by Nia Arthurs
To be fair the movie kept his attention, and by the final act, he was rooting for the hero to interrupt the girl’s wedding and win her back.
Unfortunately, when the ending credits rolled up and he glanced over at his wife, he saw that she was completely out of it. Doped up from the fever meds, Breana didn’t even blink when he scooped her into his arms and tucked her into bed.
Instead of being a crybaby about the turn his night had taken, Trenton cuddled his wife close and enjoyed the easy rhythm of her breathing. His finger traced the breadth of her forehead, down her tiny, slightly flared nose, to her lips.
Breana’s race was not a big deal to him, but there were certain parts of her ethnicity that he really admired. Her rear, first and foremost, but second place belonged to her perfect lips.
They were full. Succulent. As if the Big Guy had known that someday Breana Moore’s husband-on-paper-only would appreciate the extra care He’d taken in crafting them.
Trenton tore his gentle perusal from her lips to her cheek and soon drew his finger along that path. Breana moaned and opened her eyes before he could pull his hands back. Trenton looked sheepishly down at her as he snatched his arm against his chest.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice husky from sleep.
“Nothing,” he said, shifting on his pillow so that they were eye-to-eye. “How are you feeling?”
She winced. “I feel like I just woke up from a hangover.”
“Have you ever had a hangover?” he asked, recalling Merna’s words a few weeks ago about Breana’s distaste for alcohol.
“No.”
Trenton laughed as his wife blinked away the sleep from her eyes. “What time is it?”
“It’s only ten.”
“Great,” she groaned. “I don’t think I can sleep another minute, but I still feel so tired.”
“Cold medicine will do that to you.”
Breana brought her head closer to his. “Talk to me.”
“Talk to you?”
She nodded. “So I can fall back asleep.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I don’t know… when did you realize that you liked me?”
Trenton grinned, his white teeth apparent in the dark room. “Whoa, when did I say I liked you?”
“Come on. It’s all over your face. I have a sense about these things.”
“I think you read me wrong.”
“I didn’t,” Breana said confidently. “I’m a catch, you know. I don’t get married to just anyone.”
“Should I be flattered or—?”
“Very funny. Are you going to tell me or should I find something else to occupy my time.”
“Why don’t you go first?” he challenged. “When did you realize you liked me?”
Breana bit on her bottom lip, and he fully expected her to deflect. To Trenton’s surprise, she dropped her gaze and came clean.
“It was the night of our party. I had my head on your chest and I was listening to your heartbeat.”
Blown away by her candor, Trenton could only stare.
Breana sent him a small smile. “I probably liked you before then, but that was the moment I breathed it in and just accepted it.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Trenton squeaked and pretended to brush away a tear. “I’m touched.”
“You know, I’m starting to notice that you joke about things when you’re uncomfortable.”
“Is there anything else you’d like to diagnose, Doctor?”
“No,” she shook her head. “I just like finding out more about you. We’re married but there are a million things that I don’t know. Like what your favorite color is. Your favorite book. Your favorite thing to do when you were a kid—”
“Blue. The Gingerbread Man. And table tennis. I was actually in a team from I was eight until about eighteen.”
“Wait,” Breana snorted. “Did you say The Gingerbread Man? Like the cookie that could talk and walk and got chased by all the people who wanted to eat him?”
“Are you making fun of me?”
She chortled, but slapped a hand over her mouth before the sound could reach his ears. “No. Of course not.”
“The Gingerbread Man brings up a very mature, philosophical discussion about possession and what it means to really ‘have’ something. Everyone wanted a bite of the Gingerbread Man, but did any of them really have a right to?”
“Okay, then,” Breana said, a glimmer in her eye. “I’ll play along. Let’s pretend you loved this story for anything more than the funny lines and the pictures.”
“Hey!”
“I distinctly remember that the animal who ended up eating the Gingerbread Man was a fox who lied to him.”
“Well…”
“Isn’t that kind of dark?”
“Stop overthinking things.” He ruffled her hair. “What’s your favorite book then?”
“Pride and Prejudice.”
“Of course it is.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Trenton laughed. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You judged me just now. I felt judged.”
He rolled closer to her and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “There. I hope you accept my apology.”
Breana closed her eyes in satisfaction, but when she opened them again, he could see that sleep was returning to claim her. Brushing her hair away from her face, he marveled in the quiet beauty she possessed.
No one would have guessed the extent of her dark past by the way she carried herself. His wife oozed poise and sophistication. She’d weathered his father’s harsh words with class and kindness. She handled Cady with restraint—unless her boss came after his car, of course.
Then the claws came out.
He could almost forget that their contract ended in a little less than five months. In fact, Trenton couldn’t imagine his life without Breana in it. Forget six months. He wanted her here for six years. Sixty years if they could scratch that card.
“Breana?”
Her heavy breathing told him she was asleep. Trenton extended his arm and brought her head to rest on his bicep.
