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“Leave us,” I command. “Cancel all my meetings for the rest of the day. As a matter of fact, cancel them for the rest of the week. I’m taking my wife on a proper honeymoon.” I grab her hand and snatch our coats off the rack before rushing her out toward the elevators.
“What has gotten into you?”
“Harley, I love you and we married this past weekend, but I didn’t take you anywhere special. I didn’t show you what you mean to me. Hell, we’re living out of suitcases in a hotel when we should be living in a home, but we don’t have one yet. If we’re going to do that, we might as well do it somewhere fabulous.”
“I don’t need anything special but you, Dylan.”
“Thanks, babe, but that doesn’t change my mind. Let’s get going. I want to take you somewhere. Anywhere.”
“How about a quick trip to the Bahamas?”
“We can make that happen.” I kiss her lips and lead her back into my office where I get on my phone and make all the necessary arrangements. Within two hours, I lead us out to the waiting vehicle. Luckily the press aren’t expecting us to leave at this time, and we sneak away without garnering their attention.
I check the news streams for our names and find that the stories are still going strong. Several new ones have been made up, and it’s clear Veronica has taken the lead on them, changing the narrative or at least telling her side of the story. Maybe she’s trying to at least not look so terrible. Fuck, the shrew could have just said she was hurt by her husband’s betrayal and gave up the child in a moment of despair, heartache, and rage, lying about her past to keep it where it should have stayed hidden. People would have understood that she was heartbroken with a lying, cheating husband, but the fact that she made herself out to be a rape victim is another story.
She made me the product of a crime, my father more than a philanderer—he was a monster. I believed I was part monster. Dangerous to women, sick and twisted by blood. I spent my entire life worried for nothing. Her image is tarnished because she made light of what so many women have suffered over the years.
Four hours later, we land in Nassau and I get an alert from my assistant with a message. You’re going to want to see this.
I clicked on the video, and it’s a press conference that my birth giver is holding. She has tears in her eyes that almost seem sincere, but I know the coldblooded woman behind the crocodile tears, so I don’t buy the Oscar-worthy performance she’s putting on.
I’d like to apologize to everyone who has followed my career and my life over the past several decades. It’s with a heavy heart that I have to admit that I’ve kept a shameful secret. A lie that I told to hide a painful, heartbreaking past.
When I was a young girl, I married my high school sweetheart, James Rhoades. We were in love, or so I thought. It was our one-year anniversary when I found out he was having an affair, and I was almost eight months pregnant. He’d gotten into an accident and died with his lover, sending me into early labor. I was distraught, and in a fit of panic and pain, I lied to the nurses and doctors. I told them that I had been raped and that I couldn’t keep the baby. They would take the baby from me and put it up for adoption, and so I left the hospital and told my husband’s family that the baby died due to my grief-stricken state.
It was wrong and I know it, but at the time, my mind wasn’t in the right state. It took a long time to see the right path, but then it was too late. My son had been given away, and I couldn’t just take him back. The choices I made, I had to live with. I never thought in a million years that they would tell him the story I made up, but they did. For that, I’m truly sorry.
She pauses and sobs at the perfect moment, drawing sympathy from the reporters, but I know it’s fake. We encountered each other three times in the past, and not once did she try to reunite. Not one time did she ask me about my parents or anything. There is information about my past in the record, so she would have learned something. She clearly saw the resemblance and always took off running.
I turn off the video because I’ve seen enough.
“Dylan.” Harley lays her hand on my chest. “I’m sorry about her.”
“Don’t be. I’m fine, Harley. I refuse to be bothered by her nonsense.”
“Please stop lying to me, Mr. Hunter.” She jabs my breastbone while staring at me.
“I’m not lying, Harley. I’d rather spend our vacation with you naked in our bed or swimming with your sexy body beside me than even think about that lying hag.”
“Well, then, let’s change into our swimwear so you can strip me out of it soon.”
“Then you better hurry, wife,” I growl and then reach for her ass, but she moves quickly, running away from me while giggling. I give chase, pouncing on her and sweeping her up into my arms. “Wife, I don’t think we’re going to make it to the water today.”
“As long as you get me naked, I’ll be happy.”
“That’s something I most certainly can do.” We stay naked for our entire vacation.
Epilogue
Harley
“Good morning, Mr. Hunter. You have an appointment at noon with…” He rounds his desk in a flash, scowl on his face. He passes me up and moves straight to his office door, locking it.
“Harley, what have I told you time and time again?”
“Um…but I’m serving as your temporary assistant.” He’s on me, his large, strong frame crowding my slightly smaller one. “Dylan.”
“Oh, now you remember.”
