Guilty Needs (18 page)

What had just happened?

Maybe it was the temporary lack of oxygen flowing to his brain, he didn’t know. But he sat there on the floor, confused and sick inside. He rubbed his throat, swallowed against the pain there and sat on the floor with his back to his desk, mired in a pit of self-disgust.

What the hell had he almost done?

How could he have done that? Thought it? Anger, hurt, betrayal, none of it mattered, none of it was any excuse. Regardless of what had set him off, he’d just tried to force himself on Bree—a woman he’d fallen in love with.

He’d come this close to raping her—this close to crossing a line he hadn’t thought he was capable of crossing. That he wouldn’t have hurt her didn’t matter because she’d told him to stop.

He hadn’t been able to make himself do it. For a few minutes, he’d been incapable of it.

Even in the still-sane part of his brain, where he had watched what he was doing in disgust, completely appalled, he hadn’t been able to find the strength to stop what he was doing.

She had done it.

He heard the deep rumble of the engine as she started the truck just outside his window. Clarity struck and he managed, just barely, to shove himself to his feet, out into the hall. His legs were stiff, not wanting to work for him. He knew she wouldn’t want to see him, knew she wouldn’t want to talk him. But he couldn’t just let her drive off. He needed to tell her he was sorry—fuck, what a lousy word. Needed to make sure she was okay.

But before he even managed to get to the door, she had pulled off.

He watched through the glass pane as she drove away. What little strength he had drained out of him and he sank to the floor.

What the hell had he done?

Chapter Nine

She wouldn’t return his phone calls.

She wouldn’t talk to him.

She wouldn’t answer the door the one time he made himself go over there.

Colby couldn’t blame her, but even knowing she didn’t want to see him, he wouldn’t let himself take the coward’s way out. He needed to face her and apologize—regardless of why she had been with him, he had no excuse, no reason for what he’d almost done.

The weight of the guilt returned in full force, but this time it had nothing to do with dreaming about a woman while his wife lay dead under six feet of earth. It had to do with the fact that he’d attacked the woman he loved and almost done something that would have scarred them both. Hell, he
was
scarred from it.

Never in his life had he ever lost control like that—never felt the threads of his temper unravel and drive him to do something unthinkable. Whatever mental punishment he could heap on himself, he deserved it.

That and so much worse.

But Bree… She didn’t deserve what he’d almost done and he couldn’t get her to look at him long enough for him to make some sort of apology. He’d even tried tracking her down at work but it was as though the guys who made up her crew had some kind of radar because they drew around her and the only way he was going to get to her to apologize would be if he fought his way through.

He was even tempted to do it. A couple of her crew were big-ass bastards who could probably lay him flat on the concrete, and getting his ass kicked was the least he deserved. But what he needed to say to her needed to be done in private. He just wished he could catch her alone for five minutes so he could crawl to her and tell her how fucking sorry he was.

“You have no idea how damn sorry you should be.”

Colby closed his eyes. After four nights of sleeplessness, four days of hell on earth as he worried about Bree and relived every last moment of that night, the last thing he needed was a self-induced hallucination.

“I’m not a hallucination, you bastard. Look at me.”

He opened his eyes and stared at his wife’s face. She was livid. She was also a lot more transparent than normal. “It’s because I’m livid, sugar. It takes concentration to make myself be seen and I’m so damn pissed off at you, it’s taken this long just be able to focus enough to tell you how fucking pissed off I am.”

“I don’t need this,” he rasped, shoving out of the chair in his office and lurching past her.

She had no intention of letting him escape so quickly, though.

“No, you either need to get your head examined or your eyes checked. Colby, are you blind? Do you really think Bree did a damn thing she didn’t want?”

She appeared before him, just flat, outright appeared—no walking past him, circling around—just blink and there she was, hovering in front of him and looking a lot less substantial than she had before. Her eyes narrowed and she snapped, “Would you stop thinking like a fricking writer and just pay attention to me? Yeah, I’m less substantial because I’m not supposed to
be
here anymore. All I wanted, the only thing that kept me here, was needing to see you happy. Happy with her because you’re the only damn person who will make her happy. I thought I’d done it, thought I was done here but then you had to go read that damn journal.”

Glaring at her, he snapped, “That damn journal is the whole fucking problem. No, fuck that, that isn’t the problem. The problem is that you couldn’t just let things be. You had to go after Bree and ask her for something you had no right to ask.”

“I asked her to go after the one person she’s always wanted,” Alyssa said, her voice thin, reedy, getting ever more distant. “You!”

Gruffly, he told her, “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about my best friend, and trust me, I damn well know what I’m talking about.” Her voice wavered, thinned out, disappeared altogether and for a second, so did she, her misty form winking out.

A cold breeze shuddered through the room, followed by something that sounded like a sigh. Alyssa shimmered back into view, a pained look on her face. “I’m running out of time, Colby. If I don’t cross over soon, I don’t know if I’ll be able to. I’ll end up trapped and I don’t want that. Will you shut up and listen to me?” Her head cocked, long curls spiraling over her shoulders. “You didn’t read the last entry, did you?”

His mouth twisted. “That’s the whole fucking problem, Lys. I did read it.”

She cocked a brow and said, “Apparently not, not if you think Bree was with you for any reason other than the fact that she wanted to be.” Her eyes closed and she shook her head. “Take another look, Colby. And stop being so blind.”

Then she was gone.

And somehow, deep inside, he knew this time, it was for good.

“Goodbye, Lys,” he whispered. Exhausted, depressed, he started toward his room.

