The realization rattles me as I enter the reception hall. I slow down as it hits me between the eyes. The knowledge is special. Finally knowing who my one-and-only is going to be is a defining moment. Precious. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve just had butterflies in my stomach and a sensation of floating on clouds, but what I have with Ian isn’t a normal love story. It’s darker. So many of the moments we shared were stolen. Yet I loved every minute I spent with him, no matter how warped or wrong. I knew it from the start, knew it all along, and now that I face the biggest truth of my life, I don’t have a prince charming to tell me it’s going to be all right. I only have the word of the villain, and all I can do is pray he’s as good as his word.
Lost in my thoughts, I exit onto the deck and bump into a hard chest. A pair of hands grip my arms, steadying me. Taking back a step, I look up into Leon’s face.
His stubble is dark but his beard lines are neatly trimmed, and he smells of expensive cologne. His hair is slightly darker and wavier than Ian’s. Messy curls fall over his forehead. Like the other night, he’s dressed in a suit, but a black one this time.
I shake off his touch and step out of reach. “Sorry. I didn’t watch where I was going.”
“That’s all right.” He looks me up and down. “It looks like you dug yourself out of a grave.”
“Jeep,” I say. “The road is dusty.”
“I heard Ian lets you drive around,” Ruben says, rounding the corner and climbing the steps. Like Leon, he’s dressed in his finest, wearing the same suit from the last time they went out to get laid.
I’m about to say I hope they’ll enjoy chasing women, not that they should be too hopeful of attracting nice women with their prickly personalities, when Ian follows in Ruben’s footsteps.
I still. What I was about to say flies out of my head. Ian is dressed in a dark, pinstripe suit with a white, open-neck shirt that reveals the tattoo under his collarbone and the hard muscles of his chest. He’s wearing a black belt with a Hermes buckle and matching dress shoes. With the stubble darkening his jaw and his hair tied back into a man bun, he looks hot enough to melt panties. He’s chewing on a cigar and doesn’t notice me, because he’s engrossed in fitting a cufflink. He adjusts the sleeve of his jacket and lifts his gaze.
Our eyes lock over Leon’s shoulder.
Ruben squeezes past me, giving me a knowing smirk. Leon ignores me to follow Ruben. I glance in the direction from where the men had come. A cocktail table with a crisp, white tablecloth is set up near the river. Three empty champagne glasses stand on the tabletop. They probably celebrated the spoils of their last job.
I stare up at Ian when he reaches me. He smells divine. The scent drifting to my nose isn’t a mixture of leather and tobacco. It’s something that comes from a cologne bottle, something expensive designed to seduce and make women swoon. I swallow as I take him in. A bruise spreads inside my chest. I hold onto the silly hope he’d tell me he’s taking me out or going to church, anything, but he takes the cigar from his mouth, cups my cheek and says, “Don’t wait up.”
And then he walks off.
My mother never asked my father where he was going. He didn’t give her reason to. I don’t want to be the woman who asks, but I can’t help myself. Before he’s out of the door, I utter the words I told myself I never would. “Where are you going?”
He stops in the frame and looks back at me. His face is an unreadable mask. Two seconds of nothingness pass. Just as I’m about to ask again, he pops the cigar back into his mouth and leaves.
I’m rooted to the spot as the three men walk into the late afternoon. I can’t move. The engine of the Hummer fires up. I will him not to leave, to come back and say he was only fooling with me in a horrible, sick way, but the gear kicks in and the tires crunch over the gravel. I follow the sound with my ears while my heart beats much louder in my chest. When the sound disappears, I still stand there.
Why?
Because I didn’t tell him I wanted to be exclusive?
Is this some kind of twisted lesson?
Slowly, life flows back into my body until my pulse beats with hurt and anger. I’m shivering in my dusty clothes, standing alone in the big, quiet reception hall and looking a mess while he, the man to whom I’ve just pledged my heart, is going out with his friends to have fun. The kind of fun they’re going for makes my stomach burn with acid. It’s too late to protect myself. I’ve already given my heart away.