Unbreak Me (14 page)

I peel the fondant icing off a piece of cake. “God, whatever happened to good, old-fashioned butter cream frosting?”

Lizzy snorts. “They got rid of it when cake stopped being about taste and started being about appearance.”

I hold a piece of yellow fondant against the flickering light of a candle. “It looks like plastic. I can’t eat anything that color.”

“Don’t talk to me about food to me,” Hanna grumbles. “I’m on a diet.”

I roll my eyes. “Why?”

“Three words,” she says. “Red. Leather. Pants.”

“The ones you wore to Melinda’s Halloween party two years ago?” I ask. “Are we talking about the ones so tight that I had to help you put them on
and
take it off?”

“I’m sorry. It sounds like I’m interrupting.” Asher grins at the girls as he settles into the seat next to me.

“Kinda,” I say, and at the same time Lizzy says, “Not at all.”

Asher looks at me expectantly. “Don’t let me interrupt. You were talking about peeling leather pants off each other?” He rests his chin on his hands. “Go on.”

Lizzy beams. “Asher Logan,” she says, offering her hand. “I’m Lizzy Thompson, and I hear you’re a little freaky.”

“Lizzy!” I swat her arm.

Asher quirks a brow. “I didn’t figure your sister for the type to kiss and tell.”

“I didn’t tell her about the kitchen,” I hiss.

“No, just about the night you met.” Lizzy wriggles her eyebrows. “But tell me about the kitchen.” She leans forward, leering just a little. “Please?”

Asher chuckles but my cheeks are an inferno of heat. Which is ridiculous because I’m not the type to be embarrassed about sex.

Hanna hums as she studies us, a crooked smile on her face. She tugs at Lizzy’s arm. “We’ll leave you two love birds alone for a bit.”

When they’re gone, I turn to Asher. He looks so damn sexy tonight. “You’re coming home with me to attempt to redeem this night, aren’t you?”

He grins at me. “I thought maybe we could make some coffee. You know, really talk and get to know each other.” He winks and I melt a little inside.

“Asher Logan, if you think I’m going to walk around in these heels all night and not get anything out of it, you are mistaken.”

He chuckles and kisses me on top of my head. “Maybe we can compromise.”

“If your idea of compromise involves a lot of naked flesh, I’ll consider it.”

I don’t get to hear his reply because Will has made his way to us. “Thank you for coming tonight. I told Maggie she didn’t have to bring a date, but I suppose someone needs to keep her out of trouble.”

Asher nods but murmurs so only I can hear, “I was more interested in getting you into it.”

“Love the house,” I manage. “Congratulations.”

Will’s eyes soften as he looks at me, and something tugs in my chest. Regret? Longing? Anger?

Next to me, Asher stiffens. He’s too perceptive. As much as everyone else seems blind to it, he sees the way Will looks at me. Asher’s seen it from that first night, and now tension rolls off him in tangible waves.

“I hope you’re taking good care of Maggie,” Will tells him.

“Maggie’s not a child,” Asher says stiffly. “She doesn’t need to be taken care of.”

“Everyone needs someone to take care of them,” Will counters, eyes hard.

Asher folds his arms, refusing to take the bait.

After a couple of beats of awkward silence, Will says, “Let me know if I can get you anything.”

Asher’s jaw ticks, and we sit in silence for a minute after Will leaves us.

“I guess it’s still a little awkward,” I say.

“Because he still wants you.”

***

William

Asher’s hands are all over Maggie. In my house. He touches her at all times. A hand at the small of her back as they tour the house, his fingers laced through hers as they chat with guests by the bar, a finger along her jaw as he whispers something into her ear. And when they are pulled apart, it’s worse. The looks she casts him across the room are charged with sexual tension. Want, need, and something tender.

I need a drink.

A soft smile curves Lizzy’s lips. “I’ve never seen her so happy. They’re adorable together.”

I lean against the wall and watch the couple in question.
I want that.

But even as I think it, I’m not sure which part I want. Do I want that easy chemistry between them? Do I wish that base attraction was part of my relationship with Krystal? Or do I want Maggie?

“Twenty says they sneak to the bathroom to do the dirty before the night’s through,” Lizzy says with a grin.

