Her expression crumples the second I hint at the affair. If you can even call it that. “I felt like I was lying to you. Every. Single. Time.” I bang my fist on the table and the plates rattle with each word and make Kat jump, but I can’t help it. “I felt like a bastard when I looked you in the eyes and said nothing happened, because you should have already known.”

“When?” Kat asks me.

“I swear that night in the papers was about something else. Something that has nothing to do with that woman or sleeping with her. It was—”

“When?” She screams out the question as her eyes gloss over. She doesn’t stop staring at me, but the emotion I expect to see isn’t there. It’s only anger, a furious rage that stares back at me. “When did you sleep with her?”

“The night I got the call from my mother.” I swallow thickly and add, “I was with her.”

“The night she told you?” she asks me with a morbid tone and I nod, feeling that acidic churning in my stomach as my clammy hands clench. “You were at the company party?” she asks instantly, although it’s more of her recalling that night than an actual question.

“You were supposed to take me out that night afterward,” Kat says and each word sounds sadder and sadder as she looks away from me. “You were fucking her while at work.”

“It was a one-time thing. A mistake. I didn’t know who she was and things were getting serious with us, Kat. You don’t understand. It wasn’t how it seems.” I stumble over my words. Leaning closer to her and reaching for her, she abruptly pushes away from the table, slamming her palms against it and scooting the chair back.

My hands fly into the air, keeping them up. As if I’m not a threat. Trying to keep her here with me to give me a chance to explain.

“Look, we were getting serious and I needed … I don’t know how to explain it.”

“You didn’t want to be with me anymore so you went and slept with the first girl to bat her eyelashes at you?” she asks although it’s less of a question and more an accusation, a bitter one at that.