Beautiful Sky

by Ashley Blake

  “Classes going okay?”

  “Yep, I have a ton of work to do, but nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Good. We can’t wait to see you in a couple of weeks.”

  “That’s kind of why I’m calling. Um, Jonathan invited me to go home with him for Thanksgiving.”

  She was silent for a minute and then she finally spoke.

  “He did? Are his parents okay with that?”

  “Yes, he asked them.”

  “So things must be good with you two.”

  “They are, mom. He told me he loved me.” I told her because I always shared big moments with my mom, and I wanted her to know that this wasn’t just a casual thing.

  “Oh sweetie, I’m so happy for you! Jonathan is such a nice young man. Well, I’ll check with Jay, but I’m okay with it, especially since we’ll see you at Christmas. But no spending Christmas with Jonathan, Skylar.”

  “I won’t mom, I promise, I’ll be home with you guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you!’

  “Well don’t thank me yet, I’ll check with Jay and call you later.”

  “Okay, mom. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay, bye honey.”

  I knew that she would be able to convince Jay to let me go, so I was already planning in my head which clothes I would bring as I walked back to my table. Just as I rounded the corner, I saw Barbi, tits first, coming toward me. She was wearing a super low cut black sweater, skin tight skinny jeans and tall black boots. The outfit would have been cute if the sweater wasn’t so low cut, and if someone else was wearing it. Is she glaring at me? What a ho-bag.

  I slapped on a fake smile and tolerated a conversation with her. She was a part of Jonathan’s family and he felt bad for her so I had to try to be nice, for him.

  “Hey Barbara.” I had to stick that in.

  “It’s Barbi and you know it Skylar.” She ground out the words and I may have even seen steam coming from her ears.

  “Oh, my bad. So, studying hard?”

  She snorted at me and turned up her nose as she tossed those cheap looking extensions over her shoulder. “It all comes pretty easily to me, so I don’t really have to study hard. I’m just here looking for Jonathan.”

  I could feel the smirk coming before it was too late to stop it. He won’t be here for hours. “Good luck with that.”

  I walked away from her leaving her looking confused and I didn’t care. I had just given up three minutes of my life that I would never get back and I had more important things to do. I shook off bimbo Barbi, shut off my phone and immersed myself in the books.

  My mom left a message a few hours later saying that Jay had also given the green light for Thanksgiving. I sat there for a minute and let it sink in: I was going to Jonathan Hunter’s house for Thanksgiving. This cannot really be my life right now.

  I told Katie at dinner that I would fill her in on the Jonathan stuff later, and after dinner I went back to the library. I spent a ton of time in the library so Katie knew that when I was deep in study mode she would have to wait to chat with me. I had to maintain a high GPA to keep my scholarship so I wasn’t going to let anything jeopardize that.

  Jonathan found me right on time and he set up camp across the table from me, in his normal spot.

  He winked and smiled at me. “It’s good to see you, beautiful.” The whisper was soft so that he wouldn’t disturb others around us.

  Have I mentioned that I still got butterflies around him? Yeah, they were going crazy.

  “It’s good to see you too. Hey, I talked to my mom and my parents said I can go home with you for Thanksgiving.”

  A huge grin spread across his face. “Really?” He practically shouted the word and disapproving shhhh’s came from every corner of the room. He widened his eyes and mouthed, ‘oops’, and brought his voice down to a whisper. “That is so awesome, I can’t wait for you to meet everyone else; we’re going to have so much fun Sky. You just made my night!”

  We chatted for a couple minutes longer and then we turned to the books. We packed up around midnight and Jonathan casually linked his fingers through mine as we waited for the elevator. When we stepped off of the elevator, the bane of my existence was staring right at us. Why can’t I get away from this girl?

  She looked from me to Jonathan and back to me and then narrowed her eyes as she looked down at our hands linked together.

  Take it all in, Barbi, he’s with me.

  She tried to hide it, but I could tell she was pissed.

  “Hey guys, um Jonathan, I’ve been calling you and looking for you all day.”

  “Sorry Barbs, I was swamped today. What’s up?”

  “My mom called and said our Thanksgiving trip to London is canceled because Ethan has to work, so we’re doing Thanksgiving at your place.”

  What?! I have to spend Thanksgiving with her? My mind went blank for a few seconds but I made myself focus on what she was yapping about.

  “She wanted me to check with you to see if I could just fly back home with you. If not, I have to book a flight.” She threw a pathetic pout in there at the end and it seemed to work on Jonathan.

  “Of course, Barbs, no problem!”