“From the moment you slipped into that closet with me and shut the door behind you, I was yours.”
His whispered confession faded into the darkness and hovered in the night air, until he fell asleep.
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The next morning, Trenton headed to work in high spirits. He and Breana were in a good place. The Cayo project was going well. His mother was pushing through the harsh chemotherapy, and as far as he knew, his father was behaving.
Around mid-morning, Jamison knocked on the door and poked his head into the office.
“Yes?”
“Sir, the hotel in Cayo is on the line for you.”
“Can you take a message? I’m busy.”
“Sir, they say it’s for your ears only… about a Sheila Rodriguez?”
Trenton’s hands stilled over the keyboard. Sheila? What could she possibly want with him? Had he not been clear enough yesterday?
Cursing her tenacity, he waved Jamison out of the room and picked up the line.
“Hello, this is Trenton Lorde.”
“Mr. Lorde, I apologize for bothering you, but there seems to be a query about Ms. Rodriguez’s personal items?”
“What?”
He heard a scuffle over the line and then a female voice shrieked, “Give me the phone.”
“Suit,” Sheila’s voice filled his ear, “I left my bathing suit in your room, and I would like to be compensated.”
Trenton’s heart thumped hard and fast. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know what you did with it, but when I asked the cleaning lady to check if it was still there, she said everything was gone. I don’t know if you kept it for your own perverted pleasure or threw it away. I just want my money back.”
The phone slipped from his hand as he recalled absently tossing his clothes into his su
itcase. Had he mistakenly brought Sheila’s things along as well?
“Jamison!”
“Yes, sir?”
“Get that girl’s information and send her any amount she asks for.”
“What?” Jamison’s mouth fell and he stared at his boss. “Where are you going?”
Trenton skidded out of the room without answering. Slamming his finger against the button for the elevator, he waited breathlessly until it opened and stormed inside. What were the odds that Breana would find his suitcase tucked into the corner of his closet?
The thought did little to combat his panic. Everything was going so well, but if his wife ever set her eyes on that bikini, his marriage would implode in his face.
He had to get to that suitcase before Breana did!
Chapter 23
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Breana woke up after nine o’clock and stretched her arms high. The warm sunshine stole through the blinds covering the glass door that led to the balcony. She rolled over, tempted to go back to sleep. It had been a while since she’d had back-to-back days off.
Deciding that she’d slept far too much, Breana rejected the thought and got up to complete her morning routine. She had the entire day to herself. Her finger tapped the skin of her chin as she debated relaxing on the couch or working.
“Stop being lazy, Bree,” she mumbled. “There’s too much to do.”
Charging up the stairs, Breana grabbed her suitcase and started throwing the clothes she’d stored in the guestroom into the bag. Happily, she hummed a tune until the dresser and closet were picked clean.
Breana frowned when she felt the weight of her bag. It hadn’t seemed so heavy when she’d moved in. Shrugging away the discrepancy, she hauled it to the master and started unpacking.
Trenton would flip when he saw her clothes sharing the same space as his. He’d been bawling and bawling about her giving her all. Breana hoped he could handle it now that she was putting her heart into their marriage.
Unzipping the front of her suitcase, she pulled out a wadded-up bundle and recognized the print of her mother’s gift. The second-hand lingerie was finding a new home in the trashcan, but the idea behind it remained.
Breana grinned hard and hid her face in the underwear. She’d only been that close with one man before, and things had ended very badly. She looked forward to sharing that kind of intimacy with someone she could trust.
The panties still had to go though.
Breana dumped the offending lingerie and then turned to hanging her clothes in the closet. Trenton had a million and one variations of the same coats, jackets, and dress shirts. She worked hard to clear a space for her clothes and found a familiar rumpled bag hiding in a dark corner.
“What are you doing here?” she cooed and pulled the bag out. “Oh, you’re heavy.” She unzipped the front and found all of Trenton’s clothes from his business trip still tossed haphazardly in there.
He was such a guy. Did men have some kind of allergic reaction to washing their laundry to time? Breana imagined he had cast the bag away to save up until he could no longer put off washing a load.
“It’s a good thing I have clothes to wash,” she muttered, spilling the dirty clothes on the ground to sort out by color.
Breana took a break in order to slap her favorite jazz music into the portable speakers before returning to the middle of their bedroom to sort the dirty clothes.
“I feel like such a wife,” she sighed happily, grabbing Trenton’s clothes and throwing them into the correct pile. “I can’t believe I’m a wife!”
The throaty trumpet blew a riff and Breana swayed to the rhythm. She couldn’t imagine finding much personal fulfillment in being a housewife, but there was something quietly satisfying about doing something so pedestrian and wifely for her husband.
Her playlist paused to change to the next song and in that split second of stillness, Breana noticed something very strange hiding beneath one of Trenton’s jackets. Slowly, almost fearfully, she leaned forward and pulled on the string until it was free.
