Pulse - Part Four (The Pulse Series)

by Deborah Bladon

  PULSE

  Part Four

  By: Deborah Bladon

  Copyright

  First Original Edition, July 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by Deborah Bladon

  ISBN: 9780993721694

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and situations either are the product of the author's imagination or are used factiously.

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written consent from the author.

  Also by Deborah Bladon

  The Obsessed Series

  The Exposed Series

  For all of the readers, thank you for making dreams come true for me that I never even realized I had. You are all amazing. Every last one of you.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Final Word

  Thank You

  VAIN Preview

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  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  I lace my fingers through the hair on the back of his head and pull back sharply since he completely ignored the first time I touched him. It's not surprising. He's floating in a world of gloat right now. He won their disgusting bet for getting between my legs first. I briefly imagine pushing on his head and slamming his face into the wooden table. I'm stronger than I look. I know I could break his nose.

  "What the hell?" He tries to swat my hand from his hair just as his eyes lock on my face. "Jessica. Shit, no."

  "Shit, yes." I release his hair after giving it a firm tug. "I'm not too late for the celebration, am I?"

  He moves to push himself from his chair. "I barely know this guy." He nods towards Drew who is taking a leisurely sip of his beer. "I came here to meet an old friend."

  "You seriously think I'm an idiot, don’t you?" I lower myself into a chair next to Drew. "You are both so fucked up."

  "I can explain." His hand darts out to reach for mine. I pull back as if I'm about to be bitten by a poisonous snake. I am. I was. That's exactly what Nathan Moore is. He's a revolting, narcissistic, piece of shit snake.

  I turn my entire body so I'm facing Drew directly. Right now, in this exact moment in time, he's the lesser of the two fucked up evils. This one hasn't put his dick in me so maybe something, anything that comes out of his mouth will be less of a lie than what Nathan spits in my direction.

  "What was the prize?" I nod towards the glass in his hand. "Beer?"

  Drew's eyes float past me and I can only assume they're glued to Nathan.

  "Drew. Asshole, look over here." I wave my hand past his face. "What did he win for fucking me first?" I don't know why it matters, but it does. I want to know what they think I'm worth, even though right now I feel worthless.

  He pulls his gaze back to me and his eyes are cold and hard. "Ask him."

  I feel Nathan's hand on my back now. "Don't touch me," I snap as I twist around in my seat to glare at him. "Keep your filthy, disgusting hands off of me."

  "This isn't how it looks." The words sound so simple coming from his lips. This isn't how it looks? It looks like the two of them made a bet on my body weeks ago at the club and Nathan won because he convinced me to go up to that hotel suite and jump into his bed. That's how it looks because that's what happened. There's no disguising the truth. No smoke or mirrors required.

  "Shut the fuck up." I pull each word slowly across my lips as I stare straight into his eyes. "Shut your lying mouth."

  "The line at the bar was ridiculous." A male voice drifts from across the table as a glass of beer is pushed in front of Nathan. "Who is this lovely thing?"

  "Who are you?" I throw the question right back at him as I pull my gaze to his face.

  His green eyes take in my chest before they settle on my eyes. "I'm Garrett."

  "Were you in on their bet?" I circle my finger carelessly in the air above the table.

  "Stop it," Nathan spits out in haste. "Don't, Jessica."

  "Don't?" I throw the word back at him while my eyes are still locked on the handsome stranger's face. "Were you in on their bet?" I repeat. " If you were I definitely would have fucked you first." It's meant to hurt Nathan. I'm flailing but I'm not about to show it.

  He cocks a brow and licks his bottom lip. "The night is still young. I'm in."

  "What did you get?" I turn towards Nathan again. "What did you get for fucking me before he did?" I nod in Drew's direction.

  "Cash." Drew's hand waves in front of my face as he points in Nathan's direction. "I paid him weeks ago. I just have one question, Jess."

  I close my eyes to try and absorb the fact that they bet money on who would get me in bed first.

  "Leave her the hell alone." Nathan slams his fist against the table. "Get lost."

  "Jess." I feel Drew pull on my elbow. "The night we made the bet, you remember it, right? That first night you were at the club."

  I nod slowly as I jerk my arm away. How could I forget? I remember every single detail of that night. I remember the way Nathan stared at me across the club. I remember the way it felt to kiss him, and I remember exactly the way it felt to come when he touched me.

  "He already knew your name when we were dancing." His breath courses hot over my neck and I pull back. I can't have any part of him touching me. I can't.

  "When you and I were dancing? That night?" I stare at my hands. That wasn't the first night. He's wrong. Nathan and I had been in the hotel room so many times by then.

  "Fuck off, Drew." Nathan bolts to his feet. "Leave it alone."

  "If you would have seen me first that night, I would have won, right?" The question is so ripe with arrogance.

  "You made a bet with him that night?" I turn to look at Drew. This doesn't make any sense.

  "Would you have left with me if you saw me before he talked to you that night?" He ignores my question and pushes. His bruised ego wants to be reassured that he's more appealing than Nathan.