  Ugh, he was too nice to this girl and he was totally blind to what she was trying to do. But I saw it, and I wasn’t going to let her think she had everyone fooled.

  “Oh, well this will be fun!” I plastered an enormous fake grin on my face.

  The look of confusion on her face was priceless.

  Jonathan chimed in which made it even better.

  “Yeah, we’ll all fly together, it’ll be fun.”

  She looked back and forth between us, completely in the dark.

  “Am I missing something here?”

  “Oh, sorry, Barbara, I guess I forgot to mention it when I saw you earlier. Jonathan invited me to go home with him for Thanksgiving.” My smile was pure saccharin as I watched her seething in front of me.

  I could see that she had to fight to keep from screaming and it was hilarious.

  “What?!” Looks like the screaming won that fight.

  “Yeah, I invited Sky to come home with me. We’re going to have an awesome Thanksgiving.”

  “I can’t wait!” I couldn’t help but throw that in.

  “We’re going back to the dorm Barbs. Are you studying or are you going back too?”

  “Um, I’m going back to my dorm.” The wind had definitely been let out of her sail.

  “Sweetie, is it okay if we walk her back? It’s late.”

  I would have done anything he asked me to in that moment because he called me ‘sweetie’ in front of Barbi and she was not happy.

  “Sure.” I smiled up at him and my eyes slid over to her as I threw her one of my best smirks.

  We all walked back to her dorm, with Jonathan and Barbi doing most of the chatting. We dropped her off at her dorm and then went back to our own. Once inside, I told Jonathan I was going to sleep in my room that night because I had been neglecting Katie.

  “Okay, I guess.” He looked a bit sad so I put my arms around his neck and looked into his eyes.

  “I will sleep in your room tomorrow night, I promise. I think my friend misses me so I have to give her some time too, okay?”

  “Okay.” He kissed me, the kind that makes your toes curl, and then hugged me tight. “I can’t wait until tomorrow night.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The next day, during breakfast, I brought Katie up to speed on everything that had been going on with Jonathan and me, and I also told her that I was going home with him for Thanksgiving.

  “You are kidding! Sky, that’s a big deal, you know? You guys are totally going to get married one day, I just know it.”

  “Married? Katie, you’re talking cra cra right now. We’re a little young for that and we’ve only been dating for a short time!”

  “I know but there is something different with you guys. I could tell at the beginning of the year that he was into you the first time
he saw you when he was on stage. I’m telling you Sky, he’s the one, and I better be in the wedding!”

  We giggled like school girls as we put our trays away and headed out. I loved Katie, and I knew she was happy for me, but marriage? That was a bit too far in the future for me to even think about, but if I was being honest with myself I knew that there was no one else that I could ever see myself with.

  I had a study group that afternoon after my last class and then I went to the rec center to work out. As I was on the elliptical, my mind kept going to my trip home with Jonathan. I had already decided what I was going to wear on Thanksgiving so I had that covered and it was one less thing for me to stress about. What I was most worried about was how his family would receive me once they found out that I did not come from money. His parents definitely didn’t give me the impression that they were snobs like that, but I had no idea how his grandmother would react to someone like me. I had never been around anyone with their kind of money, so that part was stressing me out big time.

  I grabbed dinner and then finished the night at the library. Jonathan told me he had band practice until 11:00 that night so he asked me to just come to his room anytime after 11:30 when I was ready to go to bed. I thought it was kind of weird that he had practice so late, because they never practiced after 9:00, but I didn’t question him about it.

  Katie was already sleeping when I got back to our room at about 11:00, so I quietly put my book bag down, grabbed my bedtime stuff and went down to Jonathan’s room a little bit early. I hadn’t seen him all day and I couldn’t wait to be in his arms. His door was usually open if he was around and since his door was closed when I got there I figured he was still at practice, so I decided to wait for him in his room.

  He never locked his door so I turned the knob and as soon as I stepped inside, to say that bad memories came flooding back to me is an understatement, I felt like I was hit by a hurricane of bad memories. Lying in Jonathan’s bed, apparently totally naked, was Barbi with her hair all messy and unruly. She sneered at me as I stood there, frozen, with my mouth open. This is not happening right now. The words were very familiar to me.

  At first I couldn’t process what I was seeing but then I realized that she was naked in his bed, holding the sheets over her breasts, smirking at me.

  That smirk put me over the edge and I snapped.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  A sneer curled up the right side of her lip. “I’m doing what I do every week around this time. You didn’t know, did you?”

