Jameson The minute I turned into my driveway and the house came into view, I knew I was too late. There were no lights on inside, no warm flicker coming from the kitchen, and no welcoming glow emanating from the front porch like there had been ever since Sadie had moved in. My muscles had been knotted since Collins had walked into my office, but the knots twisted themselves into more elaborate knots as I parked. A fear that was both ice cold and flaming hot sat at the base of my chest, but I climbed out and strode into the ho use, praying that I would at least have the opportunity to state my case. The weight of the silence inside was heavy and suffocating, the quiet so intense that it was deafening. I dropped my keys into the bowl by the front door, the clatter piercing the absolute silence like a gunshot. “Sadie?” I called, but there was no answer. No Winkle or Hooch either. Eventually, I strode through the dark house to the living room, and that was where I found her. Sitting rigidly on the edge of the couch, she stared straight ahead. The TV was off. Ther e was no phone in her hand. Hooch sat next to her leg with his back as straight as an arrow. Winkle was curled up beside her, but his eyes were open and his ears were pricked. Sadie was still in the clothes she’d worn to the shelter this morning, her hands clasped tightly in her lap like she was holding herself together by the seams. My chest tightened. “Hey. Are you okay?” Her eyes lifted to mine as I approached, but they didn’t soften. “Carson called me today.” I stopped dead in my tracks. “Did he?” She nodded once. “What’s going on between you and Collins, Jameson?” The air in the room shifted, seeming to grow thicker and sharper. I held her gaze. “Nothing. There is absolutely nothing going on between us and there never has been.” “Funny.” Sadie tilted her head, studying me like I was a riddle she couldn’t solve. “When I called her earlier, that’s exactly what she said at first, but then she finally broke down and admitted that you two have been seeing each other since we were all i n Dallas together that weekend.”
My jaw clenched, my throat threatening to squeeze shut. “That’s a fucking lie.” “It didn’t sound like one,” she said quietly. “In fact, she seemed pretty broken up about it. She apologized and told me how you promised her you would break it off with me, but that she never would’ve gotten in volved with you if she’d known you and I were considering getting married.” “Of course she did,” I snapped. “I didn’t touch her that weekend and I haven’t touched her since, Sadie. When would I even have had the time when I’ve been with you every free minute I’ve had? Besides, you and I lived together in that pool house when I was in Dallas. Did you ever see her coming in or out? Hear anything in the night?” Sadie flinched, just slightly, but it was there. “I didn’t hear anything or see her, but that hardly means she wasn’t there. Our bedrooms were on opposite sides of the house, Jameson.” “So, you, what? You just believe her?” “Is it really that unbelievable that you’d fall back into old habits?” she shot back instead of responding. “What Trent said that night, your r eputation. Hell, I’ve read the stories in tabloids. I’ve seen pictures of the girls. The drinking.” “That was years ago,” I said, my tone sharper than I’d intended for it to be. “I’m not that guy anymore, Sadie. We’ve covered this.” “Then why does it suddenly feel yet again like I have no idea who I’m even marrying?” she asked, her voice cracking around the edges. “I had to hear about all of this from Carson, but you don’t seem particularly surprised. Why is that?” I st epped forward, but she leaned back instinctively. That stung more than I wanted to admit. “You do know me. Better than anyone. Which is why I’m asking you straight, who do you want to believe? Me, or them?” She didn’t answer immediately. As she stared back at me, I could even see the war in her eyes, the fear and the flicker of doubt. She hadn’t given me an answer because she was genuinely uncertain about what — and who — to believe. “The reason I’m not surprised is because she came to my office today,” I explained, my voice quieter now. Gentler. “She said she had pictures of our “wild night” together.” I put that part of the sentence in air quotes and breathed out harshly. “When I poi nted out that we’d never had a wild night together, she told me the truth was irrelevant because those pictures made it look like we did.” “Where were they taken?” “At a bar. Trent asked me to meet him there, but he never showed. Collins did instead. She came onto me, but I turned her down. That was the end of it.” “What did she want today?” she asked, her voice shaky. “Why did she come to your office?”
