Dirt Driven (Racing on the Edge Book 11)

still partial owner in Riley-Harris Racing,” I pointed out. “When you think about it, Mom owns a quarter of the company, so….”
Dad’s eyes lit up. “I knew I did that for a reason.”
“That’s not in the contract,” Spencer yelled from Easton’s pit.
“Bullshit it isn’t,” Dad argued, walking over to him.
He left and once again I was alone with Rager, who hadn’t really stopped kissing my neck. He seemed determined to let me know who I belonged to. I definitely wasn’t doing it in the bleachers again, but there was a reason we had a locking door on our bedroom in the motor coach.
I pushed against his shoulders before it became too obvious what we were doing over here. Hell, there were still fans taking pictures for Christ’s sake.
“Come on, dude. Let’s get you some attention.”
“Let me help the guys load this hunk of junk and I’ll meet you back at the motor home.” Rager never let the crew guys do all the work. He wasn’t the kind of driver who showed up to race and that was all. He was all hands on, no matter what it was.
Smiling, I nodded. “Okay, and then we’ll pick up the kids from my mom.” Our eyes met and I hoped he picked up on my plan.
“Good idea.” He turned, and then twisted back around, kissed me once more and said, “I’ll meet you back there.”
Reaching for my phone in my back pocket, I looked down at it as I made my way toward the parking lot. I had a hundred different messages all asking what was going on in the pits tonight, but I chose to ignore them for now.
Easton caught up to me, his bag in his hand and dressed in street clothes again. “Can I talk to you?”
“No.” I snorted, disgusted with him. God, the nerve of this fucking guy never ceases to amaze me. “Not after you pulled that shit.”
“Arie, please.” His hand grasped mine, trying to stop me. “Just wait.”
Stopping, I turned around, my eyes snapping to his hold on my hand. Wiggling my hand loose, I backed up, my arms crossed over my chest. “What? What the fuck do you even want? Was this all some kind of stunt to you? He was leading the points and you took him out for the night. You could have hurt him.”
He couldn’t keep the agony off his face, and the blood and swollen face only made him look even more pathetic. “I did wrong by you, for a long time. And I don’t know that I ever apologized.”
Oh, Jesus. Really dude? Anger shot through my body in an instant. “It doesn’t change anything. The past is the past.”
His eyes searched mine in the darkness.
I fought back laughter and the instinct to face palm myself. “Did you think it would?”
“No.”
Liar. “Easton.” I shifted my weight, my hand on my hip as I watched the haulers filing out of the pits. “If I told you that I still loved you, what would you do?”
He cleared his throat, his hands buried in the pockets of his jeans. “Do you?”
“I love you in the sense that you gave me the strength to know when a relationship isn’t what it should be, you move on.”
Breathing in a ragged breath, he nodded but no words followed.
And then I realized what this was. “You’d leave her for me if I said I wanted you back, wouldn’t you?”
Again, no words. Swallowing thickly, he sighed. He stared deep into my eyes, like he was trying to communicate something to me, but I refused.
“You haven’t changed.” Twisting around, I began to walk away, but then stopped. “By the way, your son…” Pausing, I watched his face pale. “He’s five. When’s his birthday?”
He shook his head but didn’t have it in him to say the words.
“I knew you were too much of a pussy to give me the truth.”
He was staring at me now, tight jaw, pain in his eyes. “February,” he finally said, stepping back away from me. Our eyes met and what passed between us was closure for me and I didn’t know what from him.
Breathing through my nose, I closed my eyes. We filed for separation in March of that year. “So while you were making me feel like shit for traveling with the Outlaws, and my friendship with Rager, you were sleeping with your assistant and the model.”
His eyes dropped to the pavement and I flashed back to the night he told me he slept with the model he’d been seen with during our marriage. The infidelity he didn’t admit to until after he asked for a divorce.
Easton regarded me with uncertainty, my face the focus of his indiscretion. Chewing on the words, his brow scrunched, eyes glazing over with what looked like tears threatening. He was about to admit to me what he’d done. I knew it. “I slept with her.”
He slept with her?
HE SLEPT WITH HER?
His lips parted and he heaved in a long-winded breath, then blew it out slowly, gearing up for what he never intended on telling me. “The night Jack died. We were at an event for Atry in Darlington.” His voice sounded gritty, like someone whose knees hit the dirt and was begging for nothing but an opportunity. Only that sound didn’t belong to him, wasn’t his style. “She didn’t even know I was married at the time. I was lonely after the win that night, couldn’t get a hold of you, and it went from there.”
His answer shattered my heart because of the day.
Why then? Why?
My hand connected with his cheek.
My palm red, his cheek matching. Silence spread throughout… I had his attention, clear to do with it what I wanted, say what I wanted, take back this lie and leave him with reality. I didn’t have to go along with this, and he knew it, right then, the evidence on his blazing cheek.
His brow furrowed and then his chest heaved in a heavy breath,