up his shirt. Then he walked out of the room and down the stairs. She crossed her arms defensively over her chest just before she heard the kitchen door shut quietly behind him. Then she crumpled. Slid to the floor right where she was, not even waiting until she landed before the sobs came out, feeling as if they were wrenched from deep inside of her.
Thank God the air conditioner was on and all the windows were closed, because at this rate, the entire island would have been able to hear her.
She rolled onto her side, clutched at her middle, wished for something, anything, to lessen the all-encompassing pain. The relentless guilt.
She was the worst sister ever.
Rachel balled up her body and let the sobs rack clear through her, unsure that she would ever stop crying.
And that was exactly why she’d fought so hard for nineteen months not to start.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE MESS CALE had avoided at his condo for months was going to take a hell of a lot longer to clean up than it had to make. Good thing he was in dire need of something to do—something physical and absorbing.
And then there was the “mess” he’d just gotten himself into with Rachel. That wasn’t so easily taken care of.
What in the living hell had he been thinking?
He’d slept with his fiancée’s sister.
It didn’t matter that Noelle was dead—it was wrong. On so many levels.
He’d driven straight to his condo from Rachel’s, moving on autopilot as his brain had been...numb. Now that the numbness was wearing off, he was heading straight for an emotional tailspin.
Best to focus on doing something constructive, he told himself.
The wall he’d attacked was a wreck. He’d gotten it more than halfway demolished his first go at it, but it had obviously been done in a rage. There was nothing professional about the job he’d done.
Time to fix it. He began pulling off the chunks of drywall that jutted every which way and throwing them into a pile in the corner.
He’d slept with Noelle’s sister. Knowingly. She might have been in a sleepy daze, but he didn’t even have that as an excuse.
He’d wanted Rachel.
What kind of a bastard did that make him?
He loved Noelle, to this day. When a person died, your love didn’t just go away, he’d discovered. It lived on; it became stronger in some ways, more sacred. Cale had just basically taken a dump all over that sacredness for a twenty-minute roll in the hay.
But it hadn’t been just a roll in the hay, and frankly, that made it worse. Had he picked up a girl at a bar, gone home with her and satisfied their mutual physical cravings, it would have been easier to accept. That would have been purely sex. Understandable for a guy who hadn’t been with a woman for going on two years.
He couldn’t begin to claim that Rachel was just sex. He cared about her. She’d turned him on in three seconds flat, no doubt, but before she’d even stirred, he’d been thinking about how content he was to wake up beside her. To be the one who was there when she finally let herself go, let the grief in. To be the one she turned to for...anything. He liked being that person for her.
But he loved Noelle.
Cale tossed another chunk of drywall to the pile that was beginning to amass on the floor and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He wandered through the dining area and the living room, shoved aside the vertical blinds and stared out the glass door at the rainy, gray gulf. He let his forehead rest against the window and swore at himself.
He knew Noelle wasn’t here anymore, that she couldn’t be hurt by his actions. God, did he know that after spending so many days and nights working to accept that. And yet...he was so damn ashamed that he’d been weak. So easily tempted by another woman. Just like that, he’d set aside his feelings for her when it was convenient.
Maybe someday the love he felt for Noelle would turn into something only remembered in the distant past, allowing him to give himself to a woman but...not now. He’d planned to spend the rest of his life with Noelle, and those kinds of feelings couldn’t just be laid aside when another woman happened along. Doubly so when that woman was Noelle’s freaking twin sister.
God, what would other people think if they found out? That he was messed up? Trying