he answered, so I pulled on the quickest thing I could find, the sweatpants and shirt I kept there to be comfortable when I stayed over, and walked to the front door.
I was nervous it was his dad, and I didn’t want him to see me making myself at home in Dex’s apartment, clearly sleeping over, but his parents didn’t seem like the type to care about that sort of thing. If anything, they wanted it to happen.
I checked the peephole.
But it wasn’t Deacon, Derek, Cleo, or even Daisy.
It was Catherine.
Oh my fucking god, it was Catherine.
I froze on the other side of the door, being as still as possible, hoping she hadn’t heard me walk over. If I didn’t move, she might just walk away.
What the fuck did this bitch want?
“Please open the door. I know you’re there.”
Oh shit.
“I just want to talk to you. It’s important.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw that Dex hadn’t left the bedroom yet, so I really didn’t know what to do. But the jealous side of me, the possessive side of me, wanted this cunt to see me and know that she’d lost her chance.
So that was what I did.
I opened the door—and let her see me in all my glory.
Catherine’s eyes immediately narrowed when she saw me in the open doorway, and she was so surprised that she didn’t even take a breath. She didn’t blink. She didn’t speak. She just stared.
I stared back, angry just looking at her. She was as beautiful as the photograph he’d thrown away, with that perfect hair and perfect features. But I wasn’t angry that she was this drop-dead gorgeous woman I could never compete with. I was pissed that she’d hurt Dex, someone who didn’t deserve to be hurt, and ripped him apart so mercilessly that he lost who he was entirely. She blamed him for something he wasn’t guilty of—and it was disgusting. “Would you like me to take a message?” I could barely keep my tone civil, because I wanted to rip her apart just the way Deacon had ripped Mason apart.
Her eyes shifted past me and stilled.
Dex must have been behind me.
His footsteps were audible as he came close then stopped right behind me. “Catherine, what are you doing here?” He didn’t sound panicked, like he had anything to hide, but he was definitely annoyed.
I stepped away and moved back into the bedroom so they could have some privacy—even though I could hear everything.
Catherine didn’t speak.
“I told you I’m seeing somebody,” Dex said. “So why would you just show up on my doorstep like this?”
She was still quiet.
“Are you gonna say anything, or…?”
“I just…I just wanted to talk to you—”
“About what?” His temper flared. “Catherine, we’ve talked. We’ve talked long and hard. There is nothing else to say.”
“You didn’t deposit the check—”
“Because I don’t want it. It’s part of my past—and I’m not living in the past anymore. Keep it, Catherine. If you don’t want it, give it to charity. I really don’t care. I’ve got everything I need now. That money isn’t going to make me any happier, especially when I can’t be happier than I already am.”
I sat in bed with my arms crossed over my chest, relieved to hear him stand his ground and not flinch.
“What do you want from me, Catherine? It’s shitty that things ended this way, but they did. We can’t fix them. We can’t go back in time and change it. This is the hand we’ve been dealt. I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you, because I have no interest in hurting you, but I told you I made my decision, that I want to be with Sicily. You can’t show up at my front door like this. It’s completely inappropriate.”
Damn right, it was.
“If you really love me the way you claim, you’ll let me be happy. Because I’m finally happy after a very long year of being unhappy.” Dex ended his speech.
And Catherine said nothing.
I waited, my heart racing.
Finally, she said something. “Um…alright.”
That was all she had to say? She knew he was seeing me, but she still showed up late at night, like she might catch him with his guard down and take advantage of him.
Dex spoke before he closed the door. “Goodbye, Catherine.” I imagined he closed it in her face because there was no footfall to indicate she had walked away. He turned all the locks and headed back to the bedroom, giving a loud sigh. He stopped in the doorway