Page 68 of Secret Squirrel
“Then you should have—”
“Planned it!” I finished. “Yeah, I got it. Thanks for kicking me when I’m down.”
“Hey, you should have fucking known better. If you hadn’t let your dick do the thinking for you, none of this would have happened.”
He was right, but there was no point arguing that now. After a tense drive, we skidded to a stop in Red’s driveway. He was glaring at me as I jumped out of the truck, but one look at Lock and me, he shook his head and motioned for us to follow him around the house.
I ran around the side, stopping when I saw Eva waiting. She was stunning in a simple cream dress. Her eyes roamed over my body before a small smile tilted her lips. She shook her head at me, but faced forward and waited for me to take my place.
Lock shoved me from behind and I finally started walking. I didn’t dare look at anyone else, but I could feel the shock on their faces as we passed. I stood at the front with Lock at my side. He tugged my torn sleeve up, trying to make it appear as if the suit was whole, but it didn’t hold. The sleeve started to slip again and I shrugged off his attempts to fix it again.
The wedding music started and I turned to face Eva. Humor danced in her eyes as she came toward me, and the ache in my chest that had been present since the day I knew I loved her started to ease. She was finally mine for life. If she thought that by marrying me my possessiveness of her would fade, she was dead wrong. If anything, it would only get worse now that she was pregnant with my kid.
“You look beautiful,” I murmured as she stood beside me.
“Do I want to know what happened?” she asked.
“Car accident,” I lied. “I had to pull an old woman from a burning car.”
Lock coughed, covering his laugh.
“Uh-huh. Then why don’t you smell like smoke?”
My jaw dropped open as I realized my error, but I had already started down this path, and there was no fucking way I was telling her the truth.
“Shh, the minister’s about to start.”
She turned to me with burning eyes, but I snatched her hand and brought it to my lips, placing a gentle kiss in the palm of her hand. The anger melted from her gaze and she turned back to the minister.
I caught Lock’s shocked gaze out of the corner of my eye and smirked. That was how you handled a disaster.
15
DUKE
I rolled over, my hand stretching to reach across the bed. I knew Rae wasn’t there. It was like our night together was a distant memory that I was trying to grasp onto. I’d tried calling her, texting…hell, I even left a message on her windshield, but didn’t get a single response. Anything else would reek of desperation.
An urgent knock at my door had me flinging off the covers and grabbing a pair of pajama pants. Answering the door in the nude wasn’t a good idea. The knocking continued until I finally swung the door open thirty seconds later, but I wished I had just stayed in bed.
Pouting on my doorstep was none other than the blonde bombshell I’d been trying to avoid for days. Rae called her a barbie doll, which I supposed fit. Hell, when I started taking her home, I didn’t give a shit about that stuff. She was hot and I was horny. That was the only thing on my radar at the moment. But now that I’d had Rae, tasted her and knew what it was like to be inside her, the woman in front of me just didn’t compare.
“Hey, Dukey. I’ve missed you,” Carly said, sticking out her lip.
I sighed heavily, staring up at the sky and praying for divine intervention. God was punishing me for having good sex. I should have known the minute I got Rae to give me a chance that something would happen. And that something was Carly. She was determined to keep me in her clutches.
“It’s six-thirty in the morning,” I groaned.
“Yeah, but you haven’t been coming into the diner. How else was I supposed to see you?”
“I haven’t even had coffee yet.”
“Ooh, I can make you coffee. I make it at the diner,” she said excitedly.
“No thanks.” I’d had her coffee. I didn’t need to end up in an early grave.
“So, what do you say to dinner?”
“Carly, I already told you this was over.”