Page 17 of Jace
“A-ha! I rest my case, your honor. My client’s spontaneous utterance reveals her horny guilt.”
“I’m not horny. I’m…”
Lying through my teeth.
So full of shit, my eyes are brown.
Just ask the last thought I have every time I play with a vibrator. The sudden image of Jace Ryan on top of me thrusts into my mind, and I fall over an orgasmic edge.
“I’m not ready,” I confess nervously. “I just think Jace is super sweet and a good friend; he restores my faith in men. And he just wants me to teach him about photography, and that makes me happy.”
“I know.” Harlow drops her sassy tone to a serious one. “I know David’s put you through hell, while all you did was be his devoted wife. And if I didn’t have more scumbags like him to defend my clients from, I’d do the crime and the time for you,girl, you know it. So hang in there and enjoy your new friendship with the hot hunk at the door.” She practically sings, “You know, once your divorce is final in a few weeks, you two can?—”
“Oh god, don’t make me think about it.” I plop down on my sofa. “Being with Jace would be way too gushy to be true.”
Harlow laughs. “Gushy?”
“How else can I describe the ocean between my thighs when he’s around?”
“Well, good for you! Sounds like there’s a wet new life awaiting after this horrible dry marriage is over.”
I sigh to the ceiling fan, lazily spinning above. “God, I sure hope so.”
But my hopeis dashed the next day when David shows up, sneering in my studio doorway after my happy client leaves.
He has one hour left in his discovery process as he rips our divorce decree in half, right in front of my face. “Here’s your divorce, sugar pie.”
“You’re a dumbass,” I seethe, swatting his hands away. “You’re the one who cheated, so I’llgetmy divorce. We’ll just print another decree, and if you don’t sign it, you can go to jail.”
“Oh,” he jeers, “even when a judge makes me sign it, you’re still mine. You can’t be with anyone else.” He smells like a skunk with stoned eyes, all glassy and beady. “Because you can divorce me, Vivian Tate, but you and your daddy’s millions can never leave me. If you do, the whole world will see how his innocent daughter did this…”
He holds up his phone, his screen playing a video.
In two shocking seconds, I realize it’s me. In four scandalous seconds, I recognize what I was doing. In six horrific seconds, I figure out it was David’s plan all along.
His shameful scheme to trap me and my father’s money.
The jail bars slam shut on my life.
And I’m trapped in his prison forever.
CHAPTER FIVE
JACE
A year ago
“See what I mean?”I point at the giggling toddler, staggering like a cute drunk toward the waves, before she pauses, looking down. “Now watch! She’ll grab a handful of sand, and she’ll…”
I turn to Vivian.
But she’s not watching the adorable sight.
She’s gazing up and admiring me.
On our way here, we talked in my truck about her college photography classes. We split a bag of delicious kitchen sink cookies she baked for our date. We brushed arms as we walked side by side through the dunes.
We fit so naturally together.
