Holden's Resurrection (Gemini Group Book 6)

on the wrought iron chair, pulled my scarf tighter, and wondered if I was doing the right thing. Kennedy was married to Jameson. Holden and Jameson were close, they worked together. It probably wasn’t right unloading my burdens on her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. It’s just that I know what it’s like to have the weight of the world on your shoulders and no one to talk to. If you don’t want to talk to me, I get it—”
“No,” I rushed out. “You’re Jameson’s wife. I don’t want to put you in a weird place and I don’t want you to think I’m talking trash about Holden because I’m not. He’s your friend.”
“Who’s your friend?”
Kennedy’s question made my eyes sting. I’d lost most of my friends when Holden and I broke up, and the few who had hung around turned their backs on me when I found out I was pregnant. My whole life had revolved around Holden.
I eventually found new friends but they were more work acquaintances. All they’d known was, I was a widowed single mother. And when I moved, they’d dropped off, too.
“Damn, Charleigh, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t,” I sighed. “I don’t know how my life got here. I’m stuck. Some days it feels like the morning I woke up and found Holden packing. Other days it feels like being with him was a lifetime ago. We’ve been apart longer than we were together and I can’t stop loving him. What’s wrong with me?”
Ten minutes with Holden and I was right back to the sad-sack in love with a man who’d kicked me to the curb. No self-respecting woman would allow herself to throw her life away.
“Nothing’s wrong with you,” she whispered. “Why’d he break up with you?”
“No clue.”
“What?”
I slowly exhaled before I told her the truth. “I don’t know why because he refused to tell me. One day everything was good. The next morning, I woke up and he was packing. He just said he couldn’t be with me. For months I begged him to tell me what was wrong and he never would.”
“What an ass,” she mumbled and my stomach knotted.
“He’s not,” I defended, hating that Kennedy thought that. “We shouldn’t talk about this. It’s really not cool of me to tell you this. I don’t want you to think badly about him. And Jameson probably wouldn’t be happy if you…I don’t know, took my side, or got mad at Holden. And seriously, I don’t want anyone taking sides and I really don’t want Jameson mad at me. You all have been really good with Faith. I can’t take that away from her.”
“What about you, Charleigh?”
“What about me?”
“Who do you have?”
God, there was that question again. The one I didn’t want to answer because I had no one, and admitting it made me feel like more of a loser than I already did.
“I have Faith.”
“Your daughter doesn’t count.”
“She totally does. She’s all that counts. I can’t risk upsetting you and Jameson. She needs good people in her life. I’ll figure it out, I always do.”
“I don’t like knowing you’re hurting and you don’t have anyone to turn to.”
“Maybe there’s a reason I lost all my friends when I lost Holden. Maybe I’m as horrible as they all thought I was—being with one man and getting knocked up by another. Maybe I’ve spent all these years blaming Holden for leaving me and breaking my heart so I wouldn’t have to face what I did. Maybe they’re all right, it didn’t matter that Holden dumped me and shattered the perfect future I thought we were going to have. I’m still the bed-hopper, the slut that got drunk and had a one-night stand that resulted in my daughter being conceived. It’s all my—” I clamped my mouth shut and closed my eyes when I heard Kennedy gasp.
Oh, shit.
Fuck me running, I said way too much.
Way. Too. Much.
“Could Holden—”
“He says no. But I didn’t hide anything from him,” I rushed out. “Paul knew, too.”
Kennedy’s brows hit her hairline. Then they pulled together and her face slowly turned red.
“You wouldn’t have told him if there wasn’t a chance,” she scoffed.
“Kennedy, please—”
“What a dick.”
“Please don’t say that. Please—”
“I swear to you, I won’t breathe a word to anyone, but I’m seriously pissed at Holden.”
“You don’t understand. It was complicated. Everything was messed up. Then my parents got involved and it got more twisted until I did the only thing I could to get everyone off my back. Maybe if I hadn’t been rushed into marrying Paul, Holden and I could’ve worked it out.”
It had been the perfect storm. Holden had told me he never wanted to see me again. I’d slept with Paul, then I’d spent weeks feeling like a disgusting bitch for letting it happen. I found out I was pregnant. Holden had flipped out. My parents had freaked out and demanded I be married before I was showing so they wouldn’t be embarrassed around their friends. Paul asked me to marry him, then we’d rushed everything because he and his team were leaving for training and he wanted us married before he left. It was the craziest ten days of my life. I couldn’t think straight, so I agreed.
That was when I knew there was no fixing me and Holden.
We were over—forever.
“I’m not even talking about Faith right now. I’m pissed he broke up with you and didn’t bother to tell you why. Who does that?”
“He told me the baby couldn't be his.”
“Right,” she snapped. “Were you having sex with him?”
God, would I ever stop feeling the shame of bed-hopping?
“The week before,” I admitted and braced for her repugnance.
“Damn, Charleigh, you look like I’m gonna judge you. He broke up with you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I was drunk and—”
“Stop. I don’t care if you were stone sober. You did nothing wrong. You weren’t together with Holden and slept with someone else. That doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“But Paul was—”
“Jeez, why