  "Wait." I push myself up and turn to face Drew directly. I sense Nathan rising next to me. "You made a bet with him the night when you asked for my number?"

  "It's true what they say about blondes." The smirk on his face is pulling every ounce of anger I possess to the surface. "Try and follow the conversation. Before you came in the club that night we bet on who would ride you first. "

  "You made the bet that night?" I need him to clarify that.

  "No wonder they only let you peel carrots at the restaurant. You're too stupid to do anything else." He pivots on his heel and turns to the side. "I'm going back to my table." He motions towards a group of three men staring at us.

  "Drew." I tap him on his back. "Hey, Drew."

  He turns sharply. "What now, Jess?"

  "This." I swing my right hand back, pull it into a tight fist, take a heavy breath and almost fall forward as I punch him square in the jaw.

  Chapter 2

  "Someone call the police." Drew stumbles back to his feet by grabbing hold of the edge of the table. "That bitch
broke my jaw."

  "It's not broken," I whisper under my breath. I can't say the same for my hand. I'm thankful for the throbbing pain in it. It's chasing away the ache I feel inside. The ache that came when I realized Nathan was nothing but a disgusting bastard.

  "You're not calling anyone." Nathan's voice barrels through the loud hum of the room. I feel his hands encircle my waist and pull me to my feet.

  "I'm pressing charges." Blood is dripping slowly from the corner of Drew's mouth onto his white t-shirt. "She's going to jail tonight."

  "Listen to me, you dumb fuck." Nathan pulls me closer to him with one hand as his other darts out to push on Drew's chest. "You drop this now or you're going to regret it."

  "Fuck you," Drew mumbles through a wad of paper napkins that are covering his mouth. There's so much blood. "She needs to be charged with assault."

  "You push this and…" Nathan's hand drops from me as he takes a heavy step. "I'm going to have Cassie drag your ass into court for all that past child support you owe."

  I reach back to grab hold of a chair. Cassie? Did he just say Cassie's name to Drew?

  "Cassie?" Drew's voice cracks as the name leaves his lips. "My Cassie?"

  "You're a pathetic piece of shit." Nathan fists his hands in the front of Drew's shirt. "What kind of man doesn't provide for his own children?"

  I stare at Drew's face as the color leaves it. He's ashen. His expression stoic as he lowers the napkins from his mouth.

  "He's their dad?" I hear the words leave my lips before I register them within my brain. He's the twins' father? He was married to Cassandra?

  "You know her too?" Drew's eyes dart to my face. "What kind of fucked up game are you two playing?"

  "You're her ex-husband?" My hand glides across my forehead. How can that be? Why didn't Nathan tell me that Drew was Cassandra's ex?

  Drew lunges past Nathan towards me. "You set me up, you bitch."

  Nathan steps to the side to intercept him, his hands jumping to Drew's shoulders. "I set you up."

  I feel my knees buckle. I can't process all of this. I don't understand why I'm in the middle of this. I twist my neck sharply and search through the crowd for Rebecca. I need her to help me. I want her to help me understand what's going on.

  "Give me back my money." Drew pushes against Nathan to no avail. "You set me up."

  "That money was for Cassie." Nathan pushes him back. "It was for your kids."

  The mention of Allie and Aaron stops Drew in his tracks. "You don't know anything about my kids."

  "I know you're a sad excuse for a father," Nathan scowls. "You gambled away everything."

  I feel so lost. It's almost as though I've stepped into another universe. I need to leave. I push myself back up from the chair and my eyes settle on the green-eyed stranger who brought Nathan a beer.

  "I have to go," I whisper as much to him as to the heavy, emotionally filled air that is suffocating me.

  "I'll take you." He stands and reaches out his hand.

  "My friend is here." I motion towards the table I shared with Rebecca. A group of older men are sitting there now. I scan the people gathered near us and her face doesn't appear.

  "Cassie put you up to this, didn't she?" The distant sound of Drew's raised voice arguing with Nathan rings through me as I step out into the darkness and the heavy night air.

  Chapter 3

  "Where did you go?" I place the mug of hot coffee I've been nursing for the past ten minutes down on the table. "You bailed on me."

  "I saw you with Fingers." Rebecca pours herself some before she turns to me. "You never mentioned that he knew Drew."

  She's diverting the conversation. "You just got up and left. You didn't think to come tell me?" I'm pissed and I have every right to be. It was her idea to go get a beer in the first place and because of that my entire life fell apart in the space of five minutes.

  "Jess, you were sitting with Nathan." She spits out his name as if it's vile. "You were busy so I called it a night."

  "You knew, didn't you?" I ask even though I'm sure of the answer. "You knew Drew was married to Cassandra."

  "What?" The coffee that was just in her mouth is now spread out unceremoniously all over the table and the front of my robe.

  I cock a brow at the reaction. She may be good at manipulating people and getting her way but I doubt that even she could mock surprise so convincingly. "You didn't know?"

