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Prologue: Eight Years Earlier
Liz
“Are you really going through with the wedding?” Ethan demands, disbelief coloring his voice.
“What am I supposed to do? My parents will be furious if I back out now. They’re counting on the political connections that our marriage will bring,” I explain patiently.
“You can’t be serious, Liz. The idiot cheated on you.”
“You don’t know that for sure.” I look away as I utter the lie. I’ve had suspicions for months, but I’ve chosen to ignore them. Because of Ethan, I’m now being forced to face the reality of my situation.
I’m engaged to a lying, cheating asshole.
But it doesn’t matter. I still have to marry him. The wedding is tomorrow, and my parents are counting on me. Everyone is depending on me.
Like it or not, I will marry TrentEllington.
This should be one of the happiest days of my life. Instead, I’m sitting in the hotel suite of Ethan Anders, a man I barely know. My dreams of a happy marriage have been crushed in an instant.
Ethan throws his hands up and shakes his head at me. “Do you think I’d drag you into my hotel suite and accuse your fiancé of cheating if I didn’t know it for a fact? Look, it’s not my business, I know that. But you can’t possibly be considering marriage to him.”
“What did you actually see? Just a kiss? She’s probably just a friend. There are a lot of out-of-town guests here. I’m sure she’s just an old friend, and it was completely innocent.” In my head, I know I’m trying to make excuses for Trent. I’m trying to find a reason to make it okay to marry him.
Ethan puts his hands on his hips as he regards me with his steady eyes. I can see him trying to hide the shock from his expression. “I wish my female friends would kiss me like that. He had his hand on her ass and his tongue in her mouth as he backed her into a hotel room. I didn’t stay to watch, but I can guess what came next.”
“When did this happen?” I spit out angrily.
“I saw them a couple of hours ago. It took me a while to find you, to tell you.”
His words devastate me, but I won’t show it. My parents raised me to be poised and proper. You know, the greatest political facade. You can be dying on the inside, but you push any emotion other than happiness down . . . like, way down. Plaster a smile on and act happy.
I won’t let my parents down.
My insides are in knots. I don’t know how I’ll get through this.
“Why are you even here?” I demand in a haughty tone, wanting to change the subject. I raise a finger and point accusingly at him. “You weren’t invited to my wedding.”
“I’m Jake’s plus-one,” he says, as though that explains anything.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re here. We barely know each other. Why did you come to my wedding?”
Jake is one of my best friends, but I’ve only met his brother Ethan a handful of times. Ethan and I are the same age, and we both just graduated together. However, Ethan has always run with a different crowd. I never would’ve expected him to attend my wedding.
Ethan shrugs as he leans up against the wall. “You’re my brother’s friend. Jake thinks the world of you and talks about you all the time. I feel like I know you pretty well. Anyway, Jake dragged me here. I’ve been going through a rough breakup myself, and he was tired of me moping around. He’s under the impression that I’ll hook up with someone here, not that I’m even remotely interested in looking at any females right now.”
I didn’t expect to hear that from Ethan, the most carefree of the Anders brothers. So lost in my own problems, I hadn’t noticed the lines of fatigue that darkened his skin. The dark shadows under his eyes are a sign that he’s not sleeping well. The few times I’d met Ethan, he’d always seemed so outgoing and happy. So different from the man standing in front of me now.
I might be dealing with a lot right now, but it looks like Ethan is, too. Even though it feels cowardly, it’s a relief to turn the attention off me and onto him.
“I’m sorry to hear about your breakup. What happened?” I ask hesitantly.
From the look on his face, I can tell that he was neither expecting nor wanting the question.
“Let’s just say I know what it feels like to be cheated on by a fiancée,” he says with a pained expression. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“Me either,” I say miserably.
Ethan pushes off the doorway and heads to the minibar. “I think we both need a good, strong drink.” He takes two crystal tumblers from the cabinet and pours a small amount of amber-colored liquid into each.
