Love and Other Wicked Games (A Wicked Game Novel) by Olivia Fuller Page B

and eyes far and calm. It looked like she was staring off into the distance but she wasn’t. She was staring right through him, into him, and trying to understand.
    “Explain.” One simple succinct word. It wasn’t mean or ill-willed or ill-tempered, just direct.
    The reaction made Cal ache. He knew he was taking a chance by bringing up this story, this piece of his past. He hadn’t really thought it through before he said the words but he had expected a much different reaction. For her to be angry maybe, to cry or yell even, but her reaction was something entirely different. It was disappointment. And Cal felt like he had been punched in the gut.
    Cal had to sit down before he fell down in shame. He turned slowly and walked back to the bed, sitting and resting his elbows on his knees.
    “When I was a boy I had a friend named Andrew Hartington,” Cal smiled sadly, “but we all called him Hart…because he had so much of it.”
    “What of it?” Ellie crossed her arms, still calm and collected.
    “His father worked for mine.”
    “Ah. So I was right.”
    “What?” Cal asked blankly as he looked up to her.
    “That you came from money.”
    “Yes.” Cal didn’t bother to ask how she knew and he didn’t care. As long as she didn’t know who he was then none of it mattered right now. He sighed and looked back down to the floor as he continued.
    “My father’s ‘friends’ didn’t like it, our friendship. They said it was unsuitable, but I just couldn’t understand how it was unsuitable to associate with a kind person. And my father didn’t seem to care so I didn’t either…Of course at that time I was unaware that my father only cared about himself and his money… but that’s beside the point.” Cal chuckled once and shook his head. “So, needless to say we remained friends anyway, all through our boyhood and adolescence. We grew together, we learned, and we cared. And he saved my butt many more times than I care to admit.” Cal chuckled again. “I was quite a troublemaker. Can you imagine?”
    Ellie raised a brow. “I never would have guessed.”
    “He was my best friend. And I might even go as far as to say he was the only real friend I ever had. I mean, I’ve had others. Acquaintances is probably more apt, though some might say they were my friends. None of them were quite like Hart, though. We were inseparable. And lucky for me because, God, he wouldn’t take my crap. And what was better, he never let me give it to others.” Cal breathed in deeply. “But all good things come to an end, do they not?”
    “I suppose sometimes they do.”
    “Well, we grew up and everything changed. Not the way we cared for each other, no, that never went away. But we did. We went away from where we grew up. I went off to University and Hart, well, he went off to work in a mill.”
    My father’s mill.
    Ellie shifted uncomfortably and then after a moment she closed the distance between them and stood silently next to the bed.
    “I don’t know what you may have heard, but University gentlemen are not actually prone to gentleness. In anything or to anyone. And alone on my own, for the first time—and most importantly without Hart—I was lost. When I came home that first winter on break, Hart was waiting to greet me. I remember thinking how thin and tired he looked and how much older he’d grown in such a short amount of time. But God, if he wasn’t smiling that same old caring smile he’d always had. I remember that so clearly… I remember what happened next even more clearly....”
    Cal’s stomach turned and he clenched his teeth to hold back the bile. “I had brought some ‘friends’ back with me for the holiday and when they saw Hart standing there one of them threw their bags at him… and I didn’t protest. I turned a blind eye to him without a second care. Like he wasn’t even there. Like he didn’t matter. Hart just looked at me and I could see his eyes sink and now, God, it kills me. I