His to Take (Wicked Lovers 9)

nothing to me but a quick fix for my PR problem. And it’s total, utter bullshit.”

“I don’t think so.” Tears trembled in her eyes as she held up his phone. “I read the text she sent you.”

Oh, shit. “Bristol—”

“Not a word, you snake. You can’t deny this.” She sniffled. “When I came in to talk, your phone was ringing. I didn’t think and I grabbed it to answer, but I was too late. Before I put it down, her text appeared. She told you to propose because I would be perfect for your image rehab.”

“You’ve got this wrong.”

“I don’t think so.” She stood, fists balls, face flushing with anger. “You lied to me. You used me. All your pretty words…”

“That’s not how it happened. I’d already proposed when she sent that message.”

“No. She sent it hours before your little impassioned speech.”

“I was asleep when she sent that message,” he pointed out.

She scoffed. “Or you pretended to be.”

“Seriously?” He stood and stared down at her, water dripping from his hair. He swiped it away with an impatient hand. “You think I would flat-out lie to you after I know what you’ve been through? After I’ve poured out my heart to you?”

“I think you have a career to preserve and millions of fans to make happy. Who cares about my feelings when all that is at stake?”

“I do. If I didn’t, why would I have jumped in to help you save face in front of your family the night we met? Why would I have chased Hayden off? Why would I do my best to tell you how special you are? Why would I have bothered to get to know you or tell you I love you? If all I wanted was to improve my fucking image, I could have paid someone a hundred times over to pretend to be my fiancée.”

She had to see that logic. He’d been in far worse PR scrapes—the time with the three hookers in Rio came to mind—and hadn’t resorted to a fake wedding. Didn’t Bristol get that if he wanted a facade, he could find one anywhere?

“I don’t know.” She jumped up and paced. “I don’t understand anything. It’s all happening too fast and the timing is a bit too coincidental. I can’t…” Bristol shook her head, plopping his phone onto the glass table. It pinged and rattled as she headed for the door. “I need to think.”

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“Away.” She sobbed and sniffled.

“You’re leaving?” he marched after her. “Don’t do this. Honey, I meant every word I said. I really do love you.”

She wrenched the door open and paused outside the threshold, then turned back to him with tears in her eyes. “I love you, too. And that’s what hurts the most. I don’t know if you’re the love of my life…or my biggest mistake.”

Before he could say a word, she slammed the door behind her. He would have given chase, but he wore only a towel. By the time he dressed, she’d be long gone. Already, he heard her footsteps pounding down the stairs, then across the wooden subfloor of the stock room. A door slammed. He looked out the window, watching her flee to her car and drive away.

“Well, fuck.” He pounded a fist into the door, then grabbed his phone and reread Candia’s text. Yeah, that would look bad out of context. Damn it.

Jesse sighed. He wanted to be pissed but he understood her reservations. Trust was hard for her after Hayden had screwed her over so thoroughly. Jesse knew she had no way of knowing the man he’d been without her, and he wasn’t sure how to prove that he couldn’t be more serious about their marriage. But he had to start thinking fast because he didn’t intend to lose her.

Chapter Eight

With a sinking dread, Bristol parked down the street from her mother’s yellow Victorian and crawled out of her crappy compact. Tuesday evening dinner, and clearly she was one of the last to arrive since everyone else’s cars lined the crumbling tar road on both sides.

She closed the door and leaned against the vehicle, head bowed, and let out a rough breath. Might as well end this circus. The sooner she told everyone that “Jamie” had ditched her, the sooner she could start living with the label of Lewisville’s sad sack ho-bag/spinster and get back to her small apartment where she’d see Jesse everywhere and wonder again if she’d been stupid to run him off.

From the direction of her mother’s house, Jayla came sprinting across the wide, open yard. “Have you heard from him?”

Bristol had no doubt which “him” her bestie was referring to. “No. Nothing.”

After their argument, she’d left, taking a ride over to the Sonic Drive-In east of Lewisville, in the town of Stamps. A milkshake and a good cry later, she’d headed back to her apartment, ready to work things through. Jesse—and every trace of him—had been gone.

Only then did she realize that she didn’t have his number. And it wasn’t as if she could simply hit up his website or Facebook page and leave a comment that read, Hey, Jesse proposed to me. Could you tell him I want to talk so he should call me?

Jayla curled an arm around her. “I know you thought you loved him but…maybe him leaving so abruptly was his way of admitting that the jig is up.”

