She screams. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Lincoln comes running from inside the barn. He falters when he realizes it’s not an emergency. “What’s going on out here?”
“She’s drunk as per usual.” Rogue wipes the bottom of her nose with his thumb. “And on shit.”
“Damn it, Bianca.” Lincoln’s shoulders droop. “I thought we agreed. No getting wasted at the wedding.”
Ethan has come out too. When he glances at Lincoln the two men share an understanding.
“You’re my friend, Bianca. And as a friend, I’ve been remiss for far too fucking long.” Rogue folds his arms over his chest as he stands over her. “You have a problem with your drinking and whatever else you’ve taken tonight.”
“No, I don’t.” She glares at him.
“Yeah. You do,” he says sadly. “And we’ve all let it go, but I can’t anymore. We’ve babysat you at parties. We’ve scared off boyfriends who would have seen you bloodied and bruised or in jail. But you gotta grow up. Get therapy. You gotta stop with the drama. Surely, this isn’t fun for you anymore. It’s not fun for any of us.”
Bianca sobs. “Rogue, I—"
“We’ve got her.” Lincoln steps up behind her and grips her shoulders. “We’ll take her party back to the cabin and put it to bed.”
“Good. Because this...” Rogue points at the barn. “This is our week, Bianca. Ivy’s and my pre-wedding celebrations. It’s not about you and your need to be the center of attention.” He turns to me. “It’s about this woman that I love more than anything. This woman who is going to be my wife. This woman who I won’t tolerate being talked to like you did tonight.”
“She’s sorry, aren’t you, boo?” Ethan wraps an arm around her waist, and she rests her head on his chest.
Snivelling, she nods. “I didn’t mean it. I love you both. I love you together. I was joking about married sex being boring. If anyone is going to get it right, it’s you two.”
Lincoln winces. “She didn’t...”
A muscle in Rogue’s jaw tics. “She did.”
“Come on, Bianca. Let’s get you to bed.” Ethan leads her away with an arm around her shoulder.
“Will you stay with me?” She peers up at him.
“Yeah, of course. Linc too.” He gestures for Lincoln to follow.
Rogue shoves his hands in his pockets as he approaches me. “I’m sorry. It truly was nothing, but I should have told you about Bianca so you wouldn’t be blindsided. But I didn’t think about it. As soon as I met you there was no one else. There was no other point in my history that I wanted to remember.”
“But we talked about the skinny dipping,” I say. “The night I met your family for the first time.”
“We were so new. I didn’t want to risk something like that getting between us.”
If only that had been all that would try to come between us. Instead we dealt with Alec, Nicole, and Jackson. I survived amnesia, abduction, and almost dying. Rogue was set up and almost ended up in prison. This wouldn’t be our wedding weekend if there wasn’t someone trying to get between us.
I didn’t think it would be Bianca.
“I believe you.” I hug my middle tightly. After all we’ve been through there’s no one I trust in this world more than him. But how do we make that enough? He’s this famous, sexy, gorgeous man whose entire reputation revolves around him being a scoundrel with women’s hearts. And I’m just me. Am I going to be enough without the drama? Because I am sick of the drama.
“You know she doesn’t really want me, right? She’s stirring up trouble to distract her from whatever her issue is. That’s all. She’ll be even more apologetic tomorrow.” He sounds exhausted. “She always is.”
“Maybe you can talk to her about getting help then.” Hopefully she will take it seriously in the light of day.
“That’s a problem for tomorrow.” He takes my hand. “I want to focus on you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Ivy.”
“Seriously. I don’t care that you have a past. I’ve never cared about that. But she’s right, I don’t have experience. Not like you do.”
