Stealing Her (Covet 1)

“I’m not better.”

“That’s not what my own father said to me within minutes of waking up. ‘Bridge has a natural gift with business. Maybe if he had worked as hard as you, he would have been something great.’”

The compliment was both offensive and backhanded.

To both of us.

“The job is yours, Julian.”

“And the girl?” He just had to ask. “What about her?”

I said nothing.

Julian finally sat, and then his eyes searched the room before landing on an open bottle of champagne.

He walked over to it and took a few swigs. “Not how I imagined my wedding day going.”

“You mean your twin marrying the girl you love? Yeah, I figured that wasn’t really in the ten-year plan,” I said sarcastically. “Should you be drinking so soon after the coma?”

He flipped me off and took another swig. “Should you be marrying someone else’s fiancé?”

“I love her.”

“I know, damn it.” Julian swallowed more champagne. “She’s easy to love. Hard to leave.”

“Then why cheat, Julian? Why make her feel less important than she is?”

“I woke up.”

“What?”

“I woke up,” he repeated. “It was a Sunday. She was lying in bed staring at me, and it just clicked, like I’d been sleeping my entire life and was finally awake . . . this family is a poison. It was in my blood, in my makeup. Don’t deny it’s in yours too. Tennyson, through and through.” He hung his head. “She had lost a little of the light that made her special. She looked . . . older, wiser, and bitter, and I knew I’d put the bitterness there by asking her to be the wife that I knew Dad wanted her to be for me. Wear the right clothes, shop at the right places, jump through five million hoops so hopefully in the end, you can get what you deserve. I was a coward. Instead of breaking up with her, I went out and got extremely drunk, and one thing led to another. I remember maybe half the night. I came back smelling like someone else’s perfume, apologized profusely, and we set a wedding date. And I hated myself a little bit more each day I kept her, knowing that one day she would wake up too, and she’d realize she wasn’t the person she wanted to be, not with me, and she would never be.”

“You woke up,” I repeated, finally understanding what he was saying. “Julian, you can walk away from all of this, you know that, right?”

“No.” His gaze met mine. “I really can’t. Dad owes me, he fucking owes me for the hell he put me through, and so do you.”

He was right about that.

I did owe him.

“We have sixty percent equity combined,” I reminded him. “What do you think about using it? Together?”

“I think we need whiskey.” He shook his head. “This doesn’t mean I don’t hate you. I still want to throw you off the nearest cliff. I don’t know how to process the depth of this kind of betrayal, but I’m a Tennyson, so business”—he choked back another swallow of champagne—“comes first.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

ISOBEL

I was back at the apartment.

Out of my wedding dress.

With a bottle of wine in one hand and my cell in the other.

I wanted to scream at them both.

I wanted Bridge to hold me.

Just like I wanted Julian to forgive me.

It was closing in on midnight, and I was Cinderella with two shoes and no prince.

Neither man had contacted me.

Then again, what was there to say?

I didn’t blame Bridge for not telling me. I knew he loved me, the way I loved him.

And I didn’t blame Julian for being angry beyond reason.

Because he had every right to hate us.

To hate me.

Because he’d loved me first.

The way I had once loved him.

The knob turned.

I glanced up as Bridge walked in the door, still in his tux, looking like he’d been run over by a car.

His expression darkened when he took in my face, and then in long, determined strides he was in front of me, dropping to his knees, pressing his face against my legs. “I’m so damn sorry, Izzy.”

“Bridge.” His name fell from my lips like a prayer. “Me too.”

“I love you.” He clung to my legs. “I love you so much. Know that I love you more than anything in this world, will love you more than you could ever possibly imagine.”

Tears slid down my cheeks onto his head. “Why does this feel like goodbye, then? If you love me? If I love you?”

“Because.” He finally looked up into my eyes. “I hurt him. We hurt him. We knew we couldn’t come back from this. I got my brother back only to lose him for good. I want to think we can survive this, I want to think we can survive anything.” He stood and then cupped my face with his hands and pressed a feather-soft kiss to my lips. “I love you enough to let you choose what happens next, alright? I’m going to stay at a hotel.”