“To tell me that if I ended things with you, she’d ke ep quiet. I’m not sure why, but she seems to be determined to wreck this. Us. As for Carson, he’s got to be playing his own game. I don’t know what angle he’s working, but he’s not doing this for your be nefit. If he called you about this, he’s in on it with her.” Sadie blinked fast, like she was trying to hold back tears. “If that’s true, about the bar, you should’ve told me. You would have.” “No, Sades. Look, truth be told, the whole interaction felt suspicious at the time, but once Trent texted that he wasn’t going to make it, I got out of there and I came home to you. I forgot all about even running into Collins. That’s how little she means to me. Less than a minute after she left, I didn’t even remember she’d been there at all.” Sadie stared at me for a long moment, silence blooming in the space between us. She shook her head before lowering her face into her hands. “I don’t know what to believe right now,” she whispered. “Do you think Trent had anything to do with this?” “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “It sure as hell seems like it, but I haven’t spoken to him since he left the city. I haven’t seen him since the family dinner. It’s also not really like him to send other people to do his dirty work. We already know how he feels about us being together. It just doesn’t feel like he’d send Collins to flirt with me, get pictures, and then ask Carson to call and tell y ou about it. But she wasn’t there by accident, and the only person who knew I would be there was Trent.” She looked at me like she wanted to believe me. Hell, maybe she even did, but wanting and being able to were two different things. With my r eputation, plus some lies and a few old truths about who I’d been before, I could see why this wasn’t easy for her. It was exactly what I’d been afraid of earlier. She blinked a few more times, looking so hopeless and profoundly sad that something cracked de ep in my chest. “You know, you’ve never really told me why you want to marry me. I know that you could’ve chosen anyone, Jameson. Anyone. So why me? I don’t have anything to offer you. I’m broke. My own family doesn’t see the use in ke eping me around.” “Why you specifically?” I nodded once, my jaw tight. “I want to marry you because I love you, Sadie. I know I’ve never said it before, but it’s true. It’s not about what you can offer me. It’s not about money, or our inheritances, my seat on the board, or even our families’ expectations. With you, it’s because I love you.”
She blinked rapidly, far too many times for it to mean anything good. Then she started shaking her head. A moment later, a sound came out of her that was almost a laugh, but it was too bitter. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I ke ep trying to ke ep up, trying to trust you, trying to believe we’re in this together, but then something always happens and all I can focus on is that the last time I let myself fall for you, you left.” I took a st ep toward her. “Sadie ■ — ” “I was in love with you that summer,” she said, her eyes shining with tears in the dark. “Hopelessly. Completely. I was so in love with you and you broke my heart.” Old, remembered pain tore through me, slicing me up inside because this wasn’t just old pain anymore. It was new pain now too. Current pain, being inflicted because of a mistake I’d made when I was kid. My chest throbbed. “I know.” “And now?” She waved a hand between us. “You’re doing it again. You’re breaking my heart again, Jameson.” God, I couldn’t breathe. “I didn’t mean to,” I said hoarsely. “Damn it, Sadie, I didn’t touch her. I don’t want her. I haven’t stopped wanting you since the day I first noticed that you were a woman.” At a loss about how to make her believe me now when I’d broken her trust — and her heart — before, I could only watch as she started moving. I didn’t know how to fix this, but it felt like someone had plunged a spear through my heart when she picked up a bag f rom beside the couch. Like she’d already decided what she was going to do long before I’d even gotten home. My eyelids slammed shut. “I just, I need some time,” she murmured. “Can, uh, can Hooch and Winkle stay here for a bit? I’ll come back for them.” “Yeah,” I said, even though everything inside me was screaming no. “Of course.” I couldn’t watch as she left, so I k ept my eyes firmly shut when I heard her footst eps retreating. She walked toward the door and every fiber of my body wanted to follow, but I couldn’t. A few seconds later, the front door shut with a soft, final click, an d I just stood there in my perfect, spotless house that suddenly felt like a mausoleum. A show home. A place that was cold and hollow, echoing with everything I hadn’t said soon enough. All the regrets of a boy who hadn’t known that the consequences of his mistakes would follow him into his thirties.
