by Leddy Harper
The urge to run and hide was strong, but so was my determination to get answers and a divorce, so I could cash my fifty-thousand-dollar check and be on my merry way. “Let me get this straight…you come up to my room, see that I’d been drinking, partake in more drinking with me, then we go for a walk, come back, to which I throw myself at you and practically beg you to deflower me. We do our thing, and just before we drift off, I confess to feeling unwanted, and then what? We cuddle and fall asleep?”
“Basically. But it wasn’t like you just blurted it out. We were talking about the future. You had mentioned that it wouldn’t be long before your mom started in on you about getting married. And to be honest, my first thought—actually, more like worry—was that you had jumped into bed with me out of desperation. The only reason I didn’t believe that was because you curled into me and said I made you feel worthy.” His eyes locked with mine, and it took everything in me to not choke up at his words, wishing I could remember any part of it. “You told me I made you feel like you weren’t disposable.”
I blinked a few times, if nothing more than to regain my composure before stating my purpose for coming. To remind myself why I was here in the first place. I refused to fall victim to Holden York again. Apparently, the last time it happened, I became his wife. If I did it again, I could end up bearing his child. “Whatever. I don’t recall that conversation.”
“Of course you don’t, Janelle.” He dejectedly fell back into the recliner, leaning his weight toward one side like a young, arrogant king sitting on his throne. He cocked his head and placed his thumb beneath his chin, his forefinger practically digging into his naturally hollow cheek, and the others resting beneath his sexy, plump bottom lip. “You’ve made that very clear. I get it. I took advantage of you that night without ever knowing it. I thought we shared something, only to find out I basically stole it from you. But thanks so much for pointing it out…yet again.”
His anger bit into me, and it took a minute to regain my bearings.
“You’re the one who ran off and ignored me for the last five years.” I leaned forward in my seat, as if needing to get closer to him, showcasing my own frustrations that I’d kept buried since that morning in Vegas. I hadn’t realized how much of an impact that had on my outlook on relationships until right now, encountering it for the first time. “It was like you wanted nothing to do with me once you left my hotel room that morning. I had whiplash. We were friends, then we fuck and you want nothing to do with me.”
“Don’t…” He held out his hand in a gesture to physically stop me, his expression hard and full of ire, maybe even disgust. His breathing turned ragged and he held me hostage with his piercing, hateful stare. Even though his body went rigid, he remained in the same position in the chair. “You kicked me out of your room. And within a month of us coming home, you ran off to college. You are the one who has barely shown your face here during the last five years. So if you have whiplash…it’s all your fault, baby.” With each “you” he spewed, he jabbed his finger in my direction.
And I swear I felt each one of them stab my chest.
Justin had ditched me only four months before Matt’s wedding. That means four months separated the time I’d gotten tossed to the side by one guy after not sleeping with him, and being forgotten about by another—after sleeping with him. I wasn’t often an unhappy person. I didn’t typically feel bad for myself or suffer from low self-esteem. However, after those two life-changing blows, both by guys I thought were important to me, I’d emotionally boarded up my heart. That was the point in time when I threw my hands in the air and decided to live for me and not care about how men viewed me. I’d been in one more relationship since then, which only lasted five months before I caught my roommate licking him like a lollipop. That was pretty much the reassurance I needed to know relationships weren’t for me.
“You pulled away from me, Janelle. You pushed me away. You told me to leave. Or do you not remember that, either?” He now sat forward, both of us leaning toward each other with a coffee table between us. “What did you want me to do? I’d slept with my best friend’s little sister. I took her virginity, and she didn’t remember a damn second of it. I felt like a creep. Like I’d somehow conned you into bed. Like I’d gotten you drunk just to sleep with you. When the truth was…it was all your idea!” He scrubbed his hand down his face before continuing in a much softer, more remorseful tone. “I knew you’d been drinking, but I swear to you that I didn’t have the slightest clue you were as lit as you were. You walked, talked, and acted perfectly fine. You don’t remember your first time, and it’s all my fault. I was angry with myself and didn’t care to be around you, because all it did was remind me of the worst night of my life.”
His words were like a dull knife ripping through every layer of skin on its quest to shred my heart into unrecognizable pieces. “The w-worst night of your life?” Appalled, confused, and incredibly hurt, I spewed my question, the words burning my tongue like acid. “If it was so horrible, why haven’t you done anything to annul the marriage?”
Holden froze, only his chest heaving while the rest of his body turned to stone. It was clear he hadn’t expected to hear that accusation, to bring up the union I had no recollection of. “So, that’s why you’re here. Makes sense, but how’d you find out about it? I know you didn’t suddenly remember that and nothing else.”
I couldn’t help but blow out a huff of disbelief and shake my head. “Really, Holden? That’s your response? As it turns out, we’ve been legally married for five years, yet we’ve barely spoken or seen each other since, and you’re questioning how I found out? Were you ever going to tell me we’re husband and wife?”
