“Olivia”—I spoke over her and waited for her to stop talking—“you know this is what you want too. It’s not a secret that this is what we want, or what we should have done long ago. So stop acting like this is a shock and pretending you’re brokenhearted over this.”

“I am!”

I pulled up one of dozens of pictures I’d been sent of her on my phone and turned it toward her. “I had a long talk with my brother the other day. Just a thought, Liv: when you’re married and have boyfriends, it’s best not to be seen in public with them. But at least for you, your parents seem really happy with you and the guy in this picture.”

Her eyes narrowed as she marched past me to grab the keys she’d launched. “You’ll be hearing from Daddy’s attorney.”

Considering I’d spent a week searching for an attorney who would actually help me instead of calling J. Shepherd, I’d been waiting for the moment when I heard from him again. “Looking forward to it,” I mumbled when the front door slammed shut.

I tapped the screen on my phone to pull up Kamryn’s number and immediately called her. Like it had done the other hundred times I’d called her since that afternoon in the hotel parking lot, it went straight to voice mail.

“Kamryn.” I sighed and dropped back into the chair at the kitchen table. “Please call me. I’m sorry for everything I said to you. You have every right to hate me, but I can’t live without you. I will spend every day of the rest of my life making it up to you. Call me. I’ll always love you.”

And there went my momentary good feeling. Divorcing Olivia was a must, but until Kamryn was back in my life, nothing would be okay again.


Kamryn

July 15, 2015

“YOU’RE GOING TO stay for dinner, right?”

“I’m not sure, Lee. It was a long day. I kinda just want to go home.”

I knew she was studying me, so I continued to stare at the road. It’d been ten days since I’d left Brody in the hotel parking lot. He’d left at least a dozen messages, and more texts, every day, but I just deleted them all when I turned my phone on for a few minutes late at night to see if there was anything from Barb. Ten days, and it felt like ten years. I felt hollow without him, but I couldn’t go on like that anymore. Especially after everything I’d found out and how he’d reacted at the hotel. I had been stupid enough to think he would leave Olivia, and even more so for thinking he actually loved me. But I had spent more than six years with a guy who treated me like a possession and like I was beneath him. I wasn’t about to spend any more time with a man who didn’t treat me like I was his everything.

A small part of me whispered that Brody did treat me that way when we were together, but I pushed it aside. It had been a lie. Some sick joke he’d played on me, and a betrayal of his wife that I’d taken part in.

“Kace, Kace!”

“What?”

Kinlee looked worried as she touched my arm. “I’ve been sitting here talking to you, and it’s like you didn’t hear me at all, and why are you crying?”

“I’m not,” I choked out and blinked rapidly to keep more tears back. “It’s just allergies or something and my eyes keep watering.”

“That’s such bullshit and you know it. What is going on with you these last couple weeks?” When I didn’t respond, she began angrily tapping on her phone. “I’m going to make sure Jace doesn’t let you leave our house. You’re staying with us tonight, and you’re going to talk to us. KC, you’re scaring me.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to laugh, but it sounded wrong. “I’m fine.” Reaching over to the stereo, I turned the volume up and tried to get lost in the Pandora country radio.

Two songs later, a song by Sugarland I’d never heard came on. When a line in the first verse about praying she won’t call poured through my speakers, my eyes widened and flashed over to look at the title. “Stay.”

Kinlee started talking again, and I shushed her as I hung on to every haunted word of a song about being the other woman in a relationship and wanting the man you love to stay with you.

With tears streaming down my face, I pulled over into a parking lot. All I could do was listen to every word like she was singing about my life with Brody. Kinlee squeezed my hand, and I looked at her through blurry eyes as the chorus filled the car again.

I couldn’t hold back the sobs that burst from my chest, and I fell forward until my forehead hit the steering wheel. Kinlee kept brushing my hair away from my face as she mumbled words I couldn’t hear. All I could focus on were the words of that song, ten days prior with Brody, and how my world felt like it was crashing down around me. At some point her phone rang, and when she ended the call, she made me look at her.

“KC, please tell me what’s going on. You’re scaring me. The way you’ve been acting lately, and then whatever just happened with that song . . . what is it?”

