Despite those new revelations, it also didn’t excuse Owen’s part in the betrayal.

I shifted, unfurling from my inanimate state. “You sat on that information for a month, Owen. That betrayal… It’s disgusting, not to mention dangerous. You put my health at risk. You had unprotected sex with us both. God knows what could have happened if you passed something on to me.”

My mind ran back to that time. “Now that I think on it, we weren’t intimate for a while after I got back from that conference. Were you sleeping with her that whole time?”

“Fuck no. I told you it was only once, and even that was too much.” He shuddered, then gave a regrettable sigh. “I was waiting for my test results to know I was all clear. I would never do that to you.”

I scoffed. What type of bullshit is that?

“So, what? You were waiting on the all clear from a STD panel and then thought ‘right, everything is good now’ and slept with me?”

“Not at all. This is fucked up reasoning, but I thought when we eventually had it out, I could show you the results and prove that I at least did something right. That at least I didn’t put your health at risk, didn’t put your safety at risk.”

He really was delusional. He even managed to gaslight himself, the poor moron.

“I remember trying to initiate intimacy, and you shut me down,” I said.

“To be honest, it wasn’t just the health check. I loathed myself. Fucking hated myself. I didn’t deserve to touch you. Didn’t deserve to find pleasure with you after what I had done.”

“But you ended up sleeping with me anyway. That one night before everything went down.”

He dropped his head, almost in surrender. “’Cause I’m weak. I could only resist you for so long, Lex. I needed to feel you again. Have your touch and know it wasn’t all a lie. What I felt for you, what you felt for me, what we had together. My mind and emotions were in such a mess. I was utterly selfish, and needed you to feel whole again. I was dying without you.”

“This is hard to reconcile, Owen. Everything was so premeditated, planned and thought out. You went a whole month. One month, Owen. And for one week, you knew Everly was supposedly pregnant. That’s a long time to keep a secret of that magnitude. If she didn’t turn up pregnant, were you ever going to tell me the truth?”

“Yes. I was going to tell you.” Hmm, debatable.

“To assuage your guilty conscience or for me?”