Vashti walked over to her and placed a hand on her arm. “But it can be if you’d take a chance on love again. If not with Kaegan then with someone else. Of course, I’m Team Kaegan. He was wrong in assuming what he did about you and not giving you a chance to explain when you tried doing so, but everybody makes mistakes. You, of all people, know how I felt when Sawyer didn’t believe what I told him about Kia. He all but called me crazy. Yet I was able to forgive him.”

Bryce recalled that time and how Vashti had called her crying her heart out because Sawyer hadn’t believed her. Vashti hadn’t been sure she could forgive Sawyer for lacking confidence in her after the drama she’d gone through with her first husband, Scott.

“Yes, Vash, but you didn’t have ten years for your anger, humiliation and pain to fester. There was not a time—years, weeks and months—when you had to go to bed imagining what the man you love had done to another woman just to spite you.”

“But didn’t Kaegan tell you that he didn’t sleep with that woman?”

“But he deliberately touched her in front of me. And he kissed her.”

“That’s what’s hard for you, isn’t it, Bryce?” Vashti asked. “You want to forgive him. You claim you have but you truly haven’t, have you?”

Bryce drew in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the water and momentarily turning her gaze away from Vashti. When she looked back at her best friend she didn’t care if Vashti saw the tears forming in her eyes. “I forgave him, Vash, but I can’t forget. I’m trying. Honestly, I am. But I’m afraid of letting my guard down. I had loved him so much that even being just friends with him is hard.”

She swiped at her tears. “Whenever I look at him, study his hands, check out his body, I have to accept that, unlike how things were ten years ago, I’m not the only woman who has had a piece of him. I’m not the only woman he’s taken to his bed. It’s hard to accept what was supposed to be all mine isn’t anymore.”

“He could say the same for you, you know.”

Vashti’s words stung. “And what was I supposed to do, Vash? Not live my life? I had to move on to retain my sanity.”

“And you were right to do so, Bryce. Sorry if it sounded as if I thought you shouldn’t have, and just like Kaegan blames himself for losing you, I’m sure he knows and accepts what all losing you meant. I believe it’s a tortured hell he has to go through.”

“Good. Let him.” Then she wished she hadn’t said that, but it was too late to take it back because that was how she felt. Bryce could now admit that the only reason she’d hooked up with Marcel was because she’d been desperate to get over Kaegan. “I’m ashamed to admit I never loved Marcel, but at the time I needed to move on in my life. You don’t know how it feels when you’ve been betrayed by someone you loved.”