Our Fault (Culpable Book 3)

I got into my car and drove out of the office parking deck, stepping on the accelerator until it almost hit the floor. I should have canceled dinner; I should have left; I should have said all those things I was dying to say, all the things I still had inside that I knew would have to come out one day.

I squeezed the bridge of my nose, trying to calm down. I couldn’t show up at dinner like this. It wouldn’t be right… It wouldn’t be fair.

I needed to get Noah out of my head. She wouldn’t turn down the offer of a hotel; she wasn’t an idiot, she knew better than to stay in a bad neighborhood, and if she refused to pay attention to me, then it wasn’t my problem. A voice inside shouted, Liar! loud and clear, but I ignored it, crossing the city and reaching the it restaurant that month, hoping the night would go by pleasantly.

When I tossed the keys to the valet, I saw Sophia by the door. Her dress was fancy and attractive, her high heels made her look tall, and her dark hair shined in a cascade that fell down her back.

“Hey,” I said, forcing a warm smile.

Her white teeth glimmered when I wrapped an arm around her waist and bent down to kiss her on the cheek. She smelled like raspberry and lemon…she always chose fruity scents. I liked that.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” she confessed as I guided her into the restaurant, my hand on the small of her back. I tried to be discreet. It was a bad time, and the last thing I needed was some journalist trying to snap a photo of us.

“Something came up, sorry,” I said, then gave the host my name. He hurried to take us to the table I’d reserved a month before.

The place was pleasant, warm. The soft lighting helped. A pianist was playing in the corner. That relaxed me, for some weird reason… I took a deep breath and tried to enjoy just sitting across from the woman who had supported me ever since the breakup with Noah, staying by my side, becoming a true friend.

“You look nice,” I said, knowing that would make her smile. One of the things that made her different was that with her, everything was clear-cut. At least for me.

Sophia smiled timidly and picked up the menu. The server came over. We each chose different wines. She went for white wine; I was a red man, concretely a fan of good Bordeaux from ’82. I remembered Noah for a moment. She didn’t know a thing about wine or food or, really, anything. Her simplicity had captivated me; I’d imagined I would be the one to teach her everything, to give the world to her…

I cleared my throat and came back to reality.

Was she at the hotel already? In the shower? Crying? Sleeping? Eating? Missing me?

Stop! I told myself, focusing on my beautiful companion.

I hadn’t even intended for things with Sophia to go anywhere. After Noah, I became incapable of even carrying on a coherent conversation. Everything bothered me; I was irate, pissed at the world, wounded, and I didn’t want to be around anyone.

I’d shut myself up in my apartment, wallowing in self-pity. The phone would ring, and I’d ignore it. My emails piled up, and I didn’t even read them. I turned self-destructive. I’d drink till I passed out on the bed, break furniture, hit things…twice I wounded my hand. I got into a bar fight. Fortunately, word didn’t get out. My mind would wander; I’d imagine things. I was trapped in a loop of hatred, sorrow, and disappointment. No one, not even Lion, could help me get a grip. My father came, yelled at me, tried to talk to me calmly, yelled at me again, and then disappeared. I didn’t want to listen to anyone. I didn’t care… In those moments, I felt an unbearable pain in my chest. I felt betrayed. Then, one day, Sophia showed up at my apartment.

She’d always been a sensible girl. Her head was screwed on straight. She reamed me out—no point in lying about it—not because I mattered to her or she was worried about me, but because her job depended on mine, and I barely showed my face around the office. If I was so fucked up, she told me, I should take off to New York. She threw one thing in my face after another, told me my attitude was immature and irrational, and in the end, I could only think of one way to shut her up.

I grabbed her around the waist and rammed her into the wall. We stared at each other. I was destroyed, she was confused, and I just did what I wanted with her, what my body needed, what my sick mind wanted to do to get revenge on Noah.

We fucked all night, without stopping, without resting, without remorse, and best of all, when we were done, Sophia got up, dressed, and left like nothing had happened.

The next day, I went to work. She talked with me normally, as if we were the same old coworkers who tolerated each other while they shared the same office. I acted like her, like nothing had changed, but then one day, she got up, shut the office door, came over, sat in my lap, and convinced me to do it all again.

Let’s get one thing straight: We both knew this was going nowhere. Sophia was well aware that I was a wreck after Noah, and all she needed was a warm body now and again. Whenever we talked, she accepted my conditions without putting up a fight: sex was sex, and we were both free to do as we pleased.

She saw me with other girls. She was free to go with other guys if she wanted. But we never talked about it. She knew what I was like and what I did, and I didn’t care who she went out with, slept with, or met for coffee. But…I treated her with the respect she deserved. She was my friend, the one friend who’d managed to help me, to get me to pull myself out of bed and focus on the job.

Soon after all that, I took the job in New York. Then my grandfather had died, and the rest was history.