But then he stopped and looked back at his office. The journal was still sitting on his desk, exactly where he had placed it the night Bree had walked away from him.

A muscle jerked in his jaw as he took it. Something vile and ugly pumped inside him but he made himself open it, made himself flip through to the last entry. Made himself face how damn foolish he’d been.

Take another look, Colby
.

Alyssa’s words echoed in his ears and he turned the next page, but it was blank. As was the next and the next…and the next. Disgusted, he started to flip back. Then, for some reason, instead of flipping back, he flipped forward, toward the end of the book.

And there it was. On the third to last page.

She told me. I could tell she didn’t want to, but I guess Bree just couldn’t lie to me. Part of me always knew that she loved him, but I never let myself think about it. How could I? My best friend in love with my husband. She acts so guilty, keeps apologizing like she’s done something wrong, like she thought I suspected her of putting the moves on him
.

I don’t know. Maybe I’d feel the same. It can’t be easy falling for the guy who marries your best friend. She kept telling me she couldn’t do it, that Colby didn’t want her like that. Not now, he doesn’t, but I think he will. Maybe I should have just kept out of it, let whatever will happen just happen. I just hate to think about Colby being alone and I hate to think about her loving him like she always has but never doing anything about it
.

She’ll do what she can to help him but I don’t know if she’ll do what I asked her to. She just kept telling me ‘no’. Man, I hope I didn’t screw this up. I just want them to be happy
.

That was it. Dated the day she died. Each word was successively fainter than the previous and by the time he read the last word, the print was so light and shaky, he had to squint just to make it out.

Carefully, he closed the journal. Just as carefully, he laid it aside and then he braced his hands on the desk, shoulders bowed forward. His head slumped and he stared downward but he wasn’t seeing the journal, wasn’t seeing the desk, wasn’t seeing anything but Bree’s face.

One memory after another flashed through his mind.

It was like a movie reel. The day of the funeral. The day Alyssa had sent him out for lime sherbet she could barely eat. The look on Bree’s face when she crashed into him just outside the bedroom. How she looked when she saw him after he finally came back home. The careful, guarded way she held herself around him, as though she was hiding something.

Was she?

Shit.

Had Alyssa been right?

Is that what Bree kept hidden from him?

There was only one way to find out, but considering she didn’t want to speak to him, didn’t want to see him, probably wanted nothing to do with him, getting that answer wasn’t going to be easy.

He didn’t bother calling.

Didn’t bother knocking.

In fact, he didn’t even drive his car over to her house. He called a cab and paid the ridiculous fare just so he could use his key and let himself into her house while she was still working. If she saw his car, he wouldn’t be surprised if she just drove right on past. So he just headed that possibility off.

This way, at least if she still didn’t want to talk to him, she’d have to deal with him long enough to get him out of her house. Give him long enough to apologize…and hopefully get an answer to his question.

He settled in her library, sitting in an overstuffed armchair that smelled of flowers and Bree, with a full view of the driveway. He’d see when she drove up and hopefully, he’d have the time to prepare some sort of apology, some way to ask her what he needed to know.

Time was one thing he ended up having plenty of. He waited in her house for four hours. The hour hand on the clock kept ticking away and by the time she finally turned into the driveway, it was after eight. Belatedly, he remembered that she’d been contracted to the landscaping on the upscale subdivision up on the hill and the job had started this week.

The house was so quiet that he heard the garage door open, shoved out of the chair and moved to stand in the door to wait for her. With his hands jammed deep into his pockets, he rested his shoulder against the doorjamb. And waited.

When she came through the door, Colby’s heart leapt into his throat, lodged there for a brief moment and then sank down somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. Knees that went just a little bit weak at the sight of her.

She looked exhausted, hauntingly fragile, with circles under her eyes that were so dark, they looked like bruises. Bree didn’t notice him at first as she nudged the door shut behind her and dropped her keys and cell phone onto the counter just inside the door. She crossed the gleaming wooden floor, shambling to a halt in front of the refrigerator. Listless, she opened the door and just stood there, staring inside with absolutely no interest.

“I don’t know about you but I haven’t had much of an appetite all week,” he said quietly.

Bree tensed.

The hand holding the door open went white in the knuckles but she didn’t slam it shut and turn and rail at him to get the hell out of her house. Instead, she eased it closed and then turned around. She tucked her hands into her back pockets, the grass-green T-shirt she wore drawing tight across her breasts.

“What do you want?”

He shrugged restlessly. “A lot of things. Turning back the clock a week sounds like a good way to start. But that isn’t going to happen. So first up, I guess I should tell you I’m sorry.”

Her lashes lowered, shielding her eyes. “I figured that out after the first five messages you left on my machine. Okay. You’re sorry.”

“I wouldn’t want to hurt you for my life.”

She turned away, moving to stare out the window over the sink. The pool was visible from the window and staring at it sent a fresh lance of pain driving through him. It hadn’t even been a month since he’d made love to her for the first time, right by the pool.

“I know that. And you didn’t.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, just stared outside.

With a derisive snort, he said, “Then apparently you weren’t paying attention. That’s exactly what I almost did.”

“But you didn’t. It’s over. It’s done. You’ve apologized. Now would you please leave?”

“That’s not the only reason I’m here.”

Now she finally looked at him, shooting him a narrow glance over her shoulder that managed to convey more than a thousand-page thesis. “I don’t really care what other reasons you have for being here, Colby. You want to think I’m just sleeping –correction, I’m no longer sleeping with you, so you want to think I
was
sleeping with you because Alyssa wanted me to. Great opinion you have of me.”