He covered his face with his hands and sighed before dropping his arms. “You can believe me or not, but I actually planned on telling you when you came back. If you came back. If you didn’t, then I would’ve found some other way to let you know, but considering part of the deal we made when we got married was that you’d go off to college and then come home and live with me, I guess I kinda figured I’d wait until then.”
“That was the deal? I don’t get it. What benefit do you get out of being married?”
“Tax breaks.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “You never told me we are legally married because you didn’t want to give up your tax status? Is this some kind of joke?” My voice got higher and higher with each question. “I feel like I’m in the middle of a horrible prank, and everyone’s in on it but me.”
He resumed his relaxed, arrogant-king position in the recliner, coming across as the sexy kind of confident. “Now really…how’d you find out? You clearly didn’t remember, so what was it?”
“I was informed when I tried to get married—to someone else.”
Had I not been staring right at him, I would’ve missed it. I wouldn’t have witnessed the slight drop in his shoulders, the split-second break in eye contact, or the falter in his breathing. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he’d been emotionally sucker punched. But I knew that couldn’t be right. Maybe at one point in my life, many years ago, I could’ve romanticized the situation and convinced myself that Holden and I had a chance. There was even a brief moment after Vegas that I’d grown lost in the idea of being with him, falling for him like I’d dreamed of most of my life. But his intentional avoidance cured that possibility real quick.
Holden York didn’t want me the way I’d once pined for him.
No matter how much thought I’d put into his reaction to me the morning after, I had never been able to come up with answers. It was something I probably wouldn’t ever understand, and I’d given up on figuring it out long ago. If it’d meant anything to him, he would’ve done something about it.
The only explanation I could think of—and the one I’d convinced myself of over the years—was that he felt responsible for taking my virginity. I was his best friend’s sister. He’d known me since I was six. There were times he’d acted protective over
me, both when I was younger and again during high school. There was also the awkward stage of life we all suffered through when I apparently annoyed him and Matt to no end. Then again, they were busy with the popular crowd at school and had just started driving on their own, so they wanted nothing to do with me. I couldn’t fault either of them for avoiding me.
But the one thing that hurt more than anything was the end of my relationship—friendship—with Holden.
In April, I’d sat on his couch and cried to him. I told him things I couldn’t even tell my own brother, things about my relationship with Justin. Things no guy wanted to hear about his little sister. But Holden had listened. And not once did he make any move to leave me in the pursuit of kicking my ex’s ass. Later, he’d admitted to finding Justin and having a rather intense conversation with him, but when I needed him, he was there. Wholeheartedly. Both physically and mentally.
Then, two weeks later, on the night of my prom, Holden was the one who’d taken me to binge on ice cream. Afterward, he took me to an empty softball field. The lights were on and lit up everything around us. However, instead of the fluorescent bulbs highlighting our every move, we basked in the silver light of the moon hanging above. And right there, in the grass, he blared horrible music from his speakers and gave me the most memorable prom of my life. The best part being the respect he’d shown at the end of the night.
Over the few months between then and Vegas, we’d grown even closer. It wasn’t like we suddenly hung out all the time, but he’d occasionally check in with me to see how I was doing, knowing how much the breakup had affected me, and how I tended to stuff everything deep down and keep it hidden. Holden was the only one capable of pulling it all to the surface and making me feel okay again.
That was what I’d missed the most over these last five years.
There had been plenty of times I could’ve used his support.
But I didn’t have it. Or him.
I didn’t really care that I’d lost my virginity and couldn’t remember it. And I certainly wasn’t bothered by the fact I’d lost it to Holden, especially since I’d spent the better part of my teenage years daydreaming of the night I would offer it up to him on a silver platter, on our wedding night, with candles and rose petals decorating a lavish hotel room and music playing softly to set the mood.
Ironically, the reality wasn’t that far off.
As it turned out, it was on our wedding night, and we were in a hotel room. From the sounds of it, I’d more than offered it up on a silver platter, practically begging him to take it, if his recounting of events were accurate. And even if it wasn’t, I didn’t have a leg to stand on to refute his claims. There could’ve been candles and rose petals—hell, we could’ve even had Adam Levine himself serenading us from a corner for all I knew.
None of that bothered me, other than my inability to remember being with him.
My God, I’d spent eleven years infatuated with the guy. I even had a binder filled with our wedding plans, all the way down to the napkins with our initials embroidered in gold thread. Spending the night with him wasn’t the issue. My already broken heart had taken yet another beating when he’d vanished. When I had to fly back home next to his empty seat with the mental snapshot of his sorrowful eyes after he learned I had no memory of the night before, it haunted every second of that flight.
Then my bruised and battered heart shattered weeks later when we all gathered at Matt’s new house. I’d prepared myself to crush the tension we’d had between us since Vegas, eager and ready to move forward—even if that meant we had to pretend he didn’t know what I looked like naked.
Only he never showed up.
Feeling a little beaten down, my ego slightly bruised, I’d made a few more attempts to talk to him so we could clear the air. But either the timing was wrong, too many people were around, or he played Houdini at whatever event it was. By the end of summer, on my way out of town for college, I’d officially given up.
