The Wrong Man (Alpha Men 3)

“Your fiancé is rich AF,” Daisy reminded her, and Daff frowned.

“I don’t want him to pay for my wedding dress, it’s—”

“Your father and I are paying for it, Daff,” their mother interrupted her in a no-nonsense voice.

“But . . .”

“No buts. Now, do you want that dress?” Charlie turned the phone back to Daff, who was running her hands over the beadwork. She turned to look at her back.

“My butt looks amazing in this,” she joked and then giggled like a schoolgirl. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m actually getting married. To my gorgeous Spencer.” She squealed and covered her face. “Of course I want the dress!”

Everybody cheered and Lia, who couldn’t stop smiling, swallowed past the lump of emotion in her throat. She so wished she could be there with them in this moment, but she was grateful she got to share it even if the circumstances were less than ideal.

She looked up at Sam and discovered him staring at her. She couldn’t quite read his expression, but he smiled when their eyes met.

You okay? he mouthed, and she nodded. And she was fine. She felt only elation for her sister. None of that envy and no residual “it should have been me” sense of entitlement.

It was wonderful to finally be free of those destructive emotions. But staring at Sam, it soon dawned on her that those feelings had just been replaced by something much stronger and potentially a lot more destructive.

She had broken the number one cardinal rule of a successful short-term fling. She had stupidly gone and fallen head over heels in love with Sam Brand.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Were you in love with him?” Sam asked unexpectedly the following afternoon, while they were cuddling in front of the TV again. “Your fiancé. Were you in love with him?”

“With Clayton?”

“If that’s his name,” he muttered. “Unless you’ve had more than one fiancé.”

“At the time, I thought I was. Now I know I wasn’t.”

“How do you know that?”

Because I now know what real love feels like. And it was nothing at all like what she’d felt for Clayton—it was deeper, more painful, and more frightening. She also knew Sam better than she’d ever known Clayton. Taking care of someone during the worst period of their life was pretty revealing. Then there was his passion when they had sex, his tenderness when he was cuddling her, the genuine sweetness he displayed at the retirement home, his compassion and patience with Trevor, his sense of humor, his irreverence . . .

The list was long, it was filled with both strengths and flaws, and she loved every single one of them.

“Lia?” he prompted. “How do you know you weren’t in love with him?”

“Because I’m not married to him. If I loved him, I would have overlooked his flaws and married him anyway, wouldn’t I?”

“What you said he did to Daisy wasn’t just a little flaw that could be overlooked,” Sam pointed out.

“And then there was that, his behavior proved that I didn’t really know him. How could I be in love with someone I didn’t really know?”

He took her hand in his, his thumb absently stroking her palm as he contemplated their joined hands.

“I’ve never been in love,” he admitted, and she laughed.

“Of course you haven’t. You don’t do commitment. You’ve been pretty clear on that, and falling in love is a huge emotional commitment.”

“I always thought of commitment as something that requires foresight and planning. Falling in love is something that just happens, isn’t it? Nobody plans on it. You’re just fucking about, minding your own business when, boom, you look up at someone, lightning strikes, and you realize that you’re in love with them. Isn’t that how it works?”

Considering that that was pretty much exactly what had happened to her yesterday, Lia couldn’t argue against that.

“Perhaps,” she acknowledged uncomfortably. “Although it could be a gradual slide into love, too, I suppose. I think that’s how it happened with Daisy and Mason. They were friends and they spent a lot of time together, getting to know each other, getting to like each other . . . Falling in love was like an awakening for them, I think.”

He seemed to mull over her words.

“That makes sense, too, I guess, a gentle slide. It sounds less painful, or potentially lethal, than a lightning strike.”

“Why are we talking about this?” she asked, and he shrugged.

“I was just interested.”

“It’s a weirdly specific thing to be interested in,” she pointed out, and his thumb made little circles in her palm.

“I was curious about the guy,” he said with a shrug. “The prick who hurt you.”

“It could have been worse,” she said, and his eyebrows slammed together.

“How?” he asked blankly.

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “I could have married him.”

Spencer took Sam back to the cabin the following morning. Lia was feeling a lot better and didn’t need anybody else to come and stay with her. Fortunately, Sam showed no signs of getting sick, so it looked like Lia was the only one unfortunate enough to get the flu. One of the hazards of working with children.