I’d seen him multiple times since the day that Tegan had proposed and still nothing.
He didn’t remember me, I couldn’t tell him who we were to each other, and every time he stared at me like he didn’t know me, my heart would break just a little more.
I knew I was making a mistake with Tegan, but honestly, I kept hoping that Rafe would suddenly remember everything we had and stop me.
Yet he didn’t.
And tomorrow I was supposed to be marrying a man that I didn’t love.
It was stupid, childish, and the worst decision of my life.
Yet I kept wishing that Rafe would come around. That he’d remember. But it never freaking happened.
And it sucked.
I was so stupid.
But I wouldn’t give up hope. I wouldn’t.
My last-ditch effort had been sending him a freakin’ invitation to the wedding…and then he’d RSVP’d. For two.
Him and his plus one—his fiancé.
Which led to now.
Tomorrow was the wedding.
In twelve short hours, I would be marrying a man that I didn’t love.
I would be forever attached to someone because I kept thinking that if Rafe knew that I was marrying another man, surely his male instincts would kick in and he’d remember that he wanted me.
Remember that I was the only woman for him.
“Janie.”
I looked up to find my father staring at me like he knew the dilemma that was currently working its way through my mind.
“Yeah?” I croaked.
“If you have even an inkling of a doubt, you should stop this,” he stated.
I looked down at the table.
My problem was that if I couldn’t have Rafe, I didn’t see why I would ever want anybody else.
Anybody would always be second best to him.
Always.
So, what did it matter who I married when that person wasn’t ever going to be Rafe?
“What are you ordering?” I changed the subject.
I’d never felt like I was making a terrible decision—at least truly—until that very second when I saw my father’s face fall and fill with disappointment.
***
James
“Who gives this woman?” the preacher called, looking directly at me.
I looked over at my wife, Shiloh, and stared.
She shook her head, telling me without words not to put voice to the concerns that were rolling through me.
This all had happened too fast.
She wasn’t supposed to grow up this fast. She wasn’t supposed to get married. She wasn’t supposed to marry someone that I didn’t approve of. She wasn’t supposed to leave me!
Which would be what she was doing.
Janie didn’t know that her husband and I despised each other. She didn’t know that by marrying him, she was betraying me.
And I would forever put that mask on each time he walked in the room if it made her happy.
The thing was, I wasn’t sure that she was happy.
Not with the way her eyes kept straying to the twelfth row, fourth seat in. Not with the way she kept her eyes on me more than she did her husband.
Not with the way this whole entire thing just felt like the worst possible idea in the universe.
“I do,” I said softly.
So softly, in fact, that the preacher had to strain to hear what I was saying.
Tegan reached to take Janie’s hand, and it took everything I had inside of me to let her go.
Janie frowned as she stared at me with worry in her eyes, causing me to take a deep breath and take a step back.
Taking another breath, I turned on my heels and walked to my chair, not looking up again until it was done.
***
Rafe
My gut felt like I had a lead balloon in it as I stared at Janie.
She had on a white dress—something I wouldn’t have expected from her. It wasn’t her style.
The dress was beautiful, yes, but she didn’t look the least bit comfortable in it. Nor did she look happy to be marrying the man at her side.
The man who looked as if he was holding onto her for dear life.
His hand was clenched around hers, and I could see her skin bunched up from where he’d gripped her hand so hard.
Janie looked at me twice, and each time she did my body felt like she was jerking at invisible strings attached to my heart.
She wanted me to do something. She was waiting.
I had a feeling, at least.
Each time I contemplated standing up. Each time I had to talk myself down.
She was marrying a cop. She was better off where she was going to be.
She’d have the picket fence, two-story house with the dog and the kids.
She’d have everything she ever wanted. Everything that I couldn’t offer her.
What did I have to offer that Tegan didn’t? Nothing, that’s what.
I had a car and a bike that were paid for. I had a few other safe houses that I never lived in—one that I hadn’t even been to in well over a year. Then there was my job—a job that continuously put me into dangerous situations.
I did stuff to some people that didn’t like me meddling in their business.
And mostly, I was just making fucking excuses.
It all boiled down to the fact that I was goddamn pissed.
I was pissed that she was hiding something from me. I was pissed that nobody would tell me what was going on and why I felt this connection with her.
I was upset that she was treating me like everybody else.
I knew we had something, yet I felt betrayed that she was hiding it.
My stomach roiled when I heard the preacher ask, “Are there any objections?”
I got up calmly, walked down the aisle, and straight out of the church, not once looking back.
***
Janie
It took one single look at him, seeing the betrayal in his eyes directed at me, that made me realize that Rafe was gone out of my life for good.
Chapter 13
Author note: I, Lani Lynn Vale, solemnly swear that there is NO CHEATING in this book...but looks are deceiving. So hang with me.
