Last Kiss Read Online Free

that no man had ever done, no matter how deep inside of me he’d been.
    “I’m tired, Emily,” he said, without a glance in my direction. “It’s been a long night. For both of us. So whatever it is that you want to discuss, it’s going to have to wait until we’ve gotten some sleep.”
    Well, that burst the bubble of affection swelling in my chest. How the fuck was he able to brush me off without giving me even a crumb? With barely an acknowledgment, after everything we’d shared? How could he sleep when the woman he’d cared so much about was broken and beat-up in the next room? And how could he not want to question me about the secrets I’d withheld as much as I wanted to question him?
    He knew.
 
    It was the only thing that made sense. Somehow, he
knew
. That I wasn’t simply Emily Wayborn, actress and professional girlfriend. That I was Emily Wayborn, formerly Emily Barnes, Amber’s best friend. Emily Wayborn, liar. He knew and I was caught and I could barely see straight, could barely get air inside my lungs.
    “You knew,” I whispered. I’d lied, and he knew, and I needed to hear from him what that meant for us.
    He stood to step out of his jeans then pulled back the bedcovers. “I said we’ll talk about this in the morning.”
    I couldn’t wait even another minute, not when our entire relationship was on the line. “You knew and you didn’t say anything.” I’d spent months worrying he’d discover that I’d gotten close to him only to learn what had happened to Amber. Months of monitoring what I said and did, weeks and weeks of keeping my guard up, and he’d already known.
    The more I thought about it, I wasn’t just anxious but angry. “You knew and you let me go on pretending. How could you?”
    He spun toward me, his eyes narrowed with incredulity. “
You’re
mad at me? You were the one who came into my life under false pretenses. To use me. And you’re mad at
me
?”
    My stomach twisted with the guilt, and even though I deserved the accusations, I suddenly didn’t have the will to defend myself. “You’re right. Let’s talk about this in the morning.”
    I spotted the pile of my clothes I’d left in front of the bathroom earlier and crossed to gather them, already thinking ahead, already planning the picture that I wanted Amber to see. She wouldn’t be able to understand without my explanation that I’d hoped she was alive when I began things with him, or that I only let myself fall for him when I believed she wasn’t.
    That last part was a lie – I never
let
myself anything with him. I never had any control. Now it was obvious – he had been manipulating
me,
not the other way around.
    A fresh wave of rage rolled through me. Clutching my clothing to my chest, I swung toward him. “I thought she was dead, Reeve!”
    He’d climbed into the bed. Now he sat up, his head tilted as though confused. “Dead?”
    “How could you let me believe that?” My throat choked on a sob and I noticed my cheeks were wet. I hadn’t realized I was crying.
    He took a moment to process. “I had no idea,” he said finally, softer than before. Even though he was a skilled liar I had a feeling he was telling the truth. “Why did you think that?”
    “Because Joe showed me an autopsy report.”
Why the hell didn’t
you
think that?
He’d had the same report in his e-mail. But I wasn’t ready to let him know that I’d snooped through his things.
    His brow furrowed. “The autopsy of that anonymous woman from the Dumpster last fall? How the hell did Joe get ahold of that?”
    “He’s good at his job,” I said snidely, not exactly remembering where Joe had said he’d gotten it.
    “Yeah, I guess he is. Except that it wasn’t actually a report about Amber, was it?” The hardness was back in his tone, and, instead of regretting that I’d pushed his kindness away, I was grateful that I’d succeeded. I knew what to do with harsh. I didn’t know what to do with compassion.
    “The