Our Fault (Culpable Book 3)

I got out of the shower, leaving behind a huge cloud of steam. I’d been in there longer than I was supposed to, but it was that or let my muscles stay as tense as the strings of a violin.

I wrapped myself in a towel and looked out the window at the backyard full of people. Everyone was dressed in white. That was Jenna’s dad’s idea, and everyone had liked it, and now the dinner in honor of the future newlyweds looked like a party in the Mediterranean.

When we’d gotten home, sweaty and stinking, I’d found Lion giving Jenna a bear hug by the steps. He’d just gotten there, I guessed. Jenna finally looked whole.

Lion had never said anything about my breakup with Nicholas. Not just that, he’d refused to take sides or get involved. After we split, I’d pestered him constantly in an attempt to get Nick’s new number. But it had been impossible, and Jenna decided to be impartial, too. Neither of them ever spoke of Nick in front of me unless it was to give me support during moments when I truly needed it. And since then, I never saw Lion except when Jenna was around.

I stepped back and started hurriedly getting ready. I didn’t have a white dress except for one I liked to wear to the beach, so I opted for a pale skirt that fell just above my knees and a tight white spaghetti-strap top. I squeezed my hair with the towel, not bothering to dry it, since I knew the sea breeze would take care of it in minutes.

As I was walking downstairs on my way to the backyard, I heard the doorbell ring, and I stopped by the banister. Jenna was outside with all her guests, and the house was empty apart from waiters and waitresses coming and going from the kitchen with plates of seafood.

I walked to the door and forced the same welcoming smile I’d been pasting on ever since the first guests had started to show.

That smile froze when I saw Steve staring at me. He looked as surprised as I was, but he greeted me cordially right afterward. I nearly panicked seeing him there with a suitcase in each hand.

My heart was racing as I looked past him to see a guy in a suit getting out of a black Lexus, his sunglasses still on, a phone pressed to his left ear. Nick took the sunglasses off as he uttered something curt. Then he looked me in the eye, and I thought I’d faint.

He was so different… He’d cut his hair. It used to be long and unkempt, that was how I remembered it, especially when he first got up in the morning. Now it was short and neat and made him look serious, even intimidating. And his suit put the finishing touch on his new businessman look. He’d taken off his jacket and slung it over his elbow; his top two buttons were unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled up over his forearms. He was tan and far more muscular than the last time I’d seen him.

I saw all this in just a few seconds; then the ferocity in his eyes made me look at the floor to try to recover from the impact.

When I looked up again, he’d said goodbye to whoever was on the phone and was putting it in his pocket as he walked toward the door.

I held my breath, uncertain what to do or say as he approached me. In the brief time he needed to walk past me, not even slowing down, I thought I would die. I hadn’t felt that way in months; it was as though I’d been lost in a desert and had found an oasis in front of me…but actually it was a mirage, playing tricks on the little sanity I had left.

Thank God Jenna showed up to rescue me. I couldn’t force myself to go back inside until I heard Nicholas and Steve walking upstairs. I hurried off to the back door and out to the yard, trying to disappear amid the rest of the guests, when what I really wanted was to disappear completely, vanish inside the earth forever.

I’d made a huge mistake coming there. I knew that now. Jenna was my best friend, but this was too much. Months had passed, months, and one simple look from him had turned my world upside down.

Ten minutes later, there he was, walking down the steps and chatting with the bride- and groom-to-be. Nick was the one person there who hadn’t bothered changing into all white. He looked the same as when he’d arrived, pants dark, shirt sky blue, no tie. It made my heart ache to see how handsome he was, even from a distance.

Soon he was mingling. People walked over to say hi to him. He talked to everyone, his manners elegant, but kept his distance.

When I saw Luca and Lion walk up beside him, I knew I was completely alone. This wasn’t my place. These weren’t my friends. The only person here I could be certain cared about me was Jenna… I got so sad that I could have cried. But I kept a hold of myself. Since there was nothing I could do—or rather, nothing I could undo—I decided to make the best of a bad situation and tamp down all the feelings I still had for him. Maybe time had cured his wounds; maybe time had made him stop hating me; maybe we could act like adults, treat each other with cordiality and respect, be friends, someday.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was that or throw myself off a balcony, and however tempting the second option was, it obviously wasn’t the right one. So I started talking to people and forced myself to relax. As long as I stayed far away from him, there was no reason for anything bad to happen, and I could spare my heart the unbearable torture.

