Anti-Romance

by Cassia Leo

  He leaned down and I gasped as his tongue parted my lips and thrust its way inside my mouth. The head of his penis was pressed against my throbbing center. I clutched fistfuls of his hair and kissed him hungrily. I could taste myself on his lips, but I didn’t care. It only made me want him more.

  I writhed beneath him, desperate for him to enter me, but he took his time kissing my mouth, neck, shoulders. His hands roamed over every inch of my body, his touch soft at times and at other times firm and commanding, but always sending shivers through me.

  Finally, he reached between my legs and slid a finger inside me, verifying that I was as wet as he thought I’d be. My jaw fell slack as he slid into me slowly. He took his time, his hand clasped behind my knee as he dipped in and out of me. Occasionally, he would look down to watch himself moving inside me and I got the feeling that he was just as amazed as I was. George and I were having sex, and it was by far the most amazing thing we’d ever done.

  We had no choice but to shower again. What started as three hours until the ceremony quickly turned into thirty minutes to make it to St. Martin-in-the-Fields church on time. I could hear David Bowie’s “Modern Love” playing in my head as we raced to the Underground station. We were as giddy and bubbly as teenagers while holding hands on the train, so much so that an actual teenager seated across from us kept throwing us disgusted looks. We arrived at the church in time to catch up with the last group of guests filing up the steps.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth as we entered the cathedral with the ornate arched ceiling, which soared about 100 feet above us. “Is Erika’s fiancé loaded? How did they get a wedding venue like this on such short notice?”

  George looked a little annoyed by this question. “His dad is some rich British investor. I’m sure all it took was a couple of extra zeros on the check for the church to cancel whatever event was originally scheduled for today.”

  I bristled at the cynicism in his tone. Was that what I sounded like when I talked about love and romance?

  We found some seats in the sixth row back. Either they didn’t invite a lot of people or we were just two among the few who were able to make it to London on such short notice. The air in the church smelled of roses and expensive perfume. The lady in front of us kept scratching her scalp and someone on the other side of the aisle kept clearing their throat. I was about to make a snide comment when my phone chimed with a text message.

  At least ten different people turned around and shot daggers at me with their eyes. I quickly fumbled my phone out of my purse and switched it to silent mode. Before I could tuck it back into my bag, I glimpsed the notification on the screen indicating I had a text from Breck.

  Breck: Your website was hacked!!!!

  “What the fuck?” I whispered and the silver-haired head-scratcher glanced at me over her shoulder. “The ceremony hasn’t even started yet,” I reminded her as I opened up my mobile browser and navigated to my website.

  My mouth fell open when I saw my website had indeed been hacked. The front page displayed a picture of me standing in front of my bathroom mirror, topless. My nipples were at least blurred out, but there was a headline positioned right over my chest. The headline read: CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT HOW MANY MARRIAGES LANEY HILL HAS DESTROYED.

  My finger trembled as I touched the link. I was taken to a website where the true identities of every single man I’d ever dated were revealed. Among them, three were supposedly married when we were together. Conveniently, Rick Hart’s name was nowhere on the list.

  “Oh, my God. He hacked my website,” I whispered.

  “Who?” George replied.

  “Rick!” I replied loud enough to elicit more scathing glares from the guests in the vicinity. “He listed the names of all the men I’ve written about on my blog. What am I going to do?”

  “Just calm down, Laney. I’m sure there aren’t a lot of people who’ve seen it. It’s Saturday. Most people are out or nursing hangovers from last night.”

  “Are you kidding me? Look at this!” I pointed at my phone screen. “There are over two hundred comments on this website. Almost all of them are calling me a disgusting home-wrecker! I’m finished.”

  George apologized to the silver-haired woman then turned back to me. “The ceremony’s about to begin, Lane. There’s nothing you can do about that stupid website right now. Not from your phone. Just put it away and you can fix this when we get back to the suite.”

  My entire body was now trembling with rage. I tried to focus on taking deep breaths, but I literally felt as if I was going to explode if I didn’t respond to those comments. I unlocked my phone and began typing out a response to a woman who wrote in her comment, “I always suspected Amber—I mean Laney—was a fraud. Who can date that many men without ever falling in love or, surprise, coming across a single married man? I’m so glad she was exposed for the home-wrecker she is. Now I won’t have to read her stupid blog anymore. Good riddance!”

  Newsflash! You never had to read my stupid blog in the first place! You read it by choice, asshole!

  George grabbed my hand before I could hit send on the comment. “What are you doing? Put that away before you get yourself in more trouble.”

  “But…” I protested, wrenching my hand out of his. “I can’t just let him get away with this. He’s lying about me on the Internet. This is my reputation at stake.”