  "You're wrong." She reaches for a paper towel to soak up the mess. "There's no way he was married to her."

  "They were married." I still can't absorb the fact even though I heard it firsthand last night. I spent hours after Nathan's friend, Garrett, dropped me off trying to decipher exactly what happened.

  "I never met the ex." She takes a generous mouthful of coffee. "She's still hung up on him."

  "On Drew?" I almost burst out laughing. After learning that he was shirking his child support duties, I can’t imagine what Cassandra sees in him.

  "How can it be Drew?" She leans both elbows on the table as she shakes her head. "She talks about her ex like he's the best thing that ever happened to her. His name is Andrew. Ah, that makes sense I guess."

  I shrug my shoulders. "Nathan knew all along. He knew when he made the bet." The word slips out with my thoughts. I didn't want to confess any of this to my best friend.

  "What bet?"

  "I can't talk about it." Technically I won't. I don't want to humiliate myself even more.

  "Jess." She inches her chair on the floor so she's sitting next to me now. "Spit it out. What bet?"

  It would feel amazing to just let this all out. I'm just not in the mood for all the reminders that she warned me that Nathan was just using me for sex. "You're going to tell me that you knew he was a mistake all along."

  "Fingers?" A thin smile covers her lips. "That goes without saying. Spill the beans. What the hell is going on?"

  "Do you remember that night when we went to the club with Bryce? Right after he moved in?" I don't want to make Nathan the centerpiece of this recounting. "That was the night when I met Drew."

  "I remember." She rolls her eyes. "I was drinking Bloody Marys and trying to get a pharmacist to prescribe his dick to me."

  I laugh out loud. "That was the night."

  "What about it?" She reaches for a peach from a bowl in the middle of the table. "Who bet what on what?"

  I just need to say that Nathan and Drew bet money on who would nail me first. I wish I could just say it without feeling like my heart is falling out of my chest at warp speed.

  "Apparently, when we were in line, Drew and Nathan wagered a bet on me." There that's it. It's out in the universe now and Rebecca can have at it and me for being so reckless.

  "Those bastards." She bolts to her feet so fast the entire table jerks upwards causing the peach to roll off the edge. "He's an asshole."

  Sadly, I feel the need to clarify which of the two assholes she's referring to. Such is the life of Jessica Roth in the big city. "Which asshole?"

  "Fingers." She once again reaches to mop up the stray coffee that spilled over the rim of her mug when she upset the table.

  I take the towel from her hand as I wipe the area directly in front of me. "What about Drew?"

  "Yeah, him too." She storms off leaving me with even more questions than I had before she sat down.

  Chapter 4

  "Don't even bother." I point directly at Nathan's receptionist as I scoot past her on my way to his open office door.

  "Ms. Ross, he's not…" her voice trails behind me just as I reach the doorway.

  "Jessica?" The surprise in his tone is unmistakable. "What are you doing here?"

  Normally I'd take offense at his reaction to my showing up unannounced at his office, but seeing how I almost decked him alongside Drew at the bar two nights ago, I can't blame him for the question.

  "Come in." He motions towards one of the chairs in front of his desk as he closes the door. "I need to be in a meeting in a few minu
tes."

  "We do this now, or we don't do it." I don't move my gaze from the bank of windows behind his desk. I haven't slept more than an hour since I saw him with Drew at the bar. If I don't get answers now I'm going to cease to be responsible for my actions. Call it a plea of temporary insanity or better yet, a plea of sanity. Who in their right mind wouldn't want to torture these two bastards after what they did?

  I don't make eye contact with him as he picks up his desk phone and punches three keys. "Cancel the rest of my day." I feel his gaze burning into me as he pauses before continuing, "I don't give a shit, just do it." He slams the phone down before sitting in front of me on the edge of his desk.

  "Why?" It's really the one and only question I have.

  "Why what?" His tone is even and controlled. He's not going to make this easy for me.

  I pull my eyes up the lapel of his navy suit jacket before settling on his icy blue eyes. "Why do this to me? Why?"

  "Do what?" he chirps back.

  I run my hands over my face trying to erase the distress from my expression. "Seriously?"

  "What you heard at the bar was out of context." Naturally, he'd say that to me. It's what any good lawyer says to someone when they're trying to win a case. The only problem is that this case is my life and he's already fucked it up so badly that I can't tell up from down anymore.

  "I heard you say that you fucked my sweet little body," I sneer as the words leave my lips. I've replayed those five words in my mind repeatedly every second since I first heard him say them. "You talked to him about fucking me." I point my finger into my own chest as if to distinguish my body from all of the hundreds of others he's fucked over the years.

  "Jessica." He takes a heavy swallow. "None of this was about you."

  It couldn't sting more if he would have slapped me directly across my face. "It was all about me."

  He drops to one knee now, trapping my body in the chair. There's nothing floating in the air between us this time but bitter anger and resentment. Anything his body may be trying to convey to me is being swallowed by my loathing for him. "It was about Cassie."