Caspian (Carolina Reapers 8)

“Well, there has to be an easy explanation for that,” Mom said, but her voice shook. “Maybe she just stopped in for lunch.”

My heart stammered, then stopped as Chuck brushed Ryleigh’s hair away from her cheek. Mine, my soul screamed, instinct beating at me to charge the steps and beat the shit out of Chuck for touching her after everything he’d put her through.

“Maybe it’s just a friendly hello,” Mom’s tone softened. “It’s probably nothing.”

If it was nothing, why hadn’t she told me? I knew her schedule. She was supposed to be at work today, not sneaking out for lunch with her ex.

Whatever they were saying had Ryleigh smiling at him like he was a fucking god. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in for a hug. She clasped him back just as hard, the two melding together like they were one piece. One unit.

There was something in Ryleigh’s hand. A folder with a bright blue logo.

The house.

The perfect, picket-fenced, dream house she was building with Chuck. The house she hadn’t mentioned in the last few weeks while I’d been in her bed. The house she’d never asked me to see. The house she’d planned her entire life around.

Once that girl makes a choice, she doesn’t blow off course, doesn’t deviate from her path.

She ordered monogrammed towels! Perfect little white ones with C and R embroidered.

Holy shit. What if she’d never deviated from our original goal? What if all that real talk had just been about the sex and not the relationship I thought we were in?

“Maybe they’re just…” Mom trailed off as they ended the embrace and Chuck lovingly cupped Ryleigh’s cheek like it was routine, like he’d done it a thousand times before. Because he had. They’d had years together.

It was so intimate. So raw. So…real.

I was going to puke right here on the fucking sidewalk. Agony ripped through my hand, the pain rippling to my chest where it exploded, detonating like a nuclear bomb and annihilating every plan I’d just made in the past hour.

Ryleigh had never talked about our future because she hadn’t seen one with me in it. She’d made her plans, set her course, and I wasn’t a part of it. I was just the rebound fuck, the game she’d played to make Chuck jealous enough to come back to her. She hadn’t just fooled him, she’d fooled me, too.

“Guess those two are giving it another shot,” a woman said as she passed us on the sidewalk with a girlfriend, staring at Chuck and Ryleigh as she handed him the folder.

“Was bound to happen eventually. They’ve been together for eons,” her friend commented as they slipped into the store on our left.

Chuck took the folder, then lifted Ryleigh’s hand to his lips. The hands that had been on me last night. The hands I’d held while I’d rocked us both to orgasm.

Bile rose in my throat.

“Caspian. Honey,” Mom whispered. “Maybe—”

“Maybe she got exactly what she wanted.” I turned and threw the bouquet into the trash, blood trickling down my palm from where the thorns had broken my skin.

The drive home was silent and tense.

“Just give her a call. She cares for you,” Mom said as we walked into the house.

“Not as much as she cares for the life she had planned out,” I said over my shoulder as I trudged up the stairs, already reaching for my phone. My mission here was complete. I’d come home like London had wanted. I’d taken Ryleigh to the wedding just like Mom had asked me to. I’d faked a relationship with Ryleigh so well that her ex came crawling back to her just like she’d wanted.

I was done.

“Where are you going?” Mom called up after me.

I dialed the number for the charter company. It started ringing.

“Home.”

16

Ryleigh

“Wow,” Chuck said as he stared open-mouthed at the thick contract I slid across the table. “You spoke with the lender and the realtors?” He flipped through the papers, noting the places I’d already signed.

“I did,” I said, shifting on the seat in his mother’s café. I sipped my coffee, giving him time to read through the terms. “Sandra said we made it just under the wire,” I said after a few more sips of coffee. “We had one last exit without penalties and it expires in a week. So, if you could sign these today, that would be wonderful.”

Chuck looked up at me, hope filling his eyes. “I didn’t think we’d get our deposits back,” he said. “This is amazing, Ryleigh. You have no idea how much pressure this takes off me now.”

I tried not to laugh, instead biting on my bottom lip as I smiled. Funny, a few weeks ago his happiness at no longer building our dream house would’ve sent me straight to the freezer and head first into some double fudge brownie ice cream, but now? Now it just felt right.