Free Lie to Me (Sexual Misconduct Volume III) by Bethany Bazile

the edge when I ended our phone call the first time, but he obviously didn’t want me to bring it up.
    “ What are you going to do?”
    He sat on the edge of the bed, ran a hand through his wet hair, and hung his head. “I’m going to call my sponsor. It’s not like I can just walk into any random AA meeting without being outed to the press.”
    I nodded. “Just talk to someone.”
    “ Can I talk to you?” he asked in a low tone.
    “ No, Xander. That would be a horrible idea.”
    “ Who am I supposed to talk to? Who can I trust with all this?” The desolation in his voice broke my heart all over again.
    No one.
    I covered my face with my hands and sighed. I knew I shouldn’t, but I was never good at turning away someone who needed me. I knew I was going to help him, but what’s worse, I knew I wanted to do more than just help him. I wanted to understand him. I wanted to know what made him this controlling, obsessive man. I couldn’t blame him for being controlling. I thought I had perfect control over my life before all this started. But with Xander, his extremes brought him to the edge, and in a way, maybe I wanted to know why. But I was afraid if I did know, I’d make excuses for his behavior just to convince myself I could have him again.
    “ Please.” He pleaded with his eyes.
    Fuck , why am I always so weak with him?
    “ If we do this, no talking about us getting back together.”
    He nodded his accep tance, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.
    “ You can come in Monday at our regularly scheduled time.” My lunch hour. We’d kept up that appointment, but I usually blocked out the session afterward because Xander tended to be needy in many ways… but not this time.
    “ Thanks,” he said, slanting a glance up at me from his seat on the bed.
    “ Don’t thank me. Maybe I’m doing this for me too… Maybe it will give us closure.”
    “ Don’t say that.” This time his head snapped up and his green eyes bored into me.
    I shrugged , then walked out before Xander started stating all the reasons I shouldn’t give up on us. It was bad enough my heart was already making a list for that very same reason.

Mended Bonds
    Avery
    After my long Friday night with Xander and subsequent ly enduring morning, I decided to go visit Susan. The visit was long overdue, because I wouldn’t feel better about what happened until I saw her improvement with my own eyes.
    When I walked into her room, she was up, moving around, packing her things. She froze and smiled nervously when she noticed me standing in the doorway. I wasn’t sure if coming was the right decision, but before I made an escape, she said, “Come in.”
    I didn ’t know if I should sit or stand, but the uncomfortable feeling in the room was something that had never existed between Susan and me.
    “ Okay, this is weird. This isn’t us.” Susan voiced exactly what I was thinking, and I smiled because we always got each other like that. She returned the smile, grabbed my hand, and led me to two chairs near the window.
    We sat, all along Susan holding my hand. “I know you think my heart attack was your fault, and that’s nonsense. I’ve had this condition for years, and nobody could’ve predicted when this would happen.”
    I looked down at our hands. For some reason , I couldn’t look her in the eyes. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I shouldn’t have worked you up.”
    “ You didn’t. If anything, I was responsible because of my own guilt. You weren’t far off when you said we were trying to atone.”
    “ Still, you’re like a mom to me, and I shouldn’t have talked to you that way,” I insisted.
    “ Oh, dear, you had every right to talk to me any way you chose. I’m surprised you didn’t rip my head off. I deserved it.”
    I finally looked up into her eyes , and we smiled. “I’d never do that.”
    “ I know.”
    “ Where do we go from here?” I couldn’t continue hating Susan for trying to help her son and,