I shook my head and cleared my throat. “You’re going to think I’m horrible, Kinlee.”

“Why?” she whispered and gripped my hand. “Kace, I’m here for you, just tell me.”

Another loud sob filled the inside of my car, and my body began shaking so hard that Kinlee’s eyes went wide. “I’m hav—I was . . . Brody and I—”

“Did you say Brody?” she asked when I couldn’t continue.

I just nodded and buried my face in my hands as my body was overcome with all the pain I’d been feeling the last week and a half and the realization that we were over.

“Jace just—you and Brody wha—oh, holy shit! KC, you’re with Brody? Brody . . . like my brother-in-law?”

“N-no . . . not anymore. He wasn’t—he lied to me. He wasn’t going to leave Olivia.”

“What the hell? When did all this happen, and how did I not know about this? I’m your best friend! How did you not tell me?”

“I couldn’t!” I cried out and pointed toward the screen where just minutes ago the name of the song had been sitting. “I didn’t want you to think of me like that! That isn’t who I am. I’m not that person. I don’t ruin marriages, but I love Brody—” I cut off quickly and sucked in air at saying those words again. “He called me ‘Liv,’ Kinlee.”

“He what?!”

“He was trying to get me to stay. I was breaking up with him last week, and he said, ‘I love you, Liv,’ and I—I just couldn’t. That was it for me, I can’t be with him when he’s in love with someone else.”

Kinlee sat back against her seat and just stared blankly ahead. “Oh, my God, how did I not know? How long has this been going on?”

“Almost two months,” I whispered and wiped furiously at my face.

After a long silence, she finally shook her head and huffed a sad laugh. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“Kinlee, I had an affair with a married man—”

“I don’t care.”

“How could you not?”

Her eyes searched around, like the answer was somewhere between us. “You said two months, so this started right after you first met Brody at my house?” I nodded, and she did the same as she continued: “I haven’t seen Brody this happy since his son, Tate, was alive. You don’t know what it was like watching him emotionally die a little more every time we saw him—when we saw him. We’ve seen him more in the last two months than we have in the five years since Tate died. You gave all of us our Brody back. How could I even begin to care that you had a relationship with him?”

“Because it’s wrong!”

“It is, but Brody is a different case. He should have left Olivia long ago, and he definitely should have left her when you guys got together . . . but you’ve seen his mom, she’s always trying to set him up. No one views Brody’s marriage as a marriage. They view it as a death sentence for him. And I know you, KC. You’re not a home-wrecker at heart. I doubt going through this was easy for you . . . and the only thing I’m upset about is the fact that you felt like you couldn’t tell me.” She held a hand up when I opened my mouth. “I understand, but it still hurts.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for so much, Kinlee. For lying about Brody, for not telling you about my past . . . all of it. Other than Barb, you’re the only friend I’ve ever had, and I feel like I don’t deserve your friendship with the way I’ve kept everything from you.”

She looked at me with confusion. “Barb isn’t your aunt, is she?” she asked so softly I almost didn’t hear her.

Shaking my head, I blew out a deep breath, and then told her everything as I drove us back to her house. I told her about Kentucky and the horse-racing world. About my family’s status in that world, and what people expected from a family like mine. I told her about my parents. How detached they were, how they expected perfection, and how they viewed me as property instead of as a daughter. I told her about Charles, how ridiculous he was, and how hard it had been to go through years of pretending to even like him. But mostly I told her about Barb. How she’d been my maid, how she’d raised me and been the only person on my side growing up, and how she’d been the one who helped me get away.

“Holy shit,” Kinlee breathed when I was done. “No wonder you never told anyone. You’re finally getting to be who you want to be. And for the record, I think I like KC a lot more than I would like the princess of the Kentucky Derby.”

I laughed sadly and turned onto her street. “I like KC a lot more too.”

“You’re really from Kentucky?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn it.” She hiccupped and sucked in a couple breaths before wiping at her tear-streaked face. “Don’t tell Jace. I bet him two hundred dollars you were from Alabama.” A startled laugh bubbled up in her throat as she wiped at more tears.