Breaking Even

by Lily Bishop

  Lindsey’s mind reeled from everything he had told her. She stared out the window as the plane prepared for takeoff. She didn’t know what to think.

  He reached out and touched her cheek. “Are you going to be okay?”

  Lindsey sighed, wishing she could turn back time and make the whole trip go away. “I’m just tired. I’ve traveled almost the width of the United States twice in 24 hours. I have no idea what time it is, and my body clock is so messed up, I don’t want to do anything but eat. To top all of that, I was drugged and had my stomach pumped. Now you tell me that all of that was because of slave traders. It’s a lot to take in.”

  Ric stared at her for a moment, as if he wanted to say something else, but then he didn’t. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Sleep will help. Once we get underway, take the bedroom and get some sleep. Just press the call button near the bed if you need anything. I’ll be up front.”

  Since it was a luxury jet, she might as well take him up on the offer. She took a bottle of water from the flight attendant and went back to the plane’s bedroom. She thought about taking an antihistamine to help her go to sleep, but Ric said she probably shouldn’t after the drugs she had earlier.

  She pulled back the cover on the bed and stretched out. What did it say about a man when the sheets on his plane had a higher thread count than her sheets? The room had a chill to it, and she happily burrowed under the duvet.

  She must have been more tired than she thought. The hum of the jet engines vibrated through her bones, lulling her to sleep.

  A knock woke Lindsey, and she sat up, still tired. She had so much on her mind, she had slept fitfully. Ric leaned his head in the door. “We’re getting ready to land. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “I must have slept longer than I thought. Where are we landing?”

  “Clemson. Xavier called ahead and a rental car is meeting us there.”

  “You didn’t have to do that. If you need to leave and go straight to Calliope, I can take a taxi from the airport. It’s not that far.”

  “We will drive you home. We need to talk.”

  Lindsey stared at Ric, more confused than ever. Those words—we need to talk—sounded like a breakup. No one ever said those words if they had good news. She wanted to give him some flippant response, but her fear held her back and she couldn’t manage the words. Instead, she just nodded.

  The sun came up as they drove her home from the airport and they followed her in with the luggage. Lindsey still felt tired, but not as bad as before the flight.

  Xavier left with the pilot for the hotel room they had booked. After a quick trip to the restroom, Lindsey came out and found Ric asleep on the bed. He must not have slept at all on the plane. She pulled off his shoes and managed to roll him over so she could cover him up. She closed the blinds and climbed into bed beside him. Whatever he had wanted to talk about could wait until after their nap.

  #

  Ric woke up hard, not sure where he was. Then he saw Lindsey—his wife—and the horror of the past twenty-four hours came back to him. He still had to tell her. He had planned to break the news that morning when they reached her house, but he had fallen asleep.

  It was already noon, so he forced himself to get up. He started a pot of coffee and pulled bacon and eggs out of the refrigerator. It was the least he could do. Since his first trip, he had learned that she always kept bacon and eggs on hand. She stumbled in the kitchen shortly after.

  “I smell bacon. Thank you for cooking breakfast. Or whatever meal it is. I’m starving.”

  “I guess having your stomach pumped will do that to you.”

  “Ugh. I don’t even want to think about that process, but yes, I am hungry.”

  Ric poured coffee, fixed their plates and then sat down across from her.

  “Something else happened yesterday. I didn’t know about the drug when I first found you. When you seemed really happy and excited, I didn’t know that you were under the drug’s influence.” He paused so long, Lindsey was beginning to worry. His face looked grave. “I do not know how to tell you this. After I found you with Vaughn, we walked across the street to the wedding chapel and got married.”

  She stared at him, dazed. She couldn’t have heard him right. “What?”

  “We got married.”

  “Legally.”

  “Yes, legally. Even though you passed out afterward, you had already signed the marriage certificate. The officiate assured me it was legal. She said it might be possible to get it annulled if you want—if we don’t consummate it—but we are married.” He reached in his pocket and felt the rings, still there. He laid them on the table, and the platinum setting gleamed. “These are your rings.”

  “But how could we get married if I don’t remember it?”

  “The memory loss is a side effect of the drug.”

  “Oh.” She sipped her coffee and took a bite of eggs. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Ric watched her for a sign that she understood. She looked confused. “Lindsey, I wanted to marry you, but I was planning to go the more traditional route. If you want an annulment, I’ll understand. I know it’s a lot to take in.” He wished he could get some reaction out of her, but she just sat, staring off into space.

  “But if you didn’t want to get married, why did you agree?”

  “I want us to be married. I just don’t want you to feel like you were tricked into it.”

  “None of this makes any sense.”

  They finished breakfast in silence. Ric ate some, but his appetite had diminished.

  “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Ric had never considered himself a coward, but it took every fiber of his being not to get up and leave while she showered. Wouldn’t it be easier to walk away, and not hear her say it? He was watching his life blow up right before his eyes and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop it.

  #

  Lindsey got into the shower with a heavy heart. At least that’s what she thought she had. How could everything have gone so wrong? Why on earth did she drink that Long Island Iced Tea? She guessed Vaughn had added the drug while she was at the buffet. She never even suspected him of anything like that.

  Part of her said Vaughn was determined and would have found a way to get the drug in her regardless, but she still had made it easy for him.

  How could Ric have married her if she seemed so out of it? She stood under the hot water and probed her memories, the ones she had shied away from since they left Vegas. Touching them in her mind felt like touching a sore spot on her body. She had flinched and drawn away from them.

