Pure Wicked (Wicked Lovers #9.5)(40)
Author: Shayla Black

“You’ve got this wrong.”

“I don’t think so.” She stood, fists balls, face flushing with anger. “You lied to me. You used me. All your pretty words…”

“That’s not how it happened. I’d already proposed when she sent that message.”

“No. She sent it hours before your little impassioned speech.”

“I was asleep when she sent that message,” he pointed out.

She scoffed. “Or you pretended to be.”

“Seriously?” He stood and stared down at her, water dripping from his hair. He swiped it away with an impatient hand. “You think I would flat-out lie to you after I know what you’ve been through? After I’ve poured out my heart to you?”

“I think you have a career to preserve and millions of fans to make happy. Who cares about my feelings when all that is at stake?”

“I do. If I didn’t, why would I have jumped in to help you save face in front of your family the night we met? Why would I have chased Hayden off? Why would I do my best to tell you how special you are? Why would I have bothered to get to know you or tell you I love you? If all I wanted was to improve my fucking image, I could have paid someone a hundred times over to pretend to be my fiancée.”

She had to see that logic. He’d been in far worse PR scrapes—the time with the three hookers in Rio came to mind—and hadn’t resorted to a fake wedding. Didn’t Bristol get that if he wanted a facade, he could find one anywhere?

“I don’t know.” She jumped up and paced. “I don’t understand anything. It’s all happening too fast and the timing is a bit too coincidental. I can’t…” Bristol shook her head, plopping his phone onto the glass table. It pinged and rattled as she headed for the door. “I need to think.”

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“Away.” She sobbed and sniffled.

“You’re leaving?” he marched after her. “Don’t do this. Honey, I meant every word I said. I really do love you.”

She wrenched the door open and paused outside the threshold, then turned back to him with tears in her eyes. “I love you, too. And that’s what hurts the most. I don’t know if you’re the love of my life…or my biggest mistake.”

Before he could say a word, she slammed the door behind her. He would have given chase, but he wore only a towel. By the time he dressed, she’d be long gone. Already, he heard her footsteps pounding down the stairs, then across the wooden subfloor of the stock room. A door slammed. He looked out the window, watching her flee to her car and drive away.

“Well, fuck.” He pounded a fist into the door, then grabbed his phone and reread Candia’s text. Yeah, that would look bad out of context. Damn it.

Jesse sighed. He wanted to be pissed but he understood her reservations. Trust was hard for her after Hayden had screwed her over so thoroughly. Jesse knew she had no way of knowing the man he’d been without her, and he wasn’t sure how to prove that he couldn’t be more serious about their marriage. But he had to start thinking fast because he didn’t intend to lose her.

Chapter Eight

With a sinking dread, Bristol parked down the street from her mother’s yellow Victorian and crawled out of her crappy compact. Tuesday evening dinner, and clearly she was one of the last to arrive since everyone else’s cars lined the crumbling tar road on both sides.

She closed the door and leaned against the vehicle, head bowed, and let out a rough breath. Might as well end this circus. The sooner she told everyone that “Jamie” had ditched her, the sooner she could start living with the label of Lewisville’s sad sack ho-bag/spinster and get back to her small apartment where she’d see Jesse everywhere and wonder again if she’d been stupid to run him off.

From the direction of her mother’s house, Jayla came sprinting across the wide, open yard. “Have you heard from him?”

Bristol had no doubt which “him” her bestie was referring to. “No. Nothing.”

After their argument, she’d left, taking a ride over to the Sonic Drive-In east of Lewisville, in the town of Stamps. A milkshake and a good cry later, she’d headed back to her apartment, ready to work things through. Jesse—and every trace of him—had been gone.

Only then did she realize that she didn’t have his number. And it wasn’t as if she could simply hit up his website or Facebook page and leave a comment that read, Hey, Jesse proposed to me. Could you tell him I want to talk so he should call me?

Jayla curled an arm around her. “I know you thought you loved him but…maybe him leaving so abruptly was his way of admitting that the jig is up.”