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CROSSING LINES
DOMINIC
“You want me to object at your wedding?” I asked again, simply for clarification. I knew that I’d heard her right the first time, but I wanted to hear her say it one more time… to make this fucking insane request of me again.
I’d been in love with Dove Tryst my entire life, and there was very little that I wouldn’t do for the woman. We’d made it a habit to push each other’s buttons, each of us doing some pretty insane shit for the other in the name of love—and sometimes hate—but this… this was going too far.
Even for us.
She stared at me silently, her green eyes daring me to tell her no as the wind whipped her blonde hair around.
“Dove, I haven’t talked to you in months, and this is what you say to me after all this time? No explanations, no answers. Just this fucked up request after I find out you’re marryinghim?”
Silence.
It gave me time to take her in, to really look at her. I had this woman memorized, knew every inch of her by heart. I could recognize her in a lineup if I was blindfolded, just by the way her body felt underneath my fingertips. There were subtle changes that most men wouldn’t notice, but I wasn’t most men. Her blonde hair was longer than she normally kept it, falling past her full breasts instead of stopping just short of them. And her body was a shade darker and toned to a level she’d never been before. No doubt she’d been working out and getting in shape for her upcoming nuptials.
The perfect-looking bride.
Bile threatened to rise. I had never once entertained the idea that Dove would marry someone who wasn’t me. It was absolutely fucking preposterous. My anger flared, betrayal and loathing filling me before flitting away with my next breath. I had a hard time staying angry with her. Getting worked up was easy, but staying that way always eluded me.
Unlike her.
Dove could hold a grudge like no other. Whenever she got a little too pissed, it was me who ended up on his knees, asking for forgiveness. She gave it. For me, she’d claimed, she’d always give in. But now, here we were, standing in silence in the middle of some empty field in the town we’d both grown up in, a huge pear-shaped diamond on her ring finger that I hadn’t given her.
“First, you break my fucking heart by getting engaged to him, of all people, and now, you want me to object at your goddamn wedding? A wedding I have no intention of showing up to, by the way.”
More silence.
“As if I could stand there and watch you marry someone else—anyone else—and not die from the pain.”
She was still quiet. And no tears fell. I’d expected at least some moisture to start forming at the corners of her eyes with my confessions, but there was nothing there.
Only hardness remained.
It was unnerving, her looking at me this way. My girl was definitely fighting something internally, but I wasn’t sure exactly what. This woman, who I knew as well as I knew myself, suddenly felt like a complete stranger. Nothing made sense.
“Fucking hell! Answer me, Dove!”
“Yes,” she screamed back, losing all of her composure.
I found myself momentarily satisfied at her lack of control. Her anger, or irritation, or whatever it was meant that she still felt something for me. I hadn’t lost her forever. There was still part of my girl in there, no matter how deep she tried to bury it and act like she didn’t need me anymore.
We both knew that nothing could be further from the truth. One of us didn’t exist without the other. There was only the two of us, and the whole damn town knew it. Which was why none of this made any kind of sense.
“I need you to object,” she said, her voice more stoic now.
I shifted my weight from foot to foot, wrestling with what she was asking me to do. And for a reason she refused to give me.
“This is too much.”
“I figured that you, of anyone else in the world, would relish in the chance to humiliate Trevor O’Connor in front of the whole town, all of his donors and constituents. Imagine how embarrassed he’d be if you not only stopped his wedding, but also ran off with the bride.”
It was tempting.
Damn, it wasreallytempting.
Trevor used to be my best friend when we were younger. He’d had a fucked-up home life. A dad who struggled to stay sober and a mom who rarely, if ever, came back to the run-down two-bedroom apartment they called home. He moved into our mansion as soon as my father gave me the okay. He even had his own room. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, helping out a friend in need. I never realized that he’d turn into my biggest threat.