Now we were having dinner in a nice restaurant—she was in town for business at the office I no longer worked at, but she was leaving the next day. She had told me she needed to talk to me, but all I could think about was the fact that Noah was in town, and I was dying to find her and make love with her the way only I could, to remind her of who she’d betrayed and what she’d lost.

I ran my hand across my forehead and focused on Sophia.

“I need to ask you a favor,” she said after a bit of small talk, most of it work gossip. Sophia seemed to never rest. Her ambition was limitless, and her father was about to run for governor of California. Everyone was after her; everyone wanted to get to know her. It didn’t matter to me, but when she started talking, I forced myself to pay attention. “I need us to formalize things,” she said.

I didn’t understand what she was saying.

“I mean publicly,” she explained, bringing her glass to her lips. “My father wants us to look stable, like a united front. He keeps introducing me to guys, his friends’ sons, and all they want is to be with me because I’m Senator Riston Aiken’s daughter. It’s gross, and I can’t stand it.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, trying to grasp her words. “Are you telling me you want the press to get wind that we’re together? Like an official, regular couple?”

She nodded and speared a ravioli with her fork. “Obviously you can keep doing whatever you’re doing…as long as it’s discreet. But in public, I need a proper boyfriend. Can you do that for me?”

At any other time, I would have laughed in her face, but that day, after talking to Noah, after kissing her at Jenna’s wedding, feeling the past smack me across the face again…well, what Sophia was offering didn’t sound like such a bad idea.

I heard a little voice in my head telling me what the consequences would be. If I did it, if I admitted I was going out with her, if the press declared us boyfriend and girlfriend, Noah would suffer… Agreeing meant I was an asshole, a big one. But if I did it, maybe she’d finally understand that we needed to move on.

I got home at one in the morning. Sophia asked me if I wanted to sleep at her hotel, but I said no thanks: I wasn’t in the mood.

A little later, I was standing in my apartment. The soft light made it feel cozy. I dropped the keys on the kitchen table and went to pour myself a drink.

The apartment had been the property of a friend of my dad. When he heard I was moving to New York, he offered it to me at a price I couldn’t refuse. I had wanted to start from zero, in a place I could call my own, and not accept my father’s offer of his apartment in Brooklyn (he had office space in Manhattan, too). I didn’t want to remember what I’d experienced in that city when I was a boy.

The discovery that my father had been cheating on my mother throughout almost their entire marriage made my hatred for her transform into something different. I started to understand why everything had gone to hell, and I was angry at him for making me feel bad for her. I still hated her, that hadn’t changed, but the way things had turned out with Noah made me ask myself whether that hatred was justified.

Cheating… Could I blame my mother for losing her mind when I’d lost mine for the exact same reason?

I’d never forgive her for abandoning me, there just was no justification for that, but who was I to judge what happened between a husband and wife after such a deception? I thought of Noah again… It was so hard to watch the future you’d created with someone, all those images of the things you thought you’d do together, go up in smoke in front of your nose.

I’d imagined us leading a full life together. I knew it wouldn’t be easy; I wasn’t so stupid that I couldn’t see there were things in our relationship that weren’t ideal, but the problems had always come from outside… I would have put my hand on the Bible and sworn Noah would never go behind my back with anyone; the very idea of it was crazy…

But now, here we were.

I finished my drink and went to my room.

I didn’t bother to turn on the lights. I just took off my shirt and tossed it on the floor. The maid would pick it up tomorrow.

Facing the bed, about to turn on a light, I froze when I saw someone in my sheets.

My heart was pounding so hard, it almost hurt, and I could hear a ringing in my ears. I started wheezing; my whole body reacted to the sight of Noah sleeping there. It was as though the past had come back: there she was, waiting for me, the soft skin of her legs wrapped around a pillow, her arms on top of the sheets, her hair spread around the mattress.

I closed my eyes and waited. I could almost feel myself lying next to her, pushing the white sheets off her body, letting my fingers stroke her skin… Slowly, she’d turn toward me, open her eyes, half asleep, smiling, happy to see me, glowing the way she always did when I touched her. I was waiting for you, she’d say, and I’d swell with all that love I never thought I’d feel. I’d get on top of her, push her blond hair carefully aside, press my lips to hers, so soft, a little swollen in sleep, longing to touch mine. My arm would descend her back, slide into the hollow at the base of her spine, lifting her and squeezing her against me. I’d kiss her neck, her ear, breathe in the scent of her skin, which smelled not of fruit or honey or any costly perfume, but of Noah…of her and nothing else.

I opened my eyes, forcing myself to return to reality. I almost wanted it to be a mirage, her lying in my bed, between my sheets. I couldn’t let myself go, even if my hands were twitching with the desire to touch her. I wouldn’t give in. I had no idea what she was doing there, but rage stifled any other sensation, and I stomped out of the room.