Fractured Trust by L. M. Dalgleish
Chapter 15
Summer stood outside the plain white door, her heart beating too hard in her chest. It had been two days since Noah had revealed the truth. Two days that she’d been running the events leading up to her breaking both their hearts through her head. Her emotions had been all over the place as she tried to reconcile what Deacon had apparently done with her memories of him back then.
Noah had been true to his word, giving her time to think, letting her take the time to get her head straight. And as much as part of her had wanted him to stay that night—to take control of her body, to use his to wipe the pain and anger from her mind, at least for a few hours—she knew he’d done the right thing. She wasn’t ready for what might come next. She needed time and space to adjust to the shift in her emotions.
And she needed something else. Which was why she was here now, standing in front of this plain, white door.
Deacon’s door.
She raised her hand, hesitating for a second as she noticed the fine tremor that shook it. Then, taking a deep breath, she knocked.
Summer shifted anxiously as she listened to the approaching footsteps, grateful that he was at home. His schedule had always been fairly predictable, but who knew what might have changed over the last few months, and she would have hated for this to have been a wasted trip.
When the door swung open, Deacon stared at her, his expression first shocked, then guarded.
“Summer, to what do I owe the pleasure of a visit? L.A. not turning out as well as you hoped?”
“Can I come in?” she asked, not wanting to get into it with him while she was standing in the hallway.
Deacon stepped back, ushering her in with a mocking flourish, lips twisted in a sarcastic smile. He closed the door behind her, then sauntered over to the couch and sat down, picking up a game console controller and unpausing whatever it was he’d been playing. He hadn’t invited her to sit, but that was okay. She wanted to be standing for this conversation, anyway.
“Deacon, we need to talk. Can you stop playing for a few minutes?”
He glanced up at her, and she noticed the shadows under his eyes, how unkempt his hair looked. He paused the game again and looked at her with raised brows. “That didn’t take long.”
“What do you mean?”
“You and Noah. Over already, hey? I warned you, didn’t I?” His triumphant expression turned her stomach. Because she knew now where that animosity stemmed from.
His smug assumption grated on her already raw nerves, and she took a deep breath, hoping to calm herself enough so her voice wouldn’t shake. “Yes, you did warn me, didn’t you, Deacon? You’ve always had my best interests at heart. Like when you warned me about what Noah was up to all those years ago, before I broke up with him, right? That was you just having my best interests at heart?”
An expression of wary confusion crossed his face. He threw the controller down next to him, his eyes searching hers. Some of the smugness had leached from his voice when he answered. “I’ve always wanted what was best for you, Summie, you know that. I love you, even after… Well, I know I said I wouldn’t have you back when Noah screwed you over again, but you know I’m always here for you. I’m sure we can work it out.”
Summer let out a breath. Did he really think that’s what she was here for? To get back together?
She shook her head. “No Deacon, that isn’t what this is about. Noah and I, we aren’t together. But we have been talking, and it’s the strangest thing. You know that photo you showed me as proof he was cheating? Well, he explained to me what actually happened. And he told me there weren’t any others like it. But I distinctly remember you telling me you’d seen more photos of him, on other nights out, with other women.”
Summer watched him, trying to read his reaction to what she was saying. She didn’t know whether she wanted him to confess or deny it. She still couldn’t fully believe that he might have deliberately deceived her—half hoped that his intentions back then had been as innocent as she’d thought. But the hint of panic in his eyes told her everything she needed to know.
But still, he didn’t admit it. Instead, he scoffed. “And you think he’d tell you the truth? Come on Summer, you can’t be that naive.”
“I do believe he was telling me the truth. Which is why I’m here, Deacon. I want to know why you lied to me. I want to know why you would hurt me that way, deliberately. Why you told me exactly what would make me run from him.”
She saw the realization in his eyes; she knew the truth, no point hiding it anymore. His jaw jutted. “Because he didn’t fucking deserve you! Everything came so damn easy to him. He had it all, his band, his friends, girls. Mister fucking popular.”
All Summer could do was stare at him, eyes wide. Where was all this coming from?
Deacon laughed bitterly. “And then he had you. And I wanted you. I wanted you from the moment I first saw you with him. You smiled at me, and I just knew. But you couldn’t see past the brilliance that was Noah fucking Taylor. So when he went away, I knew it was my chance to get you to finally look at me.”
Summer trembled with shock and anger. She’d had no idea Deacon had thought that way about her. She’d truly believed his attention after Noah had left was just him looking out for her. After they’d married, he’d been possessive and greedy of her time, which coming after what she’d been through with Noah, had been almost a relief—to be the one that was clung to instead of the one doing the clinging. She’d always put his neediness down to the fact he’d come from a broken home too—his parents had divorced when he was ten—but there was obviously more to it than that. Some rivalry with Noah that no one but him had been aware of. And for some reason, Deacon had seen her and imagined there was a connection between them that had never existed, and that was what had led them here.
Deacon rose to his feet, reaching out as if to touch her, but Summer shook her head and stepped back, hugging herself.
He pulled his hand back and scrubbed it over his eyes. “I was doing you a favor, Summer. It was obvious he was going to screw up on tour; it was only a matter of time. That photo just proved me right. And you deserved better than that. I knew that if you could just see me, without him in the way, that we’d be perfect together. And you did. You finally saw me. That night at the bonfire. You saw me and you wanted me, the way I’d wanted you for two fucking years. And it was right between us; you know that. It’s why you married me.”
As angry as his words made her, she could still hear the desperation behind them. The urgent need for her to understand. As if his reasoning could somehow justify it.