  I was so confused. Was she implying that they…? There was no way. Jonathan wouldn’t do this to me, would he? I felt my cheeks burning hot as my heart tried to bulldoze its way out of my chest. But why is she here? And why is she looking like she was just fucked from here to Timbuktu and back? My stomach dropped into my toes and I felt like I was going to vomit. No, no, no, no, no!

  I spun on my heel and flew out of his room to find him. He had to be around somewhere. There’s no way this crazy bitch is telling the truth! There’s no way that Jonathan would cheat on me!

  As I rounded the corner, I ran right into Jonathan who was just coming from the shower. He had a big smile on his face when he saw me and I was briefly caught off guard by his glistening chest, but then I remembered what I just saw. Was he washing away evidence of being with her? I glared a hole right through him.

  “You lying, cheating son-of-a-bitch!”

  He looked totally confused. “Skylar, keep your voice down! What is wrong with you?”

  “I can’t believe you would ask me that!”

  He grabbed my arm and his eyes bore into mine. “Sky, what is wrong? I have no idea what is going on here!”

  “Maybe the slut waiting for you in your bed will fill you in!”

  “What?! Is Barbi still in my room?”

  Oh my god, he’s admitting it!

  The tears spilled down over my cheeks without warning and I ran away from him up to my room and threw myself on my bed in a fit of sobs. Katie started to stir, and then sat up when she heard me balling. I tried to be quiet but the pain was too great. She hopped onto my bed and put her arms around me.

  “Sky, what happened?”

  All I could get out through my sobs was Jonathan’s name.

  “What did he do?!”

  A couple of minutes later, Jonathan knocked lightly on my door.

  “Skylar, please let me in.”

  “Go away, I never want to see you again!”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “I’m not stupid Jonathan, I have eyes and I know what I saw! I thought you were different!”

  “Skylar, open this door right now!”

  “Go away Jonathan, it’s over between us, do you hear me, over! Forget you ever met me!” I didn’t care that we were probably creating a scene in the hallway.

  My sobs wracked my body and I wanted the bed to just swallow me up.

  Katie got up and opened the door a crack and I could hear her whispering to him.

  “Just give her some time Jonathan, she’s super upset right now. I’m sure she’ll come talk to you tomorrow.”

  That seemed to be enough because he walked away and she closed our door.

  “Katie, how could I be such a fool! Why would a guy like that be faithful? Barbi was down there! He can have any girl he wants and apparently he does!”

  “I don’t know Sky, she’s a scheming bitch. Maybe it wasn’t what you thought.”

  I gave her a deadpan look, my face flush and stained with tears. “Katie, she was naked in his bed. How can that be anything but what it looks like?”

  “Oh.” She didn’t say anything after that.

  “I’m so stupid Katie. Anybody but me could have seen this coming. The whole campus has probably been laughing at me behind my back this whole time with me thinking I was the only girl in his life. He’s gorgeous, rich, smart and in a popular band. How could I be so dumb?” The tears rolled softly down my cheeks.

  “Sky, you’re not dumb, don’t beat yourself up. Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding. He looked really upset when I talked to him. Maybe sleep on it and talk to him tomorrow?”

  “No, I’m done. No more cheaters for me. He can forget about Thanksgiving, I’m going home. I have nothing else to say to him. Anyway, enough about this, it’s late. Let’s go to sleep.”

  She gave me a big hug and then climbed in her bed. “Okay, try to get some sleep.”

  “I will. And Katie? Thanks for listening.”

  She smiled at me. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  As I curled up in my covers, I replayed the whole scene again. I kept going back to her saying they did that every week and I tried to remember if there were blocks of time where it could have happened, and I realized that it could have happened any time because I was not with Jonathan every minute of the day. Had I really been so naïve? Sadness overwhelmed me as the tears hit my pillow.

  I should have stuck to my original plan and stayed away from guys. But Jonathan drew me in, I thought he was different, and I thought he was the guy of my dreams. How could I have been so wrong? As I started to drift off to sleep, tears were still rolling down my cheeks and I wished I had never met Jonathan Hunter. Why does love have to hurt so much?

  Books by Ashley Blake

  The Billionaire’s Desire

  The Billionaire’s Desire 2: Dubai Confidential

  The Billionaire’s Desire 3: Ultimate Bliss

  The Billionaire’s Desire Bonus Book 4: Breakable Bonds

  The Billionaire’s Desire Bonus Book 4: Always and Forever

  My Forever is You: Reunited

  My Forever is You: Resolution

  My Heart Says Yes

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eigh
t

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One