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.
“Hi.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Candia.”
Bristol blew out a jagged breath. She wasn’t shocked…but she wasn’t thrilled, either. “Don’t tell me you’re here to plead his case about any sort of fake marriage. The answer is no.”
“I’m here to apologize,” she clarified, hands clasped, face contrite. “May I come in so I can explain?”
What the hell? The night had already turned into a freaking sideshow. “Sure.”
Candia stepped in, and Bristol shut the door behind her, looking around for some privacy. Obviously, they couldn’t talk in the kitchen with everyone l
istening in. So she guided the woman into the empty parlor off the foyer to the right and shut the door. Instantly, the noise level dropped.
“Why are you here?” The more Bristol thought about it, the more she wished she’d shut the door in the woman’s face. “You know, I’m a real person with feelings who doesn’t appreciate you trying to manipulate me in order to make your client’s life a little cushier. He can go to—”
“Before you finish that sentence, you should know that marrying you was his idea first.”
Knowing that Jesse McCall thought it was no big deal to twist her heart around and pretend to be enough in love with her to share a lifelong bond pissed her off. “Great. Thanks for the FYI. You’re both horrible human beings. Will you get out of my house, please?”
Well, her mother’s house, but she was splitting hairs. The worst part was, even as Candia was throwing Jesse under the bus and all but admitted they’d conspired to use her to improve his image, Bristol still wanted him, missed him. Kind of even loved him.
Exactly why she hated romance. She did it so spectacularly bad and always wound up hurt. From now on, she was banning both romance and flings. Instead, she’d become the crazy cat spinster who baked cookies for the whole damn town. Maybe it wouldn’t bother her in a few years.
Yeah, when you’re sixty.
As she reached around Candia to open the door and show the woman out, Jesse’s publicist shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. The idea to marry you because he loves you was his. I had the same idea, though for the more obvious reason I stated in my message. I texted him…which I hear you read. When he read it first, this is what he had to say.” She held up her phone to reveal the screen that listed her voicemails. One from Jesse appeared three messages down, the date and time stamp shortly after he had made love to her and proposed.
“Are you crazy, woman?” Jesse sounded really agitated. No, super pissed off. “I’m not going to pretend to marry Bristol for my image. I know your job is to worry what people think of me, but that’s fucking out of the question. And over the line. I’m finally in love and I’m grabbing her with both hands. You can either be happy for me and get on board or hop the fuck off the train.”
Candia stopped the voicemail, then flipped to her texts. “You can see clearly here what time he read my message.” She shoved the screen in Bristol’s face. Based on what she remembered, Jesse hadn’t read Candia’s text until after he’d asked Bristol to marry him.
Her heart seized up. Regret poured through her. Had Jesse actually meant everything he said?
Had she completely screwed up?
She jerked her stare up to Candia’s face, her heart racing. The sort of cold sweat that came with a terrible realization hit her. “You’re not here to try and convince me to marry him for his image?”
She shook her head, looking contrite. Given Candia’s polished-within-an-inch-of-her-life appearance, Bristol was pretty sure she didn’t show anyone her vulnerable underbelly very often.
“I’m here because Jesse is not merely a client; he’s a friend. He was also right. What I suggested was over the line. I didn’t understand how you could have possibly made such an impact on him in such a short period of time, but since he circled back with me last night, he’s set up a scholarship for recovering addicts in Maddy Harris’s name. At about one this morning, he filmed a PSA about the dangers of recreational drug use and experimenting. I can’t tell you how many favors he called in for that. Then he sat me down and told me everything wonderful about you. In the four years I’ve known him, he’s never connected with any woman on anything beyond the physical level. But you, he can’t stop talking about. To hear him, you’re practically a saint. Since you agreed to be your sister’s maid of honor after she stole your ex, I’d say that qualifies.” The woman sent her a wry grin.
“They just broke up. I’m off the hook.” Bristol blinked at the other woman, confused. “I’m sorry. So…you came here to tell me what a great guy he is and how much I screwed up?”
“No. He wanted me to be sure you understood that what I said in that text wasn’t his idea, but mine. All mine. And he wants to talk to you.”
Bristol bit her lip as her heart skidded to a stop. Jesse didn’t hate her for lacking trust and assuming he was screwing her over? For once, she didn’t hesitate. She knew exactly what she wanted. “Yes. I want to talk to him, too. I wanted to talk to him after inhaling my milkshake.”
When Candia looked at her blankly, Bristol tried not to curse at herself. The conversation had rattled her. She needed to be clear before the woman decided she was crazy and tried to change Jesse’s mind for good.
