories. I’m fine. You don’t have to worry. Just another notch on Stefan’s bedpost. You must have to devote a good portion of your days if you go to visit every woman he’s hurt.”

I knew I was being unfair. I didn’t care. Something about the idea of her fiancé and his brother talking about what had happened made me angry. That Olivia bore the brunt of that anger couldn’t be helped.

“It’s not like that, Shay. Cash told me you and Stefan broke up because of what he did for the club.”

“You’re buying that nonsense too? Is there some kind of collective delusion that comes from being around this family?”

“I just want you to know the whole story, okay? After that, I’ll leave and you can decide if you think what I said meant anything to you.”

“If you’re going to defend his actions, you can just go now, Olivia. The man slept with another woman.”

“Not slept with,” Carrie said as she walked over to sit next to me.

“Olivia, this is Carrie. She makes excuses for bad men. Carrie, this is Olivia. She’s marrying Stefan’s brother Cassian.”