“Can you look at me? Please?”

It was the please that did me in. Guttural and torn from his voice. Possibly that was the hangover he had to have, considering it was near noon and this was the first I’d heard of him moving around.

I listened, rolled over, and blinked. Blinked again. “You look like shit.”

His hair was in complete disarray. Eyes bloodshot like he’d just finished a seven-day bender. His skin was pale, and even his muscles, displayed because he only had on shorts, looked weak.

“I feel it. My head, my gut. Trust me, in more ways than those, I feel like shit.”

He looked it, too. As for me, I pretty much felt the same without the hangover.

I wasn’t even upset anymore, just hurt. Worried. Imagine moments after realizing you were falling in love with someone else, that someone else gets a call from the only person they’d ever loved. And is essentially given the open door to take them back. Nothing could take away the pain of hearing Kane apologize to Ava for marrying me.

Nothing.

Not only that, when he’d realized he’d hurt me, he’d vanished. I’d come downstairs, intent on talking to him, letting him know I understood, and hell, I’d give him the out if he wanted it.

I deserved to be someone’s first choice. Not their required choice. Not their pity choice. I spent enough years with Lincoln, slowly realizing over the last month he was a slimy little abusive liar who played me in a long con in order to get access to my trust, an amount much more substantial than his own father would probably ever give him. I gave him the ability to live a life of luxury with little responsibility, and now, knowing what I knew of Lincoln now, he would have jumped at that. He didn’t want to be working with his dad. He wanted to be out partying, traveling the world.

But Kane left me. He bailed before we had a chance to talk, and that might have been a heavier hit to my pride than realizing I’d done the dumbest thing in the world and fallen for a man who wouldn’t ever return it.

“Can I come in?” he asked and nodded toward the bed. “I’d like to talk.”

I’d prefer to avoid yesterday for the next three hundred and thirty some odd days.

“Fine.”

He huffed, a sad sound, a man who knew exactly what fine meant from a woman’s mouth and came into my room and sat down on the corner of the bed. He faced me, one leg up and bent on the mattress, the other settled to the floor.

“I’m sorry about yesterday. I’m sorry for hurting you and for taking off. That call with Ava.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.

I fisted my covers tighter. Her name was quickly becoming a four-letter word.

“It fucked with my head. I can’t lie about that. Hearing her, knowing I hurt her. And then seeing how much it’d hurt you. That you’d heard it all.”