“Yeah.” Admitting that possibility seemed to take all of her breath. After that, she didn’t have any air for the rest of her body. Her shoulders slumped. She felt half dead inside. Last night, she’d had to change the sheets before she could sleep because they smelled like him.

And his absence had torn her in two.

“It’ll get better,” her friend promised.

“It’s just…he defended himself so vehemently. He swore that he loved me and wanted to get married. He said I was trying to make matters of the heart logical, and when I was drowning in my banana cream pie milkshake, I kind of wondered if he was right. I still do.”

“Hang in there.” Jayla hugged her, and Bristol reveled in her friend’s embrace for a silent moment. The woman might not be her biological sibling, but she was the sister of her heart. Bristol felt blessed every day to have her.

“I’ll try. Thanks.”

“I’m glad you’re here. I might have mentioned to Presleigh that Hayden came to see you after church on Sunday. Apparently, he told her he was going home to take a ‘nap.’” Jayla held up air quotes.

“He only stayed a few minutes, and nothing happened, except that he behaved like an ass.”

“That’s nothing new,” Jayla drawled.

“Nope. Besides, he’d been to see Corey before me.” Or that’s what he’d said. “He probably spent most of his time there.”

“What?” Jayla pulled a disapproving face. “Corey left on Sunday morning to go meet that girl he met on the Internet, the one who lives in Arkadelphia.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. Maybe Hayden did, too.” She shrugged.

“Or he remembered that Corey’s lonely little sister quit University of Arkansas and moved back home.”

Bristol wanted to say that Hayden wouldn’t cheat on Presleigh…but she knew firsthand that he totally would.

“Whatever happened on Sunday, Presleigh is having one hell of a righteous snit right now. Hayden is trying to suck up but…”

“He’s terrible at it.”

“You know that’s right.” Jayla shook her head.

Bristol had to grin. She could just picture five-foot-two, eyes-of-blue Presleigh’s tizzy. Then she tried to imagine self-absorbed Hayden struggling to grasp why his fiancée might be upset. She rolled her eyes.

“Well, that’s something to look forward to.” Because Bristol certainly wasn’t eager for the rest of dinner and having to explain to everyone that her “boyfriend” had left. “Let’s get this over with.”

Jayla turned and started leading her toward the party. “I saw on one of the entertainment websites today that Jesse attended his bandmate’s funeral this morning. He spoke. It was really touching.”

Yeah, she’d look that right up on YouTube. Not. Well, all right…she probably would. “I’m glad he went. I think he needed that closure.”

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nbsp; And maybe that would enable him to start the rest of his life with a clean slate so he could find a way to be happy. Bristol wanted that for him more than anything.

As she and Jayla crossed the yard together and opened her mother’s bright-white front door, the wreath of silk daisies nearly bapped her in the face and stirred up a little cloud of dust. But as soon as she heard the shouting from inside, the sneeze burning in her nose dissipated.

“I’m going to kill you,” a man growled on the far side of the foyer wall, seemingly from inside the kitchen.

Bristol didn’t recognize that voice. She whirled on Jayla, her gaze asking if she knew who was making the threat.

Her friend shrugged.

“Wait a minute.” She recognized that insistent voice. Hayden’s pal, Corey.

Jayla absently smacked the front door shut, then grabbed her arm to haul her toward the action so they didn’t miss anything.

“Was this going on when you came out to get me?” Bristol whispered.

“No, girl. If it had been, you would have been on your own. You know how to find the door.” Jayla grinned.

Together, they rounded the corner to find a crowd gathered and Hayden up in Corey’s face, his shirt in her ex-boyfriend’s fists. “How the hell could you do this to me?”

Do what? Bristol couldn’t tell by looking at the two of them.

Then Presleigh ran across the room, tear-splattered mascara running down her face. “Bris… Help me.”

Automatically, she opened her arms to her younger sister, who crashed into her and began sobbing anew. Presleigh held her tightly, all but cutting off Bristol’s breath. Absently, she stroked her sibling’s blonde curls and slanted Jayla a confused glance.

“Now, boys…” Her mother tried to step in. “Let’s talk this out.”

Hayden snarled at Linda Mae. “Butt out.”

Her mother jumped back with a startled gasp and a hand over her mouth.

Corey looked around the crowded kitchen as if frantic for a lifeline. No one came to his rescue.

“What’s the matter?” Bristol murmured to her sister.

Presleigh stared up at her with big blue eyes, swimming in angst. “I’m pregnant.”

Hadn’t Hayden said two days ago that she was a virgin waiting for her wedding night? Bristol frowned.