Rafe
A door banged shut one down the hall from mine, and I automatically looked up.
Then I froze.
Son. Of. A. bitch.
Seriously, could my life get any worse?
That, I thought, as I walked out of the wedding a few hours ago was before I heard Elspeth hastily clopping along behind me.
Now, I realized, that life could, in fact, get worse.
How, you ask?
By the woman that you couldn’t stop thinking about getting a hotel room not just in the same hotel as you, but also on the same floor. Right next fucking door to your own.
That would’ve blown big donkey balls if I’d had to hear them all night.
I would have to leave.
I couldn’t be on the same floor right next door to her.
I just couldn’t.
I took a step in her direction, then stopped myself.
Another step.
Two.
Three.
This was the worst idea I’d ever had. The worst.
Elspeth was in the hotel room that I’d rented for the night. Where was I?
Well, I was following the girl.
I’d seen her out of pure happenstance. I’d been in the hallway trying to get a hold of my sister. There had to be a reason that girl getting married to someone else hurt so fucking bad. Yet, again, my sister admitted that she knew nothing about ‘this Janie girl’ and to stop calling and asking the same question over and over.
And she was still in her goddamn wedding dress.
The only thing that had changed between then and now was the hair. It wasn’t up in the complicated bun that I’d hated. Now
it was down around her face, cascading down her shoulders to about mid back. God, with her hair down? She was by far the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
And the moment I saw her my gut clenched.
Fuck.
I took her in all over again, just as I’d done when she’d walked down the aisle, then stood next to that schmuck who was ruining my life for reasons I didn’t understand.
Her dress was a little more wrinkled than when she was standing at the altar, almost as if she’d been sitting down with it scrunched up around her waist.
The tiara that’d been in her hair was gone, and the shoes were as well. Her makeup was scrubbed off, and her eyes looked tired.
The ice bucket looked exceptionally large in her hands, making me realize that she was a small woman. I’d had my ice bucket in my hands earlier in order to read the words on it and had thought it small. But in her hands? No. It was big.
Which would mean she’d be small in my hands, too.
Her hips were round, her breasts perfect, and those lips!
The door slammed to the vending room, and I moved.
I couldn’t tell you why. It was a compulsion. Something my body was practically screaming that I had to talk to her. I had to ask her why.
Why the hell I felt like I was drowning with no fucking way to ever tread water again.
Like my legs had chains that weighed me down.
Each time I looked at Elspeth, I felt fucking sick to my stomach. But when I looked at Janie? I felt like I could breathe again. At least until today, when I’d watched walk down the aisle to another man.
Ever since walking out? I couldn’t catch my breath. I just knew something was wrong. I’d missed something. Something pivotal, and it was eating me alive.
I pushed through the door of the vending machine room and came to a stop. She was standing there, ice bucket in hand, staring at the wall.
My stomach clenched, and I took a step forward, letting the door close behind me. The moment the soft click sounded in the room, she turned.
And when her eyes lit on me, her mouth fell open and her eyes welled with tears.
“Rafe,” she breathed.
Why couldn’t I fucking remember?
I knew deep in my heart that this woman meant something to me, but I couldn’t figure out why. Nobody would fucking tell me why.
I knew that my memory was affected. But I remembered everything else. Everything but her or anything that had happened in the last six months.
This woman meant something to me. She meant something big to me, and I would figure out why.
I took a menacing step forward and she froze, her eyes rounding and her mouth parting slightly.
“Tell me why my fucking heart hurts,” I ordered.
Janie swallowed, the delicate muscles or her throat working.
“I…” she started, but then stopped. “I can’t.”
“Why?” I took another step forward.
“Because you’re engaged.”
Why did that matter?
“What does that have to do with why my heart hurts?” I took another step forward.
She licked her lips, and my patience snapped.
I was lurching forward and reaching for her in the next heartbeat.
She didn’t resist me. She didn’t fight. Didn’t scream and tell me no.
The minute my mouth was close enough, I took her into my arms and slammed my lips onto hers.
The minute I did, she started to struggle. Not to get away, though, but to get closer.
“I don’t care anymore,” I growled, pulling away from her lips only slightly. “You’re mine.”
Then there was no more time for talking.
She went crazy, biting, licking and sucking. Her teeth bit into my lower lip, causing my hips to jerk. Her fingernails dug into my shoulders. Her gasp stole my breath.
I’d give her every single minuscule drop of oxygen from my lungs if it meant this moment never ended.
I needed her with a ferocity that was scary.
My hands went to her lower hips and I started to yank up the multiple layers of her wedding dress.
There were seven layers. Count those. Seven fucking layers. Each one more light and slippery than the one before.
But I didn’t give up. Not that I thought I ever could.