There had to be a way to stop this from wrecking the rest of my goddamn life, but if there was, I couldn’t think of it. I really didn’t know how to fix this, but I also couldn’t just flop down on the couch or go to bed early, so I paced the living room. Up and down. Up and down. Finally, I grabbed my phone and hit a contact I hadn’t used in a while. Trent picked up on the second ring, and it sounded like he’d been waiting to hear from me — waiting and getting more and more livid while he had. “Tell me the truth and give it to me straight,” he growled into the phone. “Are you fucking her?” “What, who? Sadie?” “Collins,” he ground out. “Are you sle eping with her while you’re engaged to my sister?” “Fuck off, man.” I groaned and rubbed the back of my head with the palm of my hand. “Not you, too. No, of course, I’m not. I wouldn’t fuck Collins with your dick.” “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He grunted, pausing for a long moment. “Then what the hell is going on?” “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Before we get to all that, you should know that I love Sadie. I’m in love with her and I have been since that summer. I tried to end things with her. I would’ve left it alone, bro. Really, but...” “But then our parents got in volved,” he finished for me on a harsh sigh. “You were given an ultimatum and she ran out of time to put her own marriage off.” “Exactly.” I was surprised he wasn’t arguing about any of this, especially considering how pissed off he’d been when he’d picked up the phone. “I’m not sle eping with Collins.” “So you said.” “Yeah, but she’s telling everyone we hooked up back in Dallas and that we’ve been seeing each other ever since. She showed up that night I was supposed to meet you at Golden. I thought you had set me up ■ — ” “What?” “Y ep.” I took a brief moment to process the fact that it honestly didn’t sound like he’d expected that. “Did you send her?” “The fuck, man? No. Why would you even ask me that?” “I wouldn’t have been at that bar if you hadn’t asked me to meet you there. No one else knew I was going there.” He groaned. “Collins asked me to meet her and Carson for dinner. I figured you and I could grab a drink first. Hours before they were even supposed to get there.”
“And then?” “They canceled.” He let out a string of muttered curses. “Only after they encouraged me to invite you to join us. They were pushing me to get you there, apparently so you and I could clear the air, and I think... I think I fell for it.” “But you canceled on me.” “Yeah, because I got held up in a meeting. With Carson.” He grunted. “Shit. What did Collins do?” I sighed. “She came onto me. I turned her right the fuck down. Sent her ass packing, but she must’ve had somebody filming us while she was flirting with me because she came to my office today with pictures of us together that night. We were just talking, but the pictures make it look like we’re close.” “Fuck.” “Our entire interaction at that bar lasted less than five minutes. I told her to fuck off then and I did the same today when she demanded that I break it off with Sadie or she’d go public with the pictures.” “What the hell...” he muttered, trailing off. “Are you serious?” “Desperately,” I confessed. “Carson called Sadie and told her the whole sordid tale Collins has been selling. It sounds like he might’ve sent her the pictures too. I’m not sure, but Sadie just left. She’s upset and she doesn’t believe me.” Trent fell silent for a beat, his voice low, confused, and angry when he spoke again. “You’re sure you love her?” “I’ve loved her almost half my life,” I said, scrubbing my hand over my face. “There’s never been anyone else for me. She’s the reason for a lot of stuff I did back in the day. Breaking up with the love of your life will do that to a guy.” He sighed and paused. “You said she left? Because of Carson?” “Partly because of him and whatever he told her about me, but she spoke to Collins too. Apparently, Collins sold her some shit about how sorry she was for what we did. Whatever those two are up to, it’s coordinated. I just don’t know why they’re doing it.” “I might,” he said grimly. “As it happens, I spoke to Carson today myself.” I froze. “What?” “Yeah, he called me. He said he needed me to talk to Sadie urgently. It was weird, but he k ept pushing me to reach out to her. He wanted me to tell her all sorts of shit about you. I told him to get a life. Obviously.” I blinked, utterly stunned for the first time in a while. “He asked you to do what?” “I know. That’s why I thought it was so weird,” Trent said. “He sounded desperate, though. Like he was trying to sell me something and it was killing him that I wasn’t buying it. He k ept talking
about how Sadie ‘deserved better,’ how you’d fuck it up again. Which, okay, it’s not a stretch, but even I thought it was off, the way he was acting.” My heart thudded. “Why now? Why today?” “Because Carson’s broke,” Trent said flatly. “I just found out, but it was from a mutual friend. I trust her. It sounds like he tanked his family’s company. Made a bunch of bad investments. All that egotistical shit. They’re trying to sell assets to stay a float.” “And Sadie’s inheritance...” “Exactly,” Trent said. “When she marries you, she gains access to it, but if you split ■ — ” “She ke eps it,” I finished for him, my stomach sinking all the way to the ground. “He’s using Collins to tear us apart so he can play white knight, ride in and save her from the player she married. If we get that far, but if we don’t, she’ll still walk awa y from this trusting him. He’ll be next in line, so to speak.” I felt sick. Furious. Frustrated. I had finally built something with Sadie that felt solid. We were sharing a home, talking about a future. This past weekend, it had even felt like she might be falling for me again, and now it was splintering apart because of people who didn’t even have anything to do with us. “What about Collins?” I asked, seeing red as I stared into the dark hallway. “What’s her angle?” All I wanted to do was race after Sadie and tell her the truth, but I knew I couldn’t do that. Not yet. I had to find out exactly what that truth was first. This situation we were in wasn’t just a mess. It was a setup and I was done playing by their rules. When I made my first move, I would be changing the game entirely.