I force myself to return her smile. “That’s a sucker bet.”

“Maybe.” She studies them, sipping at her glass of wine. “But Maggie’s turning over a new leaf. I don’t think fast and furious bathroom fucking is part of the New Maggie plan.”

My silent questions are answered by the image that flashes fast and vivid through my mind. Maggie in the bathroom, her hips propped on the porcelain sink, her skirt bunched around her hips, head thrown back as she bites back a moan, her lover’s fingers curling into her hips. But in my vision, they’re not Asher’s fingers. They’re mine. And it’s my name that slips from her lips as I press her up against the door and slide into her.

Fuck
. What am I even doing?

Krystal comes into my line of vision and I feel like the piece of shit I am.

She’s been avoiding me. We don’t touch. We hardly talk.

If things hadn’t already been finished between us, the receipt I found in her drawer tonight would have been enough to end things.

When I meet her eyes, I realize for the first time that she already knows it’s over.

***

Maggie

I need some air, so I slip out the oversized French doors to the back of the house.

Just off the patio, lanterns line the cobblestone path to a lush garden. The thick air of Indiana summer weighs hot and heavy in my lungs.

I follow the path to a burbling fountain and find Will tucked in a corner, an unlit cigarette between his fingers.

“Aren’t you going to go inside and mingle with your fiancée?” I ask softly, sinking into the wrought iron chair beside him.

“I needed a break from”—he waves a hand—“you know, everything.”

I nod because I do know, and the silence stretches between us, comfortable for the first time since I came back.

He takes a breath. “Have you ever told anyone about the baby?”

Oh, Will
. And it hurts so much—the words, the memory. The hurt never goes away, but this moment wrenches it to the surface like someone tore off the bandage and dug dirty nails into my wound.

I blink at him, but I can only think of the morning after my miscarriage scare. The ER doctor had done an ultrasound and shown me the baby’s steadily beating heart.
Sometimes this happens. A blood clot. Baby’s fine. No miscarriage.
Just a clot in my uterus and enough blood to keep me terrified for weeks.

The next morning, I woke up and stared at my wedding dress, as if it could make everything okay. As if it could make the lie I told Will true. As if it could make the decision I had in front of me any easier.

“No, I haven’t.” I meet his eyes—blue, soft, a little haunted. “Have you?”

“I think about him,” he whispers.

Her,
I think, and my heart breaks, shatters right there on the dregs of my own misery. He deserves to know the truth, but it would only hurt him more. “Me, too,” and it’s true. I think about
her
every day. “Asher…he also knows.”

Will’s brow wrinkles. “He does?”

“Yeah. He found me the day I went to the hospital.”

“Oh.” Hurt flashes in his eyes. “And you two have kept in touch?”

“No. I met him again at Krystal’s wedding. We just put two and two together last week.” Or Asher did. I didn’t remember him. That morning at the river, he’d been inconsequential. I’d been too focused on my own fear.

“Oh. Right.” He stares at the fountain. Thinking? Avoiding my gaze? I’m not sure. But then he says, “You know that I wasn’t just marrying you for the baby, right?”

I swallow back that thickness in my throat. We’d been together for barely three weeks when I told him I was pregnant. I never would have accepted his ring so young if I hadn’t been pregnant.

“I always wonder about that. If you understood how much I cared for you. If you just thought that you were saving me by ending it, leaving town.”

“It was for the best.”

He finally meets my eyes again. “I’m still in love with you.”

I jump out of the chair. I don’t want to hear this. “Don’t.”

I put several yards between us, pretending to examine the fountain. My fingers graze the water-slicked stone of the angel’s face.

“Maggie. Is there something more I could have done? To keep you?” His voice is close, and I’m not surprised when I feel his hands on my shoulders, turning me. “It’s over between me and Krystal. It will be over. Tonight.”

My heart trips. Stumbles. Aches.

“You were right. I had no right to kiss you before I ended it, and I have no right to do it now.”

I open my mouth to respond, to tell him he can do better than me and my lies.

But then his lips are on mine and he’s kissing me.