I knew this was bad. This went against every fucking moral code I had. Every single one of them.
I had a fake fiancée that I was ‘supposed’ to care about in my room. I assumed she had her brand-new husband in hers.
Yet, neither one of us cared.
“Tell me,” I ordered.
She shut me up with a kiss.
I finished yanking up her layers and fisted the panties covering her lush ass. With a sharp tug, they were gone. In shreds at her feet.
The minute that scrap of fabric hit the floor, she was against me. My hands went to her ass, and I growled into her ear.
“Pull my cock out of my jeans,” I ordered.
She didn’t waste time.
She struggled with all the fucking material around her waist, but she wouldn’t be deterred.
Thirty seconds after my order was issued, she had my cock free, and I was slamming into her.
Everything about that feeling was right. Her smell. The way she fisted around my cock. The tightness. The slippery mess we were making. The way my balls pressed perfectly against her ass.
Every. Single. Fucking. Thing.
And, moments after that thought occurred to me, my memory returned with a vengeance.
Everything came back to me in a rush. Everything.
Our years we spent playing cat and mouse. The last nine months. Our first kiss outside her gate. The first time I felt myself inside of her. The way I came so hard I thought I’d died. Then began the betrayal.
Me losing my memory. Elspeth saying she was my fiancée when she most certainly wasn’t. And then Janie moving on when she found out—even though they were lies. Big fat fucking lies.
Janie finding someone. Janie moving on despite her obvious love for me.
And her not saying a goddamn word about us.
My kind hand turned punishing. My anger at her. At the situation. At Elspeth and at her stupid fucking husband.
***
Janie
“Why?” he grated out. “Why would you lie? To me?”
And, just as suddenly as he’d been there, he was gone.
I had his release and mine dripping down my leg, and I couldn’t get my head on straight.
But one thing I was absolutely sure of. This wasn’t the end. He knew something. Had figured something out. I could see it in his eyes, and I would never make the same mistake twice.
Today, just now, something happened. He became mine, and I became his. And there was nothing either one of us could do about it.
Chapter 14
I like when you laugh. Your tits jiggle. Giggle Jiggle Tits.
-Janie to Kayla
Janie
“You have two seconds to get the fuck out of my hotel room before I throw you out myself,” I heard Rafe’s voice raise on the other side of the door.
Lucky for me the door hadn’t closed all the way, and as I pushed through it moments later, I realized that Rafe had done that on purpose.
I found out why when the door opened, and he pointed at me with his finger, though he wasn’t actually looking at me.
“Get out. Now,” Rafe repeated.
I saw Elspeth standing there looking upset. “But why?”
She hadn’t seen me yet, and before she could, I backed away and hurried toward my own door.
My door was actually connected to his suite, meaning if I went into my own room, I’d be able to hear everything that they were saying. Especially with the way their voices were raised.
I slid my key card into the slot and threw the door open to my room, hurrying to the door that separated
my suite from Rafe’s.
How in the hell we’d gotten two rooms directly next to each other, I did not know. But I thanked God that we did.
“Out. Now,” Rafe repeated.
Moments later, I heard the door slam, and Rafe start pacing.
I bit my lip and scooched closer to the door, pressing my ear to it.
Then he started talking, I assume, to someone on the phone.
“I hope you know that you just fucked me over so spectacularly that I don’t think I can ever forgive you,” Rafe said. “If there was one thing in this world that you could have done in this whole nightmare to screw me over, not telling me about her was it. I’ve wasted months. Months, Raven. You’ve had so many chances to tell me that I can’t even begin to count, yet you kept quiet. Goodbye.”
Then I heard something hard hit the floor next to the door, and I realized he’d thrown his phone.
I hurried to the door of my room, peeked through the peephole, and grinned.
Elspeth was pulling her suitcase behind her, angrily looking over her shoulder as she did.
Her glare at the door made it clear that she was pissed.
I waited until the elevator doors closed on her before I opened my own door and headed out.
My hand was hovering over the wood of his door when I came to my senses.
This wasn’t a good idea. Not at all.
He may have remembered, but I was a freakin’ mess.
I’d left…
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
I startled and looked up, finding the door open.
When had he opened it, and how had he done it without making any noise?
“Uhhh,” I hesitated. “You shouldn’t have done what?”
“Told her to leave.”
“Why?”
And why the hell was my heart hurting?
“Because I had a job going, and I need her exactly where I had her,” he answered. “If she’s not there, she’ll stop informing on the man I have you keeping a cyber eye on, and this case will slip through my fingers. I’m so fucking close I can taste it, but I couldn’t stand her lies anymore.”
“What lies?” I breathed.
I’d get to the job part of it later.
“The lie that she told the day at the hospital when I couldn’t fucking remember anything to tell her differently,” he said, his eyes on me.
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