“I fucked up,” I repeated out loud in a steady voice.

She nodded. “So I heard.”

More silence.

“Did you sell him out?”

I nodded.

“Fuck. You need to go. You do not want to be Ben’s enemy. I guarantee that.”

I stared at her curiously. “Are you one?”

“Yeah. I fucked up too. Played him to get to Jamie. Since then I’ve been an unwanted entity around these parts. Crossed-off-the-Christmas-card-list kind of thing and what have you.” Her eyes then widened as she looked at me. “Certainly not the kind of fucked you are, but…”

More silence.

She wrung her hands together and checked the time. “I never slept with him, by the way. Ben, I mean. I played him, but I never… In case you think I’m some slut or anything.”

“I’m sort of thinking about my own shit, to be honest,” I replied.

“Right. Well, then, I um… I should really go.” She grabbed her clutch off the table. “If they leave you in one piece, can you tell Jamie to call me?”

I just blinked at her. Really? You seriously asking me this?

She cleared her throat. “See you around… Well, maybe.”

She took off like a bat out of hell, leaving me completely alone in a giant apartment that belonged to a man I loved and just fucked over. I should have left too, because I was certain Jamie was not coming back with his brother. But I couldn’t bring myself to go.

Instead, I wandered back into the lounge and plopped down on the couch. I stared ahead, lost in a sea of regret, going over all the things I’d blamed him for since being fed those lies. I’d misinterpreted everything he’d done in order to use it against him.

I destroyed him.

And the worst bit was I’d never stopped along the way to really doubt him. I believed Hardman’s façade of genuine concern more than the man who’d been treating me like a queen these last few months.

What did that say about me?

*****

I’d decided to lay down, and as the hours passed, I found sleep somewhere along the way.

Then I opened my eyes, my body already tight from the heavy feeling in the air.

It was the feeling of knowing you weren’t alone.

The room was black, but the moon in the sky offered a bit of light through the tall window. Enough for me to see the silhouette on the arm chair six feet away from me.

My heart picked up as I very slowly sat up. I should have been happy it was Ben, happy that Jamie had somehow got to him before the police did.

But, instead, I just felt sick.

I didn’t even know what to say. How do you open your mouth and find the right words to explain how sorry you were after such a betrayal? There were simply no words. I was well passed that point, I knew. It was too late for apologies.

Yet I couldn’t not.

“I’m sorry,” I trembled out, my throat thick with emotion.

He didn’t move, or acknowledge my words in any way. For a second I didn’t even think he heard me. Not until his retort pierced through the still air, gutting me as though he’d stuck a knife in me.

“Sorry? You’re… sorry.” His voice was devoid of emotion, but it was hard and scary to listen to. “You lied to me, tried to set me up, and betrayed me, and… all you have to say is you’re sorry?”

I swallowed, and the tears burned down my face. “But I am. I’m so sorry. They… they lied to me –”

“Yes, they lied to you,” he interrupted with a growl, “but that was expected of them. What wasn’t expected was that you believed them.”

“What was I meant to believe? I was confused and scared! They said you’d done horrible things to other women. They had photos! Why would I doubt them?”

He leaned forward, his face still hidden in the dark as he gritted out slowly, “I have done nothing but worship the ground you walk on. I gave you my honesty, my trust, my heart, and in return you threw it all away because of what an obsessed man said to you.” The animosity in him grew, until that devoid voice broke with anger. “And you thought I was stupid enough to fall for it?”

“How was I meant to know he was obsessed? You’ve kept me in the dark the last few months about what you do on the side –”

“But I told you to trust me! I never gave you a reason to doubt me. And yet you did because of some third party outside of our relationship. I truly thought you above all would not have believed in that rubbish.”

I wiped my face, offering no response. I felt like scum. I deserved to be treated like it too.

“I might have been in jail right now,” he continued, searing me with those eyes I could feel burning holes through me. “If there’d truly been a business deal, and if you hadn’t given me that fake fucking watch, I’d have been put away.”

My brows came together in confusion. He’d known about the watch?

He read my face like an open book. “I’ve been doing this for years now. You think it’s the first time I’ve seen a watch like this? I knew the second you gave it to me what it was, and I knew right then and there you’d gone behind my back. But still, the fucking fool that I am didn’t want to believe it. So I orchestrated the whole thing. The phone. The time and place. All a lie in the hopes you wouldn’t really send me out that door. But you did, didn’t you? You were looking to hang me out to dry. And once I stepped foot out that door I discovered what you really were.”

“I didn’t know,” I interrupted adamantly. “I’m sorry, Ben! I’m sorry –”

“Don’t you dare apologize to me,” he cut back. “I’m the one that’s sorry! Sorry for ever looking at you, for every thinking that you were different, for ever loving you. That’s what I’m sorry for. I should have never come back. And to think, I spent months and months abroad ending every business arrangement I had all across the world so I can come back here and start fresh and new with someone I viewed as genuine and beautiful. That’s what I was really doing, you filthy little snake.”

His words cut straight through me. I sank further into the couch, wanting to just disappear. There was no fixing this.

“No amount of sorry will do,” he continued, leaning back now with ease. “You made your bed, and I’ve learned a valuable lesson in all of this. You’re spineless and weak, and certainly not worth my time. So get the fuck off my couch, grab all your shit, and get the fuck out of my apartment. You’re not welcome here. You will never be welcome here. We are done. There will never be a Claire and Ben. There will be just you and your foolish insecurities that worked to rid you of the best thing that ever happened to you. So get out of here, Claire. Now.”