Page 54 of Broken Vows

She manipulates. It’s her nature. And she’s so skilled at it that I can never tell when she’s being sincere.

Maybe I should meet with her again to be sure. Just once and I can move on.

“So… it’s going to be a few more weeks before I come home,” Anna says, and I hate myself right now that I missed whatever she said before this.

My body deflates at the realization that she won’t be back anytime soon to save me, so I try to deflect with humor. “No shock. I know you. And unfortunately, I know Nonna too.”

“Theodore James Astor. You’ll put soap in your mouth for that one,” she says with a giggle. “So… I don’t know if I’ll be back in time for dance rehearsals.”

Fucking dance rehearsals. “Cool, we can cancel, then.”

“You know we can’t.”

The words weighing down the tip of my tongue could land me in jail, so instead of going off, I take a breath. My future mother-in-law is a conniving, evil, wife of a billionaire who meets and exceeds every stereotype that a wife of a billionaire has. What she did to Anna… the heated rage builds in my stomach.

But, thank Christ, so far, she’s been more hands-off than anticipated for the actual event. But she insisted on using some former Juilliard prodigy, retired ballet superstar, as our choreographer. I still can’t believe I agreed to the arrangement.

“Fine,” I say. “But I want the record to show I am seriously taking one for the team on this.”

“Filed with the courts and entered into Exhibit A,” Anna says. “I should run. I really do miss you. Thank you for everything you’re doing back home for the wedding.”

I miss her, too. She’s been a constant in my life, one of the positive beacons of light, and probably the only reason I’m as grounded as I am. She’s always showed me a pure love. One that I never got from my parents, one that I didn’t know I needed until she gave it to me. But, as much as I want her home, it’s evident that I need a little more time to get Lexie out of my system.

My legs bounce in the back of the SUV. What’s Lexie doing tonight? Has she met some asshole? I bet she did. I bet she’s laying there, getting railed but not taken care of, by some dumb prick that cums on her ass after they fuck and doesn’t even have the decency to clean her off.

Christ, I need to get her out of my mind. Lexie with her wide, beautiful gap-toothed smile. Does she know the effect she has on me? That she must have on everyone? She’s a pestilent honey trap, luring people in with those eyes and that wicked mouth, and it works every time.

Lexie shatters my mental dexterity. She shatters everything. My mind, my breath, my clarity. My thoughts and visions.

And if I’m not careful, my future.

24 Lexie

Two and a half weeks.

That’s how long it’s been since I tried on the dresses. When I got home that night, a piece of me thought that I’d made up what happened in the dressing room. The way the electricity crackled in the air, the way he touched me, the way my skin scorched with need.

I didn’t even make it up the stairs that night before I burst into tears. I bolted through the door into the bathroom and threw up. I’ve never, ever been the other woman. I can’t believe I allowed myself to get trapped in his dark, addictive, gravitational pull. I told myself I was only getting close to him to prove he was a cheater. Something I could couple with the video I have of him and Olivia at the hotel to convince Annabelle to leave him. I was doing it for her.

But the sheer guilt and shame that consumed me from the way my body responded to his touch showed me I did it for me. When did I become this person? I should demand an immediate reassignment, promotion be dammed. I should turn myself in, turn him in, file some sort of formal complaint, fucking something. Not sit here and drool over the way my core quivered and clenched with a brush of his finger. A brush. The lightning-fast heat that zoomed through my body took me off guard, and even though I faked the hell out of it, I didn’t recover until I got home and took care of myself.

And God forgive me, I want it again. I want to drop to my knees and run my tongue along his cock and inhale his scent. My body burns with the need to be touched by someone who knows what they’re doing. And I bet anything, that person is Theo.

That’s all this is. I don’t want Theo as much as I want someone to make me feel good.

Right?

“And that’s when the purple banana crashed into the earth,” Justin says and my eyes snap back to him.

“Wait… what?”

“Welcome back! I swear you’re just like Dylan when the Real Wives of Salt Lake City is on,” he says as he dips a sushi roll into wasabi. “You’re miles away. What’s going on?”

Yes, that’s right. I’m at work, eating sushi with my best friend, talking about… oh yeah, about wedding stuff, and not my wicked urge to blow my client. “God, sorry, I suck. It’s nothing.” I pop a wonton in my mouth. “I was just thinking about everything I still need to do for the wedding. You know, the bride never fails to surprise me. Just the other day, I sent Annabelle a list of the top five caterers with sample menus, and she comes back with ‘how about a taco truck instead’. She’s a Barlowe—how can we seriously have a taco truck at the reception?”

Justin shakes his head, rolling his eyes in humor. “People with money have the wildest demands. What did she say after you talked her out of it?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Literally, nothing. I followed up with a friendly nudge that we really had to decide soon and… crickets. I swear this is the chillest bride I’ve ever worked with in my life and, ironically, it’s still stressful.”