It’s not the hungry, demanding kiss from the gallery. It’s nice. Soft. Gentle. If Will is anything, it’s gentle. Maybe I need someone tough, someone hardened like me.

His lips brush mine once, twice, then he retreats. His fingertips trace down the side of my jaw. And I should be angry, but I’m not—not when his kiss makes me feel so safe.

When I pull back, Asher’s standing five yards behind Will, his gaze locked on me.

“I thought I’d find you out here.” His expression is guarded. “I’ll be inside when you decide this is a bad idea.”

My heart sinks and my stomach lurches. They collide inside me, my lungs a casualty, torn apart by the wreckage.

Why couldn’t he look hurt? Crushed by my indiscretion? Anything but that guarded, you-can’t-hurt-me look I understand so well.

He walks away and I ball my fists to resist running after him, resist the instinct to explain what can’t be explained.

“He’s no good for you, Maggie,” Will says softly.

“That’s not fair.”

Will puts his finger to my lips and studies me. “I’m sorry.” Does he mean for the kiss? For what he said about Asher? But he says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed. So sorry. You’ll never know.” And then he walks away.

And I’m alone with nothing but the taste of my regret and the weight of my lies for company.

***

Asher

I want to put a hole in the wall of William Bailey’s fancy-ass house. I want to break his porcelain serving platters and shatter his crystal.

I want to
drink
.

It’s the last that has me so damn unsteady, licking parched lips and watching the door as I wait for her to return. I’m not leaving without her. I’m not running from here with my tail tucked between my legs like he wants me to. He saw me coming and he kissed her to prove he could.

And she let him.

His lips were on Maggie, and I wanted to throw him across the yard, wanted the satisfaction of feeling my knuckles connect with his skull.

God. Damn. It.

Will approaches, his hands tucked into his pressed black dress pants. I hate him so much in this moment I have to ball my hands into fists to keep from decking him.

He runs a hand through his blond hair as he looks distractedly around the party.

Jesus. This guy is class and style and reeks of old money.

I follow his gaze. Maggie has returned. She’s twisted that flaming red hair off her neck, revealing the tender spot I know makes her crazy.

Will stares at her, naked longing in his eyes.

Maggie spots me and freezes, deer-in-the-headlights terror on her face. “I need a minute,” she says, backing up a step. She looks to Will. “May I use your restroom?”

Will casts a glance over his shoulder. “I think Aunt Shirley’s in that one. You can use the one off the master down the hall.”

Will and I watch her leave. The tension between us angry enough to bruise.

“Stay away from Maggie,” Will warns softly, his gaze on Maggie’s retreating form. “She deserves better. Does she even know about Juliana?”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him. My skin across my knuckles burns from my fists being balled so tightly. I force my hands to relax and walk away, going after Maggie without a word to this man who thinks he has some sort of hold over her.

I find her in the master bath. She’s standing at the counter, hands pressed against its edge, head hanging. She doesn’t look up. “Go away.”

I flip the lock on the door before putting my hands to her waist. Our eyes meet in the mirror.

Her eyes blaze. “I’m
fucked up
, Asher. Don’t you see that? I’m a fucking home-wrecking
slut
.”

I watch her in the mirror as I trace the edge of her jaw with my thumb, leaning in to brush my lips against the smooth, exposed column of her neck.

Electricity.

It’s there every time I touch her, and it whips through my veins in a violent, hungry rush. She feels it too. I can see it in her eyes. I can feel it in the way her body instinctively presses closer to mine.

She reaches back and threads her fingers through my hair. “Why are you even still here?”

Our eyes meet in the mirror again. I dip my fingers into the top of her strapless dress and feather them across her breasts. I want to peel it off her, spin her around and graze my teeth over her nipples, set her on the vanity, and open her legs to my mouth. “I care about you, Maggie.”

She flinches, as if the words offend her. “You don’t know me.”

“Maybe not. But I understand you.” I let my mouth hover over her ear. “Are you calling yourself a slut because you kissed him or because you know you’re going to let me touch you in here?” I pause a beat to let that settle in. Blood pulses hot and thick into my dick at the catch in her breath. “I think you want me to. You want me to make you come in the house of the man you were going to marry.”