“Sorry.” She grimaced. “That didn’t make sense.”
Candia suddenly grinned. “No, I get it now. After a breakup, men cry in their beers. Women consume empty calories and have a good cry.”
The woman’s words gave Bristol pause. “He didn’t break his sobriety, did he?”
“No. In the past, I think an emotional loss like that would have sent him to a bottle and some blow with a couple of bimbos. Last night, he was completely determined to get you back.”
Her words made Bristol’s heart swell and beat faster. The misery that had dragged her down since she’d returned from Sonic to find him gone had magically disappeared. In its place? Hope.
“So will he call me or something?”
“Something,” she replied vaguely, then held out her hand. “It was really nice to meet you.”
Bristol shook it, then Jesse’s publicist exited the parlor and whisked her way out the front door. She stood, gaping after the woman. That was it?
Suddenly, Jayla appeared at her side. “Who was that?”
With a frown, Bristol started to explain. Granted, in slow, halting sentences because she was still trying to grasp it all herself. But the hope was shimmering brighter, like a shiny bangle dancing a jig in her brain.
Then the doorbell rang again, and she let out a sigh of relief. Maybe Candia had returned.
But when she wrenched the door open, Bristol found Jesse McCall standing there, looking far more like his rock star self than he had during his days with her. He wore combat boots and black leather pants—and he wore them well. A tight charcoal tee stretched across his muscled chest and hugged his bulging biceps. A fresh scruff now darkened his jawline, lending him a gorgeously disreputable look. A guitar strap crossed his torso diagonally, and the instrument rested on his back. The neck stood out, angled above one shoulder. He didn’t look merely gorgeous, but as if the professional and personal side were finally happy together in his skin.
Bristol swallowed her tongue.
“Hi, honey. Sorry I’m late.” He echoed the words he’d first spoken to her and sent her a searching smile, complete with those dimples that made her heart melt.
A thousand things she could say to him crossed her brain at once. A simple “hi” didn’t begin to convey everything in her heart. But she didn’t want to get into all the gory details of their relationship in the foyer of her mother’s house while anyone could simply walk in. As it was, Bristol figured that only a miracle—or a major ongoing drama in the kitchen—was keeping everyone from running to the front door to see who’d arrived.
Jayla elbowed her, reminding Bristol that she hadn’t said anything at all.
But her mouth didn’t seem to be working. Instead, she launched herself at him, linking her hands behind his neck and plastering her body against his. “I’m sorry.”
He banded a beefy hand around her waist and bowed his head until their foreheads touched. He stroked her crown with a soft palm. “It’s all right. I understand. Hayden’s crap, Jayla’s questions, Candia’s text…”
“They messed with my head,” she agreed breathlessly.
“I sent Candia to explain since she had all the evidence on her phone. You better now?”
She nodded, then looked around to see that her best friend had melted into the background, probably in the kitchen doing crowd control. Bles
s her.
“Much.” Bristol smiled brightly. “You’re here.”
“You ready to talk?”
“Yeah.” But she wanted to make one thing clear first. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. That song I was writing for you at your place? I finished it this morning. Can I play it for you? You’ll be the very first person to hear it.”
Her heart flipped and fluttered. “Please.”
With the warmest smile she’d ever seen him give, he twisted the guitar strap around his body and anchored the instrument against his chest. He strummed and looked at her. He was all man, but she saw the uncertain boy under that who hoped she’d like his gift.
After he cleared his throat, he began singing in the beautiful tenor that had made him millions.
“You turned me on
Like a light bulb
With just a smile
And all your charm
You made me hot
My heart was frozen
All but closed down
Then you sparked me with a touch
And now you’re gone
I’m so lost
Looking for a way to carry on
I can’t go back
To who I was
To who I’d been
Don’t want to hear ‘God, remember him when…’
Before you
I didn’t know what I wanted
Or know about love
I didn’t understand
You’re all I’ve dreamed of
But now you’re gone
And I live with regret
I’m just not ready to handle it yet.
Before you
I didn’t know you would change me
Or show me the way
I didn’t understand
Why my pride wouldn’t wait
But now I see
I understand
You’ve made me into a better man.”
As he repeated the chorus, Bristol teared up. The drops rolled down her cheeks. He’d written those words about her? “It’s beautiful. Oh, my gosh… I’m so honored. Touched.” She choked. “In love with you. I wish I had something to give you in return.”
Pure Wicked: A Wicked Lovers Novella (1001 Dark Nights) Page 12