Jenna’s parents introduced me to a family friend and one of Greg’s associates, Lincoln Baxwell. He was a nice guy. He chatted me up about my studies and what I wanted to do in the future. You could tell from a mile away that he was someone important, so I was grateful when he handed me his card. I had no idea what to do with my future, so the more options, the better.

What I didn’t suspect was that Lincoln Baxwell was friends with Nicholas Leister. We were chatting pleasantly, and then he suddenly waved at someone behind me. I turned around, and there was Nicholas right in front of me.

They shook hands, Baxwell introduced us, and I could see a vein twitching in Nick’s neck. I’d rarely seen him so stiff. To save the situation, I started talking.

“We’ve actually already met, Mr. Baxwell,” I said, hating the tremble in my voice that revealed in a split second how insecure and uncomfortable I was.

Baxwell smiled and looked back and forth between us. Nick’s eyes were pinned to mine momentarily, and it hurt me to hear him say, “Really? We’ve met?” A shiver went up my spine when I heard that same deep voice that haunted my dreams, that voice that had told me I love you, that had whispered so many times into my ear.

I was hypnotized; I could hardly open my mouth.

“You do remind me of someone I used to know…” he continued, coolly and impersonally.

Then he nodded to his friend and walked off to mingle further.

I thought I heard a sound just afterward: my heart sinking to the ground.

The next morning, I got up at dawn. I’d barely slept. I just couldn’t… That day when I ruined everything, that day when I did something I still couldn’t understand, replayed itself in my head.

There’s no going back now.

I can’t even look you in the eye.

We’re done.

I still remembered Nicholas’s face when he realized what I’d done with Michael. I couldn’t even recall that name without feeling guilty.

I got out of bed and threw on some clothes, hoping I could leave the house before anyone else woke and saw me. I didn’t even bother telling Luca I was going for a run. I needed to be alone to think and clear my head. Above all, I needed to be alone to come to grips with the fact that I’d have to keep seeing Nicholas in the days to come. Even more: I’d have to walk with him up to the altar.

Running did me a world of good, and the rest of the morning flew by mercifully because there were a million things to do. As the guests went on enjoying themselves, midday passed, then the afternoon, and before I knew it, they were setting up for the rehearsal dinner that night.

The goddamned rehearsal dinner.

I’d skipped lunch, and I hadn’t seen Nicholas or Steve again. At some point, I ran into Jenna’s parents, who were waiting for her and Lion to finally go to the vineyard where the wedding would be celebrated. Everyone who would be part of the ceremony had to practice their entrance, and we needed to get a move on before nightfall.

Just as Jenna and Lion were coming down, the front door opened, and there was Nicholas in a white shirt and jeans. No one knew where he’d been that morning or afternoon, but it was obvious his main goal had been to avoid me.

“Nick, you’re finally here. I was starting to ask myself where you’d run off to,” Jenna’s mother said, walking over and kissing him on the cheek. Nick smiled briefly, kissed her on the cheek as well, and started nervously spinning his keys around in his hand.

His and Jenna’s eyes met. There was something strange in their expressions. I felt sick to my stomach. The rest of the day was going to be hell.

Outside, we realized there were too many of us to fit in one car. Along with Jenna’s parents and Lion’s mother—a woman with an innocent smile who’d made a wonderful impression on me, especially when she gave me her recipe for apple pie—there were Lion, Jenna, and Jenna’s five-year-old cousin, a little boy who would be the ring bearer. Plus me and Nick, obviously.

That made eight in all, and I just prayed no one would make me ride with Nick, but in vain: Jenna’s parents and Lion’s mother went straight for the Mercedes parked near the other cars. Jenna’s face told me she was sorry as she grabbed her cousin’s little hand.

