Read Online Fused (Lost in Oblivion #4.5) by Cari Quinn, Taryn Elliott - Free Book Online

certainly didn’t care about her opinion. Malachi didn’t care about her either. Never had, never would. To him, she was just the tramp who’d stole Martin from his mother.
    “The photos were a stupid move, I see that now. I feel like a dick.” Michael shut his eyes. “It was just about showing them to you and getting Jerzee off my back with the band shit. I figured if you got a reminder of how public all of this was, you’d stop it. No one else was supposed to get the photos, but Jerzee and I got into it pretty good and he decided to send them to you to see if he could shake you down for some cash.” Michael shook his head and finally met her gaze. “I could’ve killed the jerk. Almost did too.”
    As difficult as all of this was to hear, she was still stuck on an earlier point. “Michael, what look did Nick have that day he went out to the limo?”
    He glanced away, but not fast enough for her to miss the emotion that shifted through his gaze. “The just-been-fucked look. I’m sorry, but I know it well. I’ve had it often enough myself.”
    She didn’t speak. What could she say? Michael was a grown man and not her biological child, and she’d asked him for the truth.
    No point in arguing with the facts. Nick had just been fucked the day he’d taken the limo from her apartment to the radio station interviews. Nothing she could say would diminish the reality. Except maybe next time she had sex with Nick, she’d force him to wear a damn bag over his head afterward, if he insisted on sex-glowing all over the place.
    Oh yeah, right. No more sex. Well, that took care of that problem, nice and tidy. Her lady garden might wither away, but hey, at least no one would suspect she was banging Oblivion’s lead guitarist anymore.
    Funny how that seemed like damn cold consolation.
    “Not that I owe you an explanation, but no matter how it seems, we weren’t just…having intercourse.” She didn’t know who winced more, her or Michael. It was probably a tie. “We’ve obviously known each other a while, and—”
    “You took him home to see Mom and Pop,” he said, accusation rife in his voice. “When I called them to wish them happy holidays, they asked why I hadn’t accompanied you to Happy Acres. Normally when you go back home at the holidays, you bring me.”
    Her throat clogged with something akin to panic, and she took a large swallow of wine to force it back down. No matter what Michael was thinking—or feeling—they’d work this out. He was too important to her for them to have a rift. Especially over something like this.
    “The trip with Nick was spur-of-the-moment.” She curled her fingers around the stem of her wine glass. “What happened with him…it’s wasn’t planned, on either of our parts.”
    “You’re not even divorced yet.”
    She shut her eyes on the censure in his tone. The judgment didn’t lash, merely snapped like a rubber band. Quick and painful.
    And deserved. No matter what Martin had done, she’d taken vows as well. She wouldn’t excuse herself because she should get a special dispensation.
    “I was wrong,” she said softly. “I’m still married, and I made a mistake.”
    “Is it one you’re going to keep on making?”
    “No.”
    God, one word hurt as much as fifty of them. She could feel the imprint of it on her chest, burning straight through skin to the vital organs beneath. The sting wouldn’t go away anytime soon.
    Perhaps that was best, so she couldn’t forget. So she wouldn’t lapse again.
    “Your choice, or his?”
    “Mine.” She forced her eyes open and focused on Michael’s green-gray ones. They weren’t the least bit like his father’s, and that helped. “Sometimes you need someone, and you do things you swore you never would.”
    Michael’s jaw worked as he glanced away and fiddled with his untouched drink. “And this guy, you needed him?”
    “I did.” I do. She nearly said the rest, but took another sip of wine instead. “He made me happy