Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk #3) - Samantha Young Page 0,23

been giving him over the years came from that belief—that he was distant with her.

That he didn’t love her the way she loved him.

Seeing his reaction to Dahlia—finding out who she was—it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

They’d gone home the next morning, and Kiersten packed a suitcase and left.

The weight tightened like a vise around his ribs, and he squeezed his hands around the steering wheel. Of all the places to bump into Dahlia McGuire, it would be on fuckin’ vacation.

Seeing her had messed with his head. He’d thought he’d get over it like he did her leaving in the first place, but the memory of seeing her in that bookshop lingered. The stricken look on her face kept replaying over and over in his head.

She had to be as beautiful as he remembered, didn’t she? She couldn’t have gotten bitter and old-looking. No, that would be too fair. His own bitterness twisted in his chest. Michael hadn’t even known it was still there. He’d thought meeting Kiersten four years ago, settling down with her, meant he’d moved on.

Clearly, he hadn’t.

But Michael would not make the same mistake twice.

The woman Michael had fallen in love with had died when Dillon died, and the person left behind in her body was a coward who’d proven she didn’t love him the way he had loved her.

Michael pulled up to the triple-decker that had been converted into apartments and stared up at the second floor where his small one-bedroom was housed. Thirty-four years old and he was staying in a fuckin’ bachelor pad, starting over again.

He thought of Bronson and Kiersten. His wife wasn’t a stupid woman. She was strong and opinionated, and he’d always thought she was up-front about how she felt. But if she was now dating Nick after telling Michael for months that his job was the problem, then she’d been lying.

Michael rubbed a hand over his face, remembering their argument in their hotel room in Hartwell after he’d told her who Dahlia had been to him.

“All this time, Mike? All this time and I thought it was your preoccupation with your job. I hated your job. I blamed everything about it on why things between us weren’t right. But it wasn’t the long hours or that look you’d get on your face that told me you’d just seen something awful again, or that we couldn’t afford a bigger place on your salary. All of that was shit.

“I don’t care about any of that. I didn’t know what was keeping you from me. Now I do. It was her. I know it was her … because you have never looked at me the way you looked at her. You have never sounded talking about me, not even at our wedding, the way you sound when you say her name.”

Would Dahlia keep ruining things for him, then?

Would she haunt him for the rest of his fuckin’ life, making it hard for him to connect with someone else?

Because that’s what had happened, right?

He’d kept Kiersten at arm’s length so she couldn’t pull “a Dahlia” on him.

Sighing, he got out of his car, locked it up, and made his way into the building. Unlocking the door to his apartment, Michael stepped inside the airy space and tried not to process the emptiness. He hadn’t done much to make it a home. There was a couch, armchair, table with a lamp, and a TV in the living room. A table and chairs in the kitchen. A bed and bedside tables in the bedroom. It had a built-in closet, so he didn’t need anything else in there.

Their Everett house was filled with all the feminine things that seemed like nonsense to Michael. Now he realized Kiersten had made that place their home. She was right.

He slumped on his bed.

He’d checked out on her.

And she wasn’t even trying to make their divorce hard to get her revenge, even though he deserved it.

He’d fucked over a good woman, the way Dahlia had fucked over him.

Lying back on the bed, Michael groaned, hating the way her face invaded his mind. It was eleven years since they’d met. Eleven years.

Still feeling like this … well, that shit wasn’t right.

Jesus, his friend had told him he was dating his ex-wife, and still his thoughts went to Dahlia. It was her who caused this pain in his chest, like someone digging a small knife right above his heart and twisting it. He wished he had someone, anyone, even