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“I gave you two unsaid permission to have your filthy affair.” Daniel laughed mirthlessly as we turned for the door. “You could’ve left me for him. Things didn’t have to get to this point, Jasper. But you mucked it up like you do everything else.” The absence of his front teeth gave him a lisp, and blood dribbled down his chin, staining the front of his white shirt. He looked down at the mess and screwed his eyes shut as if pained by it.
“Don’t, Cole,” I said, holding him back from Daniel. “He’s lost everything, and we’ve gained everything. The least we can do is give him the last word. It’s all he’s got left.”
The phones rang in succession throughout the apartment, and Daniel had a wild look about him, fisting his chestnut hair before stomping over to the end table and hurling the phone at the wall. All while tossing insults at our backs as we exited.
“You have no proof! So I took a last-minute trip to spend the night with a woman, and then paid her for her time,” he said, working out the spin he’d put on things, working on his defense. “I wouldn’t be the first to do it. And Jessica,” he scoffed. “You’ll be hard-pressed to find any evidence that doesn’t lead straight to her.” He must have had her do all the dirty work, keeping his hands as clean as possible. “Who knows, maybe all this time she was in love with me,” he said. “Or maybe, she’s been working with you all this time to set me up. Yeah, that’s it. You’ve been looking for a way to bring me down ever since learning I was married to Jasper.”
I turned back to the apartment, holding up my phone and unveiling the voice recording app I had running, taking satisfaction in the widening of his eyes. “You’ve underestimated me for the last time, Daniel.”
“This isn’t over! You’ll fucking pay for this!” He changed tactics when that didn’t get a reaction from us. “If it’s any consolation,” he said, “if I were able to love someone, it would’ve been you.”
That caught our attention, and we watched Daniel through narrowed eyes from the open doorway as we waited for the elevator. Daniel dragged his salacious stare over me, and I knew his parting blow wouldn’t be good. I squeezed Cole’s hand tighter, wondering if I was strong enough to hold him off Daniel a second time.
“Because no one takes a cock like you, Jasper.” His bloody cocky smile said he’d thought he’d won, but Cole didn’t give him the pulverizing he so obviously wanted. He gave him something even better.
“I’d answer the phone if I were you, Daniel,” he said composedly as Daniel’s cell phone continued to scream. “Might be your parents. I did you the favor of breaking the news to them. Didn’t want the headlines catching them off guard.”
Daniel went as still as death, the red coating his face harsh against the pale backdrop of his skin. We backed onto the elevator, and I pressed the button for the lobby.
“You’re welcome,” Cole said to Daniel, as the elevator doors closed.
“What are you thinking?” Cole asked as we rode down. “Don’t tell me you feel sorry for him?”
“Of course I do. But that’s not what I was thinking. If it weren’t for Daniel, we’d still be apart. I’d still be blaming myself for her death. I’d still be a poor reflection of who I used to be.”
“So some good came out of his deceitfulness. So what.” He shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t owe him our thanks for it.”
I nodded, lifting my chin at his directive, accepting a cum-fragranced kiss. “I was also thinking I could finally have a shower. Poor Mark must have been dying from the front seat.”
Cole laughed into my mouth.
“You’re such a fucking brute,” I said.
“Does that upset you?”
“Occasionally,” I said. “Like when I have a deceptive husband to tackle, and all you want to do is mark me and stuff me full of cum to prove to the world you own me.”
“I was afraid. I wanted him to know who you belonged to. I wanted you to remember me, tofeelme inside you as you dealt with him,” he said, the mercilessness in his eyes replaced with something soft just for me.
I pressed my mouth to his lips, not with the intention to kiss him, but so he could feel my next words. So he could remember what they had once meant to us, and what they meant to me now. Halfway through our teenage mantra, he joined in, words shaking with deep emotion.
“I love you so much my heart hurts with it,” we whispered together, and then repeated it as many times as it took for him to believe it. I had a lot of making up to do, and it would be my most important job from that day forward because I knew what mattered now. My love for him.
“I love you, Cole Kincaid,” I said fiercely. “And you don’t have to be afraid anymore. I’m not going anywhere.”
Jasper
4 Months Later
I’D LET MYintern go early under false pretenses. Sure, tomorrow marked the first day of summer, and yeah, he was young, and it was Friday, and in terms of actual work—and not just setting up our desk chairs and ordering supplies, it was a slow day. It all made sense, but really, I wanted to be alone. I wanted to touch every inch of my new office space with my bare hands. I wanted to tap dance on the polished floors. I wanted to whoop into the air, and pray I didn’t disturb anyone in the shoe store below me, or the office space on the floor above. And I didn’t want to subject Leon to secondhand embarrassment while doing it.
Cole and I had gone full speed ahead after the debacle with Daniel broke. Not only within our personal lives, but professionally speaking, too. Too much time had already been wasted. No more second-guessing anything became our motto. I had a dream, and with him by my side encouraging me, and Sofia at my back pushing me whenever fear stalled me, there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do.
It also helped that I’d given in and claimed my trust, affording me the luxury of building my business when and how I wanted to.
“I did it,” I whispered to myself with pride.
“Yes, you did,” an equally awed voice said from behind me. Cole waited by the open door, and going by his breezy, reclined position, he’d been there for a while.