“Deacon, that first night we got together, I was so heartbroken, I was drunk and hurting. Because you lied to me. And you were the person who was comforting me, who’d been looking out for me. I would never have slept with you otherwise, and even then, I shouldn’t have done it. It was a terrible, drunken mistake. And Noah, he’d come for me. He was there that night, and he saw us.” Summer’s heart squeezed tight again at the memory of the pain in Noah’s eyes as he’d told her what he’d seen.
“And he didn’t do anything about it, did he? He just turned and walked away like a pussy. If he’d loved you the way I did, he would have fought for you. Like I was fighting for you.”
Summer’s ears fixated on his words. “Did…” She sucked in a deep, gasping breath. “Did you know he was there, Deacon? Did you know he’d come home for me?”
Deacon stared at her, then grimaced and shook his head, but not in denial. “I saw him. I saw him and I knew he was going to ruin my chance with you. That somehow, he’d be able to sweet talk you back into his arms, even after what he’d done. So, I kissed you. I took you in my arms, and I kissed you. And you kissed me back. You wanted it too, don’t tell me you didn’t. And it worked. He took one look and fucking walked away. And then you came home with me. You were with me, finally.”
Anger, and sadness, and guilt warred with each other in Summer’s chest. She’d always blamed herself for what had happened that night. Blamed her broken heart and the alcohol for making her do something she never would have done otherwise. For using Deacon for comfort. Unaware of how that one night would so drastically change the course of her life. She remembered all the little touches that she’d thought were those of a caring friend. How even before he’d shown her that photo, he’d started saying little things to sow seeds of doubt in her heart. A heart that was already twisted up with knowing the kind of temptation Noah would be confronted with on tour.
She’d blamed herself for taking advantage of Deacon’s friendship that night, but he was the one who’d taken advantage. He’d done it deliberately, with the one goal of stealing something from Noah. Stealing her.
And she’d let him.
It would be easy to hate Deacon. To point her finger and lay the blame at his feet. But she couldn’t. Because she’d been complicit. Far too willing to believe the worst of Noah. Unwilling to even hear him out. She’d cut him off, slammed shut the door of her insecurity, and worst of all, betrayed the love he’d had for her by getting drunk and seeking comfort in Deacon’s arms. Her knee-jerk reactions—bad decision after bad decision—had affected all three of them, and the thought of that had nausea swirling in her stomach. How could she ever trust herself again, knowing what she’d done?
“I have to go, Deacon,” she said, her voice hollow.
“Did you ever love me?” Deacon blurted out, and Summer’s heart constricted. It would be easy to lie, one way or the other—to make herself feel better or to ease the hurt in his eyes. But that would be taking the easy way out.
“The man I cared for—loved—would never have manipulated me that way. I was never the woman for you, Deacon, as much as you might have romanticized me for some reason. How could I be when I was so deeply in love with someone else? What we had, what we felt for each other all those years? It was an illusion. It wasn’t love. Not bone-deep love. It was comfort, security, it was trying to make something out of what we thought we needed. And that was why it was never going to work.”
“Are you going back to him?”
“I can’t answer that. Not only because I don’t owe you that information, but because I honestly don’t know what the future holds. The only thing I know is that I need to rediscover who I am and what I want out of life.”
“Do you hate me?” His voice was a rasp.
“Our whole marriage was based on a lie, and I’m not sure I can ever forgive you for that. But I don’t hate you. I can’t. I don’t want to live with that in my life. I’m already carrying too much regret in my heart.”
She gathered herself together. She’d gotten what she’d come here for. Now she could close the door on this chapter of her life. It was too late to change what had happened, but not too late to start building the future she wanted.
Summer turned and walked to the door, opening it, then paused to look back at him. “I hope you find someone you can be happy with one day, Deacon. Someone who loves you, not just because you want them to, but because they can’t imagine not loving you.”
Then she walked away.
The whole flight home, Summer’s thoughts and emotions tumbled around in her head, alternating between guilt and anger. At Deacon, at Noah, for smashing back into her life and confusing everything she thought she knew, but most of all at herself.
Why hadn’t she answered Noah’s calls back then, spoken to him after she’d seen that damn photo? If she had, would she have even believed him when he explained to her what had happened?
Even in her own head, she couldn’t answer that question. She’d been so anxious, so mixed up back then. And Deacon had fed her doubts. The casual remarks about what the guys would be getting up to on tour, what it must be like having all those fans clamoring for their attention. Then a comment, thrown in as if it was an afterthought: Not Noah of course. Why would he want that when he has you? Which always had her questioning whether she could ever be enough to stop him wanting that.
And she was already primed to believe the worst. By the pain her mom hadn’t been able to hide from her, no matter how hard she’d tried. By the loss of her dad—the almost inevitable drift that had started the night she’d listened to her parents argue and woken to find him gone. A loss that had only been cemented when he’d moved away with his baby boy and young girlfriend—later his second wife—so they could be closer to her parents. Not that he’d lasted the distance with her either—he was on wife number three now, apparently.
Summer’s gut clenched and rolled, remembering Noah’s expression when he’d found out the why of what she’d done. He had every right to be hurt and angry. Because if she’d loved him the way he deserved, she would never have let Deacon get to her.
But she had.
Noah should have walked away the other night. Not kissed her. Not filled her with the kind of pleasure she hadn’t experienced in so long.
Summer’s chest and throat tightened. Her eyes burned, but no tears fell. By the time she got back to her apartment a few hours later, her emotions were so mixed up inside her she thought she might scream. She wanted to scream. To scream and cry and rage at everyone and everything; to release the pressure. But the tears wouldn’t come. It wasn’t until she’d poured herself a glass of wine and sat down on the couch, hoping to distract herself by watching a movie, that finally, finally, the barrier broke. She didn’t know what triggered it, but it started with a burn behind her eyes, then a single tear dripping down her cheek. She barely had time to put her glass down on the side table before they were streaming down her face.
She dropped her head into her hands and sobbed.