Page 16 of Holding Penalty

I stand up from the bed and pull my dress down. Nash’s eyebrows jump like he’s just realized what he was doing, and he quickly glances away.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” I tell him. “You take any pillows or sheets you need from the bed to get comfortable on the floor.”

I take my time in the bathroom, trying to collect my thoughts and feelings. After doing my business, I splash myself with cold water. I think about taking a cold shower.

It would probably feel great, but stripping naked and stepping under a stream of enticingly cool water with Nash just outside the door, hearing the running water and thinking how good it must feel as sweat rolls down his body, tracing the outlines of his muscles …

My stomach leaps into my throat, and I think better of it.

Instead, I take a long look at myself in the mirror.

How the hell has tonight even happened?

Finding out Crew is cheating on me, Nash picking me up, him babysitting me while I tried to distract myself from reality with alcohol and inane conversations, and now we’re sharing a hotel room together.

The effect of all the drinks I’ve swallowed tonight is quickly wearing off, harsh sobriety replacing it.

Tomorrow morning, I won’t be able to run from what happened anymore.

This self-indulgent night of distraction will be over. Nash will be gone. He’ll be glad to be gone, no doubt, to leave me to work out something that’s none of his business by myself.

Honestly, I don’t know why he’s stuck with me tonight like he has. That’s not the Nash I remember from college, who was never up for doing anything other than going to class, going to practice, and going to sleep early. Who’d practically slam his door in my face the couple times I tried to invite him to one of my parties, before I learned better.

I guess I must have looked really pathetic tonight if I elicited sympathy from Nash Miller of all people.

As I run through my memory of tonight, none of it feels real. But when I look down at my engagement ring, the bitter, angry, hurt feeling that tears through my chest assures me that it all was.

Crew cheated on me. My fiancé cheated on me.

Right?

There really couldn’t be any explanation for what I saw other than the obvious one … right?

He definitely wouldn’t have driven away and left me walking on the side of the road if he could explain himself … right?

But …

I should at least give him a chance to explain … right?

Self-doubt starts to prod at the back of my mind. Was I way too rash tonight? Too impulsive? It wouldn’t be the first time.

Am I just grasping at straws with these thoughts, hoping that I was wrong and that Crew can explain what I saw, because I don’t want to call off the wedding, inconvenience everyone in our lives, figure out where I’m going to live now, and lose out on the inheritance I need to buy my dream business?

I hang my head over the sink and take a deep breath. Just asking myself those questions is hard enough. Tomorrow, I need to start answering them.

I step out of the bathroom—just in time to see Nash stepping out of his jeans.

He’s already taken off his shirt, and now he’s wearing nothing but a pair of tight boxer briefs that cling to his hips. My eyes eat up the sharp definition of his arms, the rounded mass of his shoulders, the slabs of his chest muscles at profile view.

Then he sinks to the floor. A pinch of disappointment hits me at the fact that he didn’t turn toward me so I could count how many abs he has, or see if he has those delicious ridges of muscle carved low on his core that point below the waistband of his underwear.

I lower myself onto the bed, careful not to peek to the far side and see a boxers-clad Nash lying on his back.

“Goodnight, Nash,” I say, the words sounding so, so strange.

“Night, Piper.” Hearing Nash say that sounds even stranger.

A long beat of silence passes in the hot, cramped room.