I was dragging when I put the last case by the door, but I had one final thing to do.
Walking back into the bathroom, I opened the box that had been beneath my sink for the past week.It was time to stop hiding my head in the sand once and for all.
Sitting on the toilet, I peed on the little stick and left it on the counter once I washed my hands.There was no need to see the results.I already knew it was going to be positive.My period wasn’t just a little late.One missed period could be brushed off as stress or any number of reasons.Two, not so much.
Factor in my swollen, ultrasensitive boobs and random nausea, and I didn’t need to be an RN to predict I was freaking pregnant.
That realization, more than anything, was why I was leaving this life behind.I wanted the little person growing inside me.They would have the best I could provide, all the things I’d longed for as a kid.Someone to love and protect them.
A safe home.
Ryder and Kane wouldn’t want this baby.My pregnancy would complicate their new relationships.New?
A pained laugh bubbled out of me.
There was nothing new about Kane’s and Ryder’s relationships with Raffaella and Amadea Bianchi.They’d been engaged to them for years, before there was ever a Ryder-Vega-Kane situationship.
It was simplynewsto me.
News that had been shoved in my face only days before.If I’d known they were with someone else, I never would have…
I let the lie trail off.
If I’d known, would it have changed anything?
That was a hard truth to swallow, because I didn’t know.But it no longer mattered.I knew now, and I was done being their dirty secret.
Dropping down face first on my bed, I turned my head away from where my phone was still lighting up with more incoming texts and calls.I didn’t want to see Ryder’s or Kane’s pictures flash across the screen.A few more tears spilled over my lashes, pooling on my pillow.
They were my everything, and they treated me like I was their world when we were together.At no point in our years together had I ever thought we wouldn’t be together.Not even when I felt guilty for falling in love with Kane so quickly, as easily as breathing.Ryder didn’t let me wallow in uncertainty.He accepted that my heart was invested in both of them.They said they loved me, even if that meant sharing me.
Our future was melded together, as if fate had created each of us for one another.
What a fucking laughable fairy-tale world I had walked around in where those two assholes were concerned.Knowing what I did now, I couldn’t help wondering…agonizing over the possibility that on those nights they were with Amadea and Raffaella, they were making love to them.Fucking them.Maybe when they were with me, they were imagining the women they had already pledged their futures to.
No!I refused to let those thoughts take root and fester in my mind more than they already had.
I wasn’t going to think about them any longer.They didn’t get to have some storybook dream double wedding with the Bianchi sisters, uniting three powerful families, and still take up space in my head.
Or the heart they had crushed.
A little sleep, that was all I needed, and then I could walk away from this life.
I’d disappear, and the men who had destroyed me could live their happy-ever-afters with their wives.
Ryder
“Didyou remember to get those little packets of jam she loves so much?”I asked Kane, eyeballing the box of pastries he’d been in charge of obtaining.
“Got twelve.Also added three of those muffins that make her moan,” Kane assured me, his gaze going to the extra-large iced latte in my hand.“The color is darker than normal.Are you sure they put in the right amount of milk?”
“I made them let me taste it before they added the cold foam.It’s exactly the way she likes it, man.”I’d watched them add the six full pumps of syrup, the extra shots of espresso, and exactly two inches of cold foam with caramel drizzle on top.
After the clusterfuck of the previous day, I wanted everything to be perfect when we saw our girl.Marrying Amadea and Raffaella today was a necessary part of the plan.It got us one step closer to getting the Bianchi family and Cullum out of our lives once and for all.But it felt like a betrayal.
Fuck, it was a betrayal to Vega.No matter how many times I tried to reason with myself, I knew it would cause her pain if she were to find out.It wouldn’t matter to her that Kane and I hadn’t consummated our marriages and never would.We said “I do” to women who weren’t her.
Sundays weren’t normally days we shared Vega.They were typically my one-on-one time with her.But as agitated as Kane had been during the low-key reception the night before, I had told him to pick up Vega’s favorite breakfast and meet me at her place.