“Jenna, don’t even…” I said, getting angry. Nicholas had made it clear he didn’t want to be around me, so there was no way I was getting in a car with him. No fucking way.

I could see the guilt in her face as she said, “Nick’s got a car seat is the thing…you know…because of Maddie…and I have to go with my parents.”

Nicholas interrupted us, ignoring me, picking up little Jeremy, throwing him high in the air, and catching him.

“Ready to be my copilot, little buddy?”

Jeremy laughed. Nick rested him on his hip and walked toward the car. I looked back at Jenna, who was biting her lip.

I shook my head and walked past her and over to the Lexus. I had no idea what had happened to his SUV. I also wasn’t about to ask. I got comfortable in the passenger seat while Nick put the boy in the car seat and pulled up a game on his phone. I tried to ignore how nervous I felt, being basically alone with him. His comment the night before had felt like a kick in the gut, and I wondered, even as I feared, what would happen over the next hour.

Nicholas got in, started fooling with the controls, and adjusted the rearview mirror. It only took a second, and then we were on the road.

Almost instantly, I could smell his aftershave and his cologne filling the car, and that same attraction I always felt when he was around started pulling me toward him again. My God, there he was, next to me, the man I’d longed for as I’d never longed for anyone… I was dying to reach over to him, to give him a kiss; I needed his touch more than the very air I breathed. My whole body was getting hot; even his hand resting on the gearshift made me nervous… His arms were so thick, his other hand so relaxed, leaning on the wheel… What was it that was so damn sexy about watching a man drive?

I couldn’t stand it; I had to roll down the window, let the cool air in to get rid of his fragrance. But right away, he rolled it back up. I turned.

“I’m hot,” I said. It was the first time I’d spoken to him in nearly a year. I pressed the button again, but he had locked it, and the window stayed up.

Without a word, he put on the AC. The cold air blasted me in the face. Well, that would take care of my temperature, but it wouldn’t do anything about the scent that permeated the car and made me woozy. I wriggled in the leather seat and saw from the corner of my eye how his eyes shifted from the road to my bare legs.

I hadn’t thought much about what to wear, but those short shorts must have done the trick. I couldn’t ignore how he gripped the wheel and stared intently ahead after catching sight of my naked flesh.

Jeremy’s game beeped and buzzed the whole way, and I realized that gave me an opportunity to talk to Nick without worrying about him leaving me stranded on the side of the road. He’d have to control his attitude, and his words, with a kid in the back.

“Nicholas, I wanted to tell you—”

“I don’t care,” he cut me off, turning at an intersection that led to a huge lake.

I took a deep breath. I was going to talk to him, dammit. “You can’t go on ignoring me.”

“I’m not.”

I looked at him, conscious of how cruel his tone was. After all this time, I needed him to say something to me. I needed to talk. “You can’t go on hating me like this.”

A bitter smile crossed his lips. “If I hated you, that would mean I still felt something for you, Noah. So don’t worry, I don’t feel hatred—what I feel is indifference.”

I tried to find a sign that what he was saying was a lie…but I couldn’t. “You’re saying that to hurt me.”

“If I’d wanted to hurt you, I’d have cheated on you. But wait…you’re the one who did that.”

That was a low blow, but I had to admit I deserved it. “If we want to survive the next few days, we need to come to some kind of truce… I won’t be able to deal with it if we can’t even be in the same room.”

I couldn’t read his thoughts; I’d never been able to. He was complicated, and at best I’d managed to do it for a few seconds when we were alone, in moments when we were close in a way I’d only ever known with him.

“So what do you propose, Noah?” he said, turning so I could see the fury on his face. “We pretend nothing happened? I grab your hand and fake that I love you?”

I couldn’t respond. Fake that I love you? I could feel my broken heart bleeding.

Behind us, I heard a sudden silence and turned to find Jeremy observing us, his eyes wide.

“How much longer is it?” he asked with a frown.

Shit! Don’t let him start crying now!

“Just a little bit, Jeremy. You want me to put on some music?” Nicholas asked, turning a knob. A rap song started playing at full blast.

The boy smiled, and I looked ahead again. I knew who Nick had really wanted to shut up.