  He stared me in the eye, waiting for me to back down, but I didn’t. “Then go outside if you’re going to be on your phone. This is not the place.”

  I rolled my eyes as I stood up and scooted past him to go outside. As I walked down the aisle toward the exit, the soft classical music changed to a powerful chorus of strings and church organ playing the Wedding March. Everyone turned in their seats as the bride and her father appeared at the back of the cathedral. Their eyes shifted from me to the bride then back to me.

  I hung my head and turned left at the next pew, bending over to hide myself as I scampered away. Reaching the end of the pew, I crouched down to conceal myself, but when I looked up to see if I’d successfully avoided attracting more attention, Erika was standing at the end of the row, staring at me. She looked furious, and rightly so.

  I crawled toward the back of the cathedral to get farther away, silently thanking myself for wearing my brown suede cigarette pants, though the knees were going to be ruined. I slithered along behind the back row and slipped out of the church just before the music cut out.

  I passed through the columns and took a seat on the steps. My heart thundered in my chest. I could hardly see straight as the fury pumped through my veins. One comment after another decreeing me a fake, a sham, a charlatan, a cheater. My career was over.

  I decided to do the one thing I should have done a long time ago. I called Breck.

  “Oh, my God, Laney. What are you gonna do? Can you sue him?”

  The genuine concern in her voice sounded like the fluttering of an angel’s wings. It was music to my ears.

  “I don’t know. It’s obviously almost all lies, but no one’s going to believe me if I try to set the record straight now. The damage is done.”

  “No, don’t think like that,” she insisted. “I know a really good lawyer who works with our company. He drafted our online user agreement. He knows a lot about cyberlaw. He’ll know how to handle this. I’ll give him a call right now. Until then, do not do anything. Don’t change your website and, for the love of God, do not comment on that website. Do you hear me?”

  “He’s lying to everyone about me, Breck.”

  “I know, honey. But we’ll fix this the right way. Okay?”

  I nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

  I hung up feeling utterly defeated. I had laughed at Rick just a few hours ago when he threatened to sue me. I’d laughed when I stood in his office and he threatened to expose my identity if I wrote about him. I never once considered that a lying, cheating dirtbag like him could be telling the truth.

  How could
I be so stupid?

  Though I knew it was against my best interest, I opened up the website again and began reading through the comments. I needed to know what I was up against. I needed to punish myself for such a grievous lack of judgment.

  It took almost thirty minutes to read through 283 comments, but when I got to number 284 my heart stopped. The comment contained an embedded video titled “Changing Lanes” by Kade Masters. My mind raced with horrifying thoughts that Rick had gotten to Kade. Or maybe Kade was in on this?

  “Oh, God,” I whispered, clutching my chest as I struggled to breathe.

  The comment with the video was posted by an anonymous account. I was about to close my browser when I realized there was something written below the embedded video. It read: You’d all be lucky to know the real Laney Hill.

  My eyes instantly welled up with tears. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I held my finger over the video, contemplating whether I wanted to listen to the song. After what I’d just done with George, did I deserve to know the real Kade Masters through his music?

  I sighed as I switched off the screen and tucked the phone into my purse. Dusting off my dirty knees, I stood from the steps and set off back to the hotel. I couldn’t watch someone get married right now. With the luck I was having, I was liable to spontaneously combust and take out half the wedding party in the process.

  I arrived at the hotel forty minutes later and immediately took my third shower of the day, as if it were possible to cleanse myself of the filth I’d mucked through since I met Rick Hart. I changed into my pajamas after my shower and crawled into bed at 5:30 p.m. If I could fall asleep, maybe I would wake up and find that this was all just a horrible sitcom-like nightmare.

  The sheets felt cold and uninviting, unlike when George and I were sweaty and tangled up in them just a few hours ago. I didn’t know if the blow to my reputation or the way George had dismissed me was more painful.

  My phone buzzed as it vibrated on the nightstand. I considered ignoring it until I remembered that it might be Breck or the lawyer with whom she wanted to set me up. When I turned the screen toward me, my stomach vaulted at the sight of Kade’s name. I hesitated for a long moment before I hit the green button.

  “Kade?”

  The sound of his Texas accent when he replied was a thing of beauty. “Can you tell me where I can find a home-wrecker named Laney Hill? I hear she’s the hottest thing this side of the Atlantic.”

  I chuckled as I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing she’s not on that side of the Atlantic. She can’t disgrace the good people of Texas anymore.”

  “Aw… Come on now. Texas just wouldn’t be the same without her. But I’m actually talking about the other side of the Atlantic. The one where they drink tea in the afternoon and eat mushy peas for dinner. Wait. Is that true? What are mushy peas?”

