“You don’t even know.” Quinton slips his hand on my thigh beneath the table. “But I think that now we’ve gotten everything out in the open between us, things are going to be good from here on out.”

Well, almost everything.

I feel his eyes on me, but I can’t meet them. Guilt over the secret I know I can’t carry anymore makes it impossible.

“Oh thank god,” Vonnie says and my vision blurs. She’s moved on from her cocktail and is pouring herself a glass of wine from one of the many bottles sitting on the table, so she misses the way my eyes go wide, begging her to look my way. And I know it’s only my fault. “I still can’t believe Mahler had you planning a Glenn Chandler fundraiser.”

Quinton jerks his hand from the top of my legs like the mere touch of me burned him. And maybe it did? The sting of what he must think is betrayal hurts. My stomach falls to my feet, and dread fills me to the point that I think everything I’ve eaten might make its way back up. I try to think of something to say, a way to explain to him what really happened. Anything to make him understand. But when I look at him and see the disgust written all over his face—disgust about me—my mind goes blank.

“How could he think you’d have no problem planning that trash fire? What an asshole.” Vonnie takes a sip of her wine that she very clearly doesn’t need, oblivious to the tension and anger radiating off Quinton.

“Quinton.” My normally strong and assertive voice wavers over every syllable of his name. And even though I’m an expert at fighting back tears, the burning in my eyes is getting worse. “Just let—”

The legs of his chair scrape across the hardwood floors beneath them as Quinton shoots out of his seat, slamming his napkin on the table. “Thank you for inviting me, Brynn.” He looks down the table, finding Brynn’s dad and mother-in-law. “Mr. Sterling, Mrs. Lewis, this was wonderful.”

Every line in his body is taut, stretching the soft fabric encasing the arms that I want to touch, the body that I want to hold on to. I reach out to grab him with shaking hands, but he cuts back away from me and steps out of my reach. My hand falls to my side. The weight of his rejection makes my arms feel like they weigh a hundred pounds. But it’s the look in his eyes that hurts the most. Only moments ago, they looked at me with so much trust and affection, but now they’re full of so much hurt and anger that his gaze is like a fucking knife to the heart.