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It was then that I found out how funny, charming, and attentive he could be. And not even four months later, I was in love and planning our wedding. Now looking at him, I feel nothing. That love I once had for him is gone and has been replaced with disappointment. If he would have been honest with me and told me that he no longer loved me and that he wanted something else, it would have hurt, but I would have respected him for being truthful. Now? Now, I don’t even have that.
“Don’t you think the red lipstick is too much?” he asks, dragging me from my thoughts, and I force a smile as I walk past him.
“Nope.”
“Nope,” Kingston repeats, following right behind me, and I sit on the edge of the bed. After putting on the strappy gold heels, I stand and walk back into the closet to grab my clutch just as the doorbell goes off. “Can you take Kingston with you and get that? It’s Emma,” I call out.
“Yeah,” I hear him agree.
After putting the things I’ll need into my beaded clutch, I grab my dress coat and carefully manage the stairs in my heels, then head into the kitchen, where I can hear Emma laughing with Kingston.
“Are you ready?” Bowie asks as soon as I walk around the corner—without even an appreciative glance in my direction.
“Yep.” I look from him to Emma. “Thank you.”
“Any time.” She places Kingston on his feet, then comes over to me and wraps me in a hug. “Are you okay?” she whispers, and I nod. “Just so you know, if I didn’t love dick so much, I’d totally bang you.”
“Shut up.” I laugh, and she lets me go with a wide smile on her face.
“Just saying.”
“What?” Bowie asks, looking between us with a frown.
“Nothing,” we say at the same time, and I squat down, holding my arms open for Kingston, and he runs toward me, almost knocking me over. “Be good for Aunt Emma, and Mommy will be home soon.”
“Pwomise?”
“Promise.” I kiss his cheek, then wipe away the red stain my lipstick left behind. “I love you.”
“Wov you.” He gives my neck one last squeeze, then hugs his dad before Emma calls for him to join her in the living room, where she’s pulling out a game.
Walking ahead of Bowie out to the garage, I get into the front seat of his truck and click my belt into place as he gets in behind the wheel.
We don’t talk the entire drive downtown, and he doesn’t make a move to touch me, which makes me wonder if he won’t be relieved when I tell him that I know about Naomie.
Maybe he’s in love with her.
Maybe they are in love with each other.
That thought should hurt, but it doesn’t. I’m numb, completely void of any emotion when it comes to him.
When we get to the hotel the event is being held at, he valets the car at the front, then the two of us walk in side by side. He doesn’t touch me until people look in our direction when we enter the ballroom, and that’s when he places his hand on my lower back.
“Do you want a drink?” he asks, and I step away from him and look around.
“Yeah, I’m just going to find out where we’re sitting. I’ll meet you at the bar.” I turn away before he can reply, and I walk over to a long table covered with folded note cards that have names printed on them in gold. Just when I find Bowie’s card and mine and pick them up, the name Tucker Beckett catches my attention.
It can’t be. Can it?
Scanning the cards around Tucker’s, my heart starts to pound when I see Naomie Beckett on the card under his.
Does she work with Bowie, or does Tucker? Either way, I didn’t plan for this. I didn’t prepare myself for seeing the woman Bowie is sleeping with and her husband she’s cheating on.
“Pardon,” a deep voice says, reaching in front of me, and when masculine fingers pinch the top of the card I was just looking at seconds ago, in slow motion, my eyes move from the hand now holding Tucker’s card, up the sleeve of a black suit jacket, to a wide chest and then a gorgeous face.
With my heart racing and my palms suddenly sweaty, I take in a gulp of air as a set of haunted crystal-clear blue eyes surrounded by thick lashes meet mine.
I’m going to pass out.
“Are you all right?” he asks, wrapping his fingers around my upper arm when my heel gets caught on the bottom of my dress as I try to take a step back and away from him.
“Yes, sorry.” I right myself, then feel the blood drain from my face when a woman wearing a red dress with dark hair walks toward us while calling his name. The same woman I saw in the photo on Bowie’s computer. “I’m so sorry.” I stumble, backing up. “So, so sorry,” I whisper, and his brows drag together.
