Page 131 of Then You Happened
“You got Jack warming your sheets and saving your ass. Perfect storybook romance if you ask me. All you’re forgetting is—”
We both turn to look as Jack’s tires screech to a halt on the gravel much the same way Lauren’s did.
“—the happily ever after,” she says coyly, completely ignoring the first time he yells her name.
“Lauren!” he shouts again, warning thick in his voice. A shot over the bow as Jack jumps from his truck and jogs toward us. Each step he takes, though, I mentally take one in retreat.
“Isn’t it funny how Jack fucked his brother’s widow to get back at him? Isn’t it ironic that Jack promised to make amends for the wrongs he’s done in life, only to end up just as fucked up as his brother was? What better way to get back at your bastard brother than to sleep with his wife?”
Widow.
Brother.
Wife.
Her words hit my ears. I’m hearing them, but the understanding is fuzzy and sluggish—as if my brain is trying to block them out and physically reject them.
“Fletcher?” I . . . I don’t understand. My feet move toward her as if that will give me a clearer understanding, but my head screams to run away. “Wh-what did you just say?” I stutter the words out as the bottom of my carefully reconstructed world falls out from under me.
“That isn’t true,” Jack shouts as every muscle in me freezes, including my heart. “Fucking hell, Lauren. I swear to God, Tate—”
“Fletcher’s your brother?” I ask as I stare at his brown eyes, which are wide and spooked. The subtle stutter of his body gives me an answer before his mouth even opens.
Utter shock.
My stomach revolts.
Complete disbelief.
My body feels like time is passing in slow motion.
Unfettered anger.
My hands tremble and body shakes.
All three emotions stomp and pound through me like a damn wildfire, out of control and uncontainable as they burn and burn and burn.
“You’re Fletcher’s brother?” I screech, my breath hard to catch because I can’t even remember to breathe with the rage that is robbing me of all senses, all reason.
He lied to me.
This was all a goddamn lie.
The her wild and him being the sure thing. The half-cocked smirks across the paddock and the pleasurable moans beneath the sheets. The breaking down of walls and building together of trust.
“That’s not how it was.”
“Get away from me!” I scream, my voice breaking right alongside my heart as he reaches out to touch me. I jerk back so hard that I stumble.
“Lauren, what did you do?” he shouts, his face a mask of fury, his voice as frantic as the look in his eyes.
“What?” she asks innocently, but her smile says she’s anything but. “I was just telling her about our brother. About how you came here to get the final say.”
“Are you fucking insane?” He’s still screaming as he spins on her. “Get the fuck out of here. You disgust me.”
But the fearful desperation that vibrates through his voice is answer enough to tell me it’s true. All of it is.
I’m paralyzed by the truth, needing distance but unable to move.