Her fingers immediately loosened and the piece of cloth sprung to the floor. Breana covered her mouth with both hands and stared at the scanty, triangular underpants that definitely did not belong to her.
“What the heck?” she whispered. Crawling hesitantly to the yet-to-be-sorted pile, she picked through the clothes until she found a matching bikini top.
Suspicions flew through Breana’s mind like shooting stars, but she strained to remain calm. She could trust Trenton. She’d already made such strides in putting her confidence in him. Surely this could all be explained.
At that moment, the front door slammed shut and she heard Trenton bellow her name. The frantic call was followed by the thump of his shoes on the stairs. In three seconds flat, he stood heaving and panting in the doorway.
“Breana, I—” His voice faltered when he saw his clothes on the floor and the bright bikini pieces slumping near her legs.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.” He edged into the room and eyed her warily.
“What’s this?” Breana asked as calmly as she could.
“Nothing.”
She swallowed, the answer cementing the fact that something was wrong. Unless Trenton thought she was mentally challenged, he couldn’t possibly expect her to accept such an explanation.
“Nothing?”
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes dipping away from hers. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“What is this thing that I don’t need to worry about?”
“Nothing.”
The conversation was going in circles, and Breana’s temper kindled at his evasiveness.
“I don’t want to make a big deal about something I don’t have to,” Breana said, her nose flaring as she focused on breathing properly and speaking calmly. “But the way you’re behaving right now isn’t making me feel any more reassured.”
“What do you want me to say?” he asked, pulling his hands through his hair.
“Who does this belong to?”
Trenton stayed quiet for a very long time. The jazz music played softly in the background, mocking Breana with its promises of romance while she was staring down the barrel of the most heart-breaking deception she could face.
“Trenton—”
“Her name was Sheila. I met her in Cayo.”
“Sheila?” Breana hated her already. “What is Sheila’s bathing suit doing in your suitcase?”
“Look—” Trenton swooped into the room and gripped her upper arms—“it meant nothing to me. Okay? I couldn’t go through with it because of you!”
“Couldn’t go through with what?” she asked, unmoved by the panic in his eyes.
“Bree…”
“Say it.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and groaned. “We kissed.”
Her heart faltered. Bleeding profusely. It felt as if he’d smacked her in the face. Her body caved in and Trenton rushed to keep her upright. She shook his hold and tried not to cry in front of him. She would never cry in front of him.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Bree, that’s all we did. I promise. She wanted to go further, but I got a robe from the bathroom and sent her out of the suite.”
She couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t happening.
“Bree, look at me. Look at me!” He turned her chin so that she was staring into his brown eyes. “I love you. Only you. This is it for me. I’m ruined to anyone else. You have to believe me. Please believe me.”
“I-I need some air.” She awkwardly got to her feet and stumbled toward the door.
“Breana—”
She held her arm out to him. “Just… give me some space.”
As Breana walked out the door and headed in no particular direction, her brain scrambled to toss facts at her heart. Brain reminded her that their initial contract allowed for outside relationships as long as they were discreet.
Of course, that agreement had been B.
M.—before marriage. After they’d tied the knot for real, Trenton insisted that he wanted them to ‘try to make it work’. Her heart rioted in anger. Didn’t that mean they should be faithful to each other? Wasn’t that a commitment?
Brain reminded her that she’d been very vocal about their six-month contract and about how hollow their legal and emotional ties to each other really were. She’d given him no indication that she needed or wanted their relationship to be real until last night.
Heart said Trenton was a dog, and he should have kept his word whether or not she acted as if she wanted the marriage. He was the one who was supposed to convince her that she was safe with him—physically, emotionally, and mentally.
And that was simply the act of him making out with another woman, not to mention that he chose to hide it afterward.
Brain said Trenton may have chosen to keep silent in order to avoid this very outcome. Heart said he was a scumbag who wanted to get as many woman as possible without owning up to the consequences of juggling more than one relationship.
Her head and her heart fought like snarling dogs and when Breana glanced up, she stood on the sidewalk next to the Caribbean Sea, a few blocks from Trenton’s house.
The wind whipped her curly hair against her face and tossed the tide against the large cement wall that kept the water from overtaking the land. Breana glared at the blue sky and cursed the sea for being so calm when her heart was shattering in her chest.
Unable to take the clamoring anymore, she bent over and roared in agony. Her shouts echoed over the Caribbean Sea and met the chanting swish of the coconut trees over head.
Tears burst from her eyes in an unrelenting stream and she stooped to the ground, hugging her knees to her chest. Trenton’s betrayal cut like a thousand knives. Breana had been let down before, but this time… he’d taken her so far up that the drop was fatal.
And she doubted she could ever make it back.
Chapter 24
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His marriage had suffered a serious blow, and Trenton had no clue how to go about fixing it. If Breana had returned home, ranting and raving, he could take her punches and beg for forgiveness. It was more than he deserved and less than he was willing to take.