That was what had hurt me the most.
He hadn’t cared enough to make things right.
“You’re…you’re getting married?” His question sounded forced, pained, like he’d swallowed shards of glass before asking. “Since when? To who? Do your parents know? Matt never said anything.”
I wanted to believe he was hurt. I wanted nothing more than to hear the pain and shock in his tone and convince myself it was caused by the thought of my being with someone else. Even though I knew that wasn’t remotely true. Couldn’t have been. He had to have known I wasn’t celibate over the last five years, and not once did he make any effort to claim me. To tell me his wants and desires for me.
They say a picture speaks a thousand words.
Well, so does silence.
And his silence was heard loud and clear.
“It’s really none of your business, now is it, Holden?” It was my turn to give him as much attitude as I could muster. “Until five days ago, I wasn’t even aware we were married. You—for whatever reason—kept that from me. And now you want to question the status of my relationship? What right do you have?”
I knew I needed to cool it before he started to get suspicious. Truth be told, I didn’t want him knowing anything about Connor, or about the prize money. If he knew, then my brother would know, then my entire family would find out, and they’d never let me hear the end of it.
“It’s just surprising, is all. I mean, you haven’t been in a real relationship in years.”
“How would you know that?”
He tilted his head and gave me a dumbfounded expression complete with bored eyes and a disbelieving smirk. “Really? Your love life is your mom’s topic of conversation any chance she gets—or should I say, your lack of love life is all she ever complains about. It’s like she can’t live her own life until all her babies are married off and stable. So trust me, I get an earful on a weekly basis when I’m at your parents’ house for Sunday dinner.”
I had to replay his words to myself a few times to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood him. “You go to my parents’ house every Sunday for dinner?”
His eyes grew wide when he said, “Yeah,” as if my question was the most absurd thing he’d ever been asked. “Ever since Stacey moved home with her husband and kids, your mom has been hosting weekly Sunday gatherings. Everyone attends.”
Stacey was my second-oldest sister, and she’d moved back home a little over two years ago when her husband had been laid off. Dad had offered him a job to help them get back on their feet, but they never left. I was the last child to come home, and even though I had my reasons for staying away, I couldn’t help but feel slightly rejected after hearing how they were all so tight and close in my absence.
“How cozy of you to welcome yourself into my family.”
“Oh, Janelle.” He shook his head and tsked. “I’ve always been a part of your family. I was included a very long time ago. Don’t take your anger out on me—I’m not the one who kept you away. If you want to be mad at someone for being left out of the family circle, I have a mirror hanging in the bathroom, and you’re more than welcome to look in it.”
“What reason would I have to be mad?” I prayed I was able to mask the hurt I felt, because I really didn’t want him privy to my inner emotions. “Clearly, it doesn’t bother me that you and everyone else gets together every weekend behind my back, and this is the first I’ve heard about it.” I jutted my chin out as if I’d proven a point. Then I replayed my words—and noticed the smug look on his gorgeous face—and realized I hadn’t effectively hidden anything.
“What’s going on, Janelle?” Once again, he sat with his elbow on the armrest, his thumb beneath his chin, his forefinger along his cheekbone, and the others draped beneath his mouth…like the arrogant ass he seemed to have become. “Are you really getting married? And if so, where did this guy come from? Why does no one in your family know about him?”
I almost turned away. Almost. But a split second before I did that, I happened to se
e the shade of his greenish-grey eyes shift the slightest bit. It was a small shadow, so easy to miss. And for reasons my heart refused to explain, the emotion I caught filled me with excitement. Concern was what I’d seen. And not just any concern, but deep, passionate trepidation. It was unexpected, but so worth seeing.
“No one knows because I haven’t said anything. It’s all happened so fast, and I didn’t want to chance anyone scaring him away.”
“How fast? Wait—” He held out his hand and narrowed his gaze. “How long have you known him?”
“Almost two months.”
As if he hadn’t already shown signs of worry, my confession seemed to shock him into a state of panic, bordering on complete outrage. “Are you kidding me right now?” He shot out of the recliner and leaned over the coffee table between us, hovering over me. “You just met this kid two months ago, and you’re already getting married?”
“Yes. The sooner the better. So I need you to sign these divorce papers, please.” I turned to my purse on the couch next to me and pulled out an envelope. With a smug grin, I stood up and held it out to him.
He stared at it, then at me, then back at the offending manila envelope. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
“No. I’m not signing those. I’m not giving you a divorce.”
3
Holden
I stared at her, attempting to take everything in, because I couldn’t believe she was here. In my house. Even more disbelieving was that she’d come to ask me for a divorce…so she could marry someone else.
The thought made me sick. My stomach did flip-flops while I regarded her, taking note of her honey-colored hair, so much longer than it used to be. I could still remember how it smelled when she’d leaned against my shoulder while watching a movie together. The more I observed her, the more lost I became in her presence. Even though the sight of her made my stomach ache less, it made my chest ache even more.