  I turned over in bed so I was looking at the ceiling. “What are you talking about? Are you saying that this horrible debacle has spread to the UK? Oh, no. Everyone’s going to hate me. Now I can’t even leave my hotel room.”

  He laughed a bit too loudly at my response, so loud that his laughter was echoing.

  “Well, gosh, I didn’t think it was that funny,” I muttered, a bit annoyed that he was getting such a kick out of my misfortune.

  He continued to laugh, but this time the echo sounded less far away. “Silly, girl. I’m right outside your door.”

  “You’re what?”

  I pressed the red button on my phone to end the call, then I leaped out of bed and almost tripped over my discarded clothing as I raced to the door. Catching a glimpse of my reflection in the full-length mirror near the door, I jumped back in alarm.

  I attempted to smooth my damp hair as I called out, “Who’s there?”

  “Open the door, Laney.”

  It was really him! That smooth accent, which I’d savored while speaking to him on the phone, now sent me into a panic. Kade had flown to London…for me. Just sixteen hours ago, we had been texting each other, and now here he was, at my door, asking me to let him in.

  I was going to open this door and Kade was going to see the real me. The one with no makeup and no heels and no hope.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I opened the door. “I can’t believe you came.”

  He was dressed in a worn pair of jeans and a plain white T-shirt that hugged his body just enough to show off how well he took care of himself.

  His eyebrows scrunched together when he saw my face. “You look like you’ve been crying, Miss Laney.”

  The sound of those two words, Miss Laney, were enough to send me over the edge. I stepped back to let him inside as fat tears rolled down my cheeks.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It’s not you,” I insisted, pulling the neck of my nightshirt up to wipe my face. “It’s this whole trip and the website thing.”

  He pushed the door closed and pulled me into his arms. “I saw that when I landed and, I gotta be honest, my first thought was that this dude you wronged must have a needle-dick to treat a woman like that, especially after what he already did to you. As my dad used to say, he’s the type of man who could start an argument in an empty house.”

  I let out a congested chuckle. “My dad would have probably said he’s the type of man who ‘don’t have the good sense God gave a rock.’”

  I almost stopped myself when my father’s saying came to me, but I didn’t. If I was going to let Kade know the real me, he would have to know everything. Then I thought of George. Kade had to know about George if he was going to know me.

  Laying my palms flat against his chest, I reluctantly pushed Kade away. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Before you do that, can I show you the song I wrote?”

  I shook my head. “You don’t understand. There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

  He smiled. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, too. But I want you to hear my song, so how’s about we talk about those things in about three minutes and thirty-four seconds?”

  My mouth curled into a goofy grin as I turned around and set off into the bedroom to retrieve my phone from the bed, where I’d tossed it when I realized Kade was at the door. When I unlocked the phone, I opened my browser and began scrolling down to the bottom of the long list of comments.

  Kade reached for my phone. “Just search for it on YouTube. Don’t look at that garbage.”

  I looked on as he opened the YouTube app on my phone just as a phone call came through from George.

  I snatched the phone out of Kade’s hand and answered, “What do you want?”

  “The wedding is off. Erika just left Aaron at the altar, so I got the hell out of there. Where are you?”

  I turned to Kade and the look of alarm on his face must have mimicked mine. This was quickly transforming from the worst day of my career into the worst day of my life.

  Thank you!

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  Also by Cassia Leo

  CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

  Forever Ours (Shattered Hearts #1)

  Relentless (Shattered Hearts #2)


  Pieces of You (Shattered Hearts #3)

  Bring Me Home (Shattered Hearts #4)

  Abandon (Shattered Hearts #5)

  Chasing Abby (Shattered Hearts #6)

  Ripped (Shattered Hearts #7)

  The Way We Fall (The Story of Us #1)

  The Way We Break (The Story of Us #2)

  The Way We Rise (The Story of Us #3)

  Black Box (stand-alone novel)

  PARANORMAL ROMANCE

  Parallel Spirits (Carrier Spirits #1)

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  LUKE Series

  CHASE Series

  Edible: The Sex Tape (A Short Story)

  EROTIC SUSPENSE

  UNMASKED Series

  KNOX Series

  For more information, please visit

  cassialeo.com/books

  About the Author

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cassia Leo loves her coffee, chocolate, and margaritas with salt. When she’s not writing, she spends way too much time watching old reruns of Friends and Sex and the City. When she’s not watching reruns, she’s usually playing in the rain or reading – sometimes both.

  @AuthorCassialeo

  AuthorCassiaLeo

  cassialeo.com/about