Chapter 82
Ethan's POV
I was home when Alex showed up.
I was standing in my kitchen staring at the coffeemaker like I could will it to work faster, like caffeine might somehow fix the part of my brain that kept replaying Emily telling me she'd slept with him.
The machine gurgled and hissed while I gripped the counter hard enough that my knuckles went white, and I thought about how I'd driven here on autopilot after leaving her apartment, how I'd somehow made it back without remembering a single turn or stoplight, how my hand still throbbed from when I'd put my fist through her wall.
The knock came just as I was pouring my third cup in twenty minutes. Sharp. Deliberate. The kind of knock that said the person on the other side wasn't going away.
I knew who it was before I opened the door. Maybe I'd been expecting it. Maybe some masochistic part of me wanted the confrontation, wanted an excuse to put my fist somewhere other than drywall.
Alex stood on my porch looking like he'd just stepped out of some magazine spread, his jaw still slightly swollen from where I'd hit him but otherwise perfectly composed, hands tucked casually in the pockets of his tailored coat. He met my stare without flinching, and I felt my teeth grind together so hard my jaw ached.
"What the fuck do you want?" I didn't move from the doorway, didn't give him an inch of space to think he was welcome here.
"To talk." His voice came out steady, almost pleasant, like we were neighbors discussing the weather instead of two people who'd both been inside the same girl in the span of sixty hours. "Can I come in?"
"No."
"Ethan." He sighed like I was being unreasonable, like I was the problem here. "I'm not here to fight. I'm here because I think we can work something out."
I laughed. The sound came out harsh and bitter, scraping against my throat.
"Work something out? You want to work something out?" I stepped forward and he didn't retreat, just stood there watching me with that same calm expression that made me want to break his face all over again. "You manipulated her. You isolated her. You waited until she was drunk and vulnerable and you fucked her, and now you want to have a conversation about working something out?"
"I did," he agreed simply, and the casual admission made my hands curl into fists. "I wanted her and I took her. But now I'm here trying to give her back what she needs." He paused, his gaze holding mine with an intensity that felt almost clinical. "Which includes you."
The words hit me like cold water. I stared at him, trying to process what he'd just said, trying to figure out what new angle he was working.
"What?"
"She needs you." Alex said it like he was stating a fact, like it was obvious and I was slow for not seeing it. "She needs what you give her. The stability. The uncomplicated affection. The person who makes her feel safe instead of constantly calculating." He tilted his head slightly, studying me. "I can give her other things. Ambition. Challenge. The kind of intensity that matches hers. But I can't give her what you do."
I felt something hot and vicious rise in my chest, felt the words come out before I could stop them. "So what? You want me to be okay with sharing her? You want me to just accept that you're fucking my girlfriend and pretend like that's normal?"
"She's not your girlfriend anymore," he pointed out quietly, and the statement landed like a physical blow. "You ended it. You walked away. But you're standing here looking like you'd tear the world apart to have her back, so clearly that was a mistake."
He shifted his weight slightly, still watching me with that unsettling focus. "I'm offering you a chance to fix that mistake. To have her back. Just not exclusively."
"You're insane." I shook my head, trying to clear the roaring sound in my ears. "You think I'm going to agree to some fucked up arrangement where we both—where she—" I couldn't even finish the sentence, couldn't wrap my mind around what he was suggesting.
"I think you love her enough to consider it." His voice stayed level, maddeningly reasonable. "I think you've already realized that losing her completely is worse than sharing her. Otherwise you wouldn't have shown up at her door this morning begging for another chance."
My jaw clenched so hard I thought my teeth might crack. Because he was right and I hated him for it, hated that he could see straight through me to the desperate calculation I'd already been running in my own head during the drive home.
"Did Emily send you here?" The question came out rough, accusatory, because I needed to know if this was her idea or just another one of his manipulations.
"No." He held my gaze without wavering. "This is me trying to unfuck what I broke when I went after what I wanted without considering the cost."
"How noble of you," I bit out. "How fucking magnanimous. You destroy her relationship and now you want to play savior by generously allowing me back into the picture?"
The sarcasm felt like acid in my mouth. "What makes you think you get to decide any of this? What makes you think you have the right to arrange her life like she's some kind of property to be shared?"
"I don't." His answer came immediately, flat and honest. "She gets to decide. I'm just here to make sure you're willing to be an option if she wants you back."
He paused, and something shifted in his expression—something that looked almost like respect. "Because I know she does want you back. I know she's destroying herself right now because she thinks she ruined the one good thing in her life by sleeping with me. And I'm not willing to watch her do that when there's another solution."
I wanted to hit him again. Wanted to slam my fist into that calm, calculating face. Wanted to wipe away the reasonable tone and the logical arguments. Wanted to destroy the uncomfortable truth he was offering—that he was giving me exactly what I'd been fantasizing about during my drive home.
A way to have Emily back. Even if it meant accepting conditions that should've been unacceptable.