She crossed the room and stood beside his table with her hands on her hips. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I tried telling you ten years ago,” she said, trying to hold back her anger and failing miserably. “There was never anything going on between me and Samuel Abbott. It was lies your father made up. Lies you chose to believe.”

His jaw tightened and his dark eyes flared. “I saw the two of you together, Bryce. He was leaving your house at two in the morning. The two of you were hugging on your front porch. Do you deny that?”

She tossed her hair back from her face. “No, I don’t deny it. It was a friendly hug that you tried making into something dirty.”

“I tried making into something dirty?” he said, as if incensed with what she’d said. “Don’t you dare blame me for what you did to us.”

Bracing her hands on the table, she leaned in closer, almost right in his face. If he wanted a good fight, she would give him one. “I am blaming you, Kaegan, for not believing in me when you should have. For your lack of trust in me. I’m also blaming you for sleeping with another woman to spite me when you thought I had wronged you.”

She drew in a deep breath and backed away from him, trying to get her anger under control, but she couldn’t. “And as far as Samuel is concerned, he’s living in California and I went to his wedding this weekend.”

“So I heard.”

Had her mother told him that, too? Was that the reason he’d asked why she and Samuel had broken up? “It was a beautiful wedding.”

“Must have been pretty damn awful for you to be at the wedding. Seeing the man you once loved marry someone else,” he sneered.

She lifted her chin. “No, it wasn’t awful at all. In fact, I am very happy for him. Samuel deserves to be happy and I believe Matthew will make him extremely happy.”

“Matthew?” he asked, as if to make sure he’d heard her right.

“Yes, Matthew. The reason Samuel and I spent so much time together is because he needed a friend. He was having a hard time coming to terms with his sexuality. Since we both attended Grambling, whenever he came home he would offer me a ride back here. And he was in a number of my study groups on campus. That’s when we became close and he would confide in me.”

Kaegan glared at her. “You should have told me.”

“And you should have trusted me,” she snapped, glaring back. “That night when you thought you saw us in some kind of passionate embrace, I was giving Samuel a hug of encouragement because he’d made the decision to tell his parents the truth. He was tired of living the lie he had lived all his life and wanted to come out. And before you say I should have told you that, too, I tried telling you after I got that call from you, ending things between us. Just think of how different things would have been had you listened to me. Instead, you hung up on me and then blocked my number so I couldn’t call you back.”