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“Please speak with your wife. I—I believe you will gain clarity from the experience.”
As she walks away, she stops to place her palm on my shoulder, patting it twice in a comforting manner before continuing on her way.
Without hesitating a single second, I stride down the corridor and into Layla’s room, hearing the tail end of their conversation.
“…and you fucking know it, Noah. There was no need for him—”
“Sorry to break up this little shindig,wife. Noah, if you’ll excuse us. My father will, no doubt, want an update.”
My manager, one of my father’s oldest friends and owner of the internationally acclaimed record label, Spellman Sounds—the label that made my father’s band the household name it is today—faces me, his cheeks mottled red in anger.
“Why did you have to play that fucking song, youstupidboy? What could have possibly been going through your mind!”
I step further into the room, closing the door behind me with aclickbefore crossing the distance to Layla, completely ignoring Spellman’s outrage.
“I put up withmorethan my fair share of shit from you, Layla. And I do it with a fucking smile on my face.”
Dropping my gaze, I drag a hand through my dishevelled blonde hair and blow out a breath, striving to rein in a temper that I rarely lose. I’m hanging by a thread right now.
“Caden.”
My eyes find Layla’s, her sugary sweet, over-the-top dramatics grating on my last nerve when she speaks again.
“Ask yourself one question,husband. Just one. Have you, or have you not, knownpreciselywho I am long before today—or are you that much of a fucking idiot that you can’t see exactly what’s under your nose all of these years?”
Her words hang between us, igniting a fire in the pit of my stomach.
“You wanted this baby. You wanted to get married and ride into the sunset, to live happily ever after. Did I want a wedding? This kid? I’d never have gone along with it if it weren’t for—”
Noah cuts her off, stepping forward with a large quelling palm outstretched.
“Layla, that’senough.”
Silence cloaks the room until it invades my lungs, and I can’t breathe without asking the question on the tip of my tongue.
“Was the whole thing on the island an act?”
My wife of three days—or could it be four at this point, who the fuck knows—meets my gaze, triumph flashing in her glacial blue depths as she tilts her chin upwards in defiance.
“You broughthertoourwedding, Caden. Toourday. How would you expect me to retaliate?”
I grind my teeth, my jaw hurting from the force. “As you’ll recall, ‘Nothing Else Matters’ wasyoursong for Archer, too, was it not? What difference does it make if I want to acknowledge both of them on a day they should have been a part of?”
On the day I should have marriedherhad life not been so fucking cruel.
My thoughts must show on my face because Layla’s hand darts out and slaps me clear across the cheek before I see it coming.
The sound reverberates around the room, and the familiar nausea I’ve lived with these last eleven years bubbles in the depths of my stomach.
Screwing my eyes shut tight, I step back, edging towards the door. “Noah, have someone bring a car around. I’m going to check into a hotel. I’ll expect hourly updates on my child.”
His voice follows me down the corridor, but the words don’t register. It’s just static between my ears. I’m barely holding myself together when I climb onto the empty elevator, grateful for the solitude.
Once the car starts moving, I hit the emergency stop button, throw my head back, and holler my pent-up frustration to the heavens.
With some of the anger drained from my weary body, I slump back against the wall and slide to the floor to rest my head on my knees. The tears begin to fall, and soon my whole body shakes with the force of my long-suppressed emotions.
Summer St James.