  Now she faced them full on. Now she remembered Vaughn and the drink. She remembered him telling her they were going to find Ric. That made no sense, since the two men couldn’t stand each other. She remembered stumbling outside the casino and him helping her get her footing.

  She frowned at the memory of Xavier and another man who looked like him in the parking garage. She remembered another man that she swore she had seen before. In Miami.

  Ric had done nothing wrong. She remembered he wanted to go back to the room, but she had told him to take her outside. She had seen the pretty chapel and she wanted to get married. She remembered that feeling—maybe it was drug induced, maybe it wasn’t—but she didn’t shy away from it now. She had asked him to marry her. Not once but three times. Lord help her, the joy that had rushed through her when he had said yes was the happiest she had ever felt.

  What should she do? What could she do? Laura would never accept this. Tears rolled down her cheeks, mixing with the water from the shower.

  Laura had warned her the last time they spoke that Ric had family who connected with the mob in Atlanta. Maybe he was even connected himself, Laura had whispered, urging Lindsey to stay away from him. Now Lindsey had seen the criminal elements herself, and she couldn’t deny them. Was Ric in too deep to get out?

  She finally left the shower and faced her futu
re. She didn’t even bother getting dressed. She put on her old terrycloth robe and wrapped her hair up in a towel. She found Ric sitting in the same spot at the table, his face flat and empty of emotion.

  “I’m really struggling here,” she whispered, not able to find her voice. She cleared her throat and tried again. “In the shower I remembered more of what happened. Were there two Xaviers?”

  “Xavier’s twin Javier works for my cousin.”

  “So that man Christmas Eve…”

  “Was Javier. They tried to take you then.

  “Why didn’t you explain all of that to me? I might have been on my guard more.”

  He shrugged. “I should have. I didn’t want you to worry. I asked you not to leave the hotel room.”

  “Yes, but you never said why. If you had, I might have stayed and got room service. It just sounded like you were being way too overprotective.”

  Ric sighed and put his head in his hands. “I feel horrible. All of this is my fault.”

  “No, it’s not your fault. It’s just something that happened. You didn’t do anything wrong. I remember now. I’m the one who pushed us to get married. I had to ask three times before you’d agree. Talk about a blow to a girl’s ego,” she said, laughing it off.

  He sighed and looked away. “I should have just dragged you kicking and screaming up to the room.”

  She smiled again at the image. “You tried that before. That didn’t work either. You ended up coming back to play cards with me, remember?”

  He smiled. “I do remember.”

  “Besides, way too many witnesses in Vegas. You might have got yourself arrested.”

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  “You’ll have to keep me, I guess,” she whispered. She couldn’t stand not touching him. She got up and circled the table, climbing on his lap. “I don’t want an annulment right now, but at the same time, I’m not ready to be a wife. We don’t even live in the same city.”

  “Sweetheart, I don’t want you to be anything but yourself. I don’t have this preconceived notion of what a wife is, or what a wife does. And I’m working on getting the resort in Walhalla, remember?”

  Lindsey smiled at that. “I still need some time to think this through. I love you, but I just don’t see how we can be together.”

  “One day at a time.” He squeezed her then, burying his head in her chest.

  “Do you have a video of the ceremony?”

  “Actually, I do. The chapel sent me a link.” He pulled his phone out and showed her the video.

  Lindsey watched, transfixed, as she repeated the marriage vows. Her voice sounded clear and sure, not slurred or anything. “I don’t sound drunk.”

  “No, you didn’t. I didn’t suspect a thing.”

  “You were so sweet. And look at that kiss. I wish I remembered that.” She grinned at him then, trying to lighten the moment.

  “I can always give you a repeat performance of that.”

  Lindsey took a deep breath. She had reached a decision, sort of. “Laura can’t know about this right now. She has such hopes for my future, for grad school, for everything—if I tell her I got married in Vegas I think she would have a hard time accepting that. Can we just leave it alone, and pretend for now that it didn’t happen?”

  “Why does Laura hate me so much?”

  “Fox says you’re connected to the mafia. I don’t believe it, but that’s what their issue is. It will just take time for them to get to know you and see that it’s not true.”

  “I don’t know how they can get to know me if they don’t know we’re together.”

  He had a point. “I don’t know. We’ll figure something out. It doesn’t matter if we’re married or not. Right now all that matters it that I love you.”

  “We can get through this. I love you, too—I just hope I haven’t broken things between us beyond repair.”

  She smiled through the tears that she just couldn’t shake. “Right now, I’d say we’re breaking even.”

  A Word From the Author

  Lindsey and Ric are happy. Maybe. For now. Stay tuned…

  Lindsey and Ric’s story will rap up in the next book in the City Lights series, with a current title of Winner Take All. I’m hoping to release this by February of 2016. I will put up a preorder link as soon as I can. Don’t miss a new release—sign up for my newsletter. I promise I won’t harass you with junk email. Click here.

  If you enjoyed this book, please take the time to leave a review. It doesn’t even have to be long. Just a few sentences explaining what you liked. I appreciate each and every one.

  If you missed the first part of Lindsey and Ric’s story, you’ll want to read For the Win to see how they got started. If you want to find out how Fox and Laura got together, you’ll want to read No Strings Attached. Under His Protection tells the story of Lee’s brother and it takes place after Breaking Even. Lindsey and Ric figure prominently, although they aren’t main characters.