“Why is Hayden mad at Corey? Did he tell everyone about the baby before you were ready?”

“No.” She gulped then hiccupped. “Corey is the father.”

When Presleigh dropped her gaze in shame, shock slid through Bristol. She snapped her stare around to Jayla, who looked equally stunned.

“When did you find out?” she murmured to her sister.

“This morning. Hayden came over to talk to me. I…” She shook her head. “I wasn’t thinking. I left the home pregnancy test in the trash can. And he saw it.”

Holy cow! Talk about the unexpected… Bristol’s head reeled.

“When did this thing with Corey start?”

“When Hayden started screwing my sister about three months ago,” Corey cut in, jerking away from Hayden’s raised fist with a glower of his own. “Sarah came crying to me one night that Hayden wouldn’t break it off with Presleigh even though he hooked up with her almost every day. I knew talking to Hayden wouldn’t do me any good, so I called Presleigh.”

“I didn’t believe it at first, but when he started going over to Corey’s house a lot when Corey wasn’t there, I knew. Besides, Sarah always shot me mean glances and had hickies on her neck.”

Bristol grabbed her sister by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “Why didn’t you call off the wedding?”

“At first, I hoped I could turn it around. Then…I kind of fell for Corey. But the invitations were already out and the dress was ordered…and I was confused.”

“All this time you kept telling me that you were waiting so your first time could be on our wedding night, you were sneaking around behind my back and giving it up to my best friend.”

“Don’t go there, asshole!” Presleigh charged toward him.

Bristol held her sister back. She’d rarely seen the girl raise her voice and never heard her swear, much less see her with a violent tendency.

Jayla reared back and did a double take, too.

“You started kissing on me while you were still dating my sister,” Presleigh accused. “Everyone tried to tell me you’re a manwhore, but I didn’t want to listen. When I found out you were sleeping with Sarah, I got mad. Then I got drunk.”

“And Corey helped you out by taking your virginity?” he asked snidely.

Her sister tore off her engagement ring and threw it at him. It bounced off his chest and pinged to the floor. “To hell with you! He’s twice the man you’ll ever be.”

“How do you know? You never tried me.” Hayden gave her a cocky smirk.

“Shut your mouth,” Corey insisted, curling his hand into a beefy fist and punching Hayden in the nose. “You’ll never deserve her.”

Bristol resisted the urge to clap. Instead, she watched Hayden stumble back against the refrigerator door. Corey ran toward Presleigh, arms outstretched. He kissed her, grabbing onto her as if she was the most precious thing in the world to him. She melted against him as if he was her knight in shining armor.

What the hell?

With a sharp elbow, Jayla jabbed Bristol in the ribs. “You had no idea?”

“None.” She’d kind of been avoiding them both after their betrayal. She’d have to learn to forgive her sister someday. Hayden… She smiled. Looked like he was history.

Linda Mae stepped forward again and picked up Presleigh’s engagement ring from the floor. “I think you should be going.”

He took one look at Presleigh and Corey, still sucking face in the middle of the commotion, then gritted his teeth. “Gladly.”

On his way out, he bumped Bristol’s shoulder as if he wanted to punish her, too. She’d had more than enough of him and grabbed the annoying jerk by the collar. “I’m sorry. You were going to say that, right? I know an apology must have been on the tip of your tongue. Because you certainly couldn’t be so rude as to bump me on purpose when you’re the cheating bastard who left me for my own sister, then ditched her for an easy lay. Tell me you aren’t that big of a rat bastard.”

Hayden stared as if poised to say something but then reconsidered. “Bristol, what’s gotten into you?”

“A whole lot of anger. Thanks to you, I was stupid enough to let myself lose—”

The doorbell cut her off, and Bristol fumed that she didn’t get a chance to lay into Hayden about how he’d done a number on her ability to trust and most likely contributed to the reason she no longer had Jesse beside her.

But Hayden decided he’d been saved by the bell and darted away when she loosened her grip to peer around the kitchen wall, back into the foyer. He sprinted out as if someone had set his ass on fire.

Standing next to her, Jayla laughed. Corey and Presleigh came up for air.

Linda Mae looked on. “It’s not too late for that June wedding. We’ll simply have another groom.”

Bristol tried not to roll her eyes. Since it seemed as if no one else was interested in answering the door, she used it to make her escape, striding around the corner to find Hayden hustling down the walk and a very polished brunette in a gray business suit standing at the portal.

Her heart stuttered. Bristol hesitated, staring at the stranger. “Can I help you?”

Please let her have some connection to Jesse.