by E. R. Wade
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Epilogue
Excerpt: Lie With Me
MIA
CAPTURED HEARTS 3
E.R. WADE
Copyright © 2018 E.R. Wade
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
To Tayo, for a long list of second chances [/whose understanding of second chance is unique/for his unique definition of second chance/no one understands second chances quite like you do].
This is for my amazing friend, Wemo. When’s our next trip to Vegas?
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Epilogue
Excerpt: Lie With Me
ONE
Mia
So I left.
And I’ve lived with regret for two years.
I should have stayed.
I should have been brave enough to stay. I should have taken a leap of faith. Who knows what might have been? It’s taken me a long time to get to the stage I’m in, that is accepting that I may never see him again and making a deliberate effort to move on with my life. After all, it’s possible that the man may be married with children. I’ve often wondered if he ever thinks about me.
And just when I was finally starting to move on and agreed to date Gavin (he’s been asking me out patiently for about six months) exclusively, he turns up. And I find out he’s going to be my best friend’s brother-in-law.
So here I am, standing in the room at Ana’s engagement party and he’s standing right in front of me looking incredibly handsome, much more handsome than I remember. For a few seconds, I think I imagine him.
“Mia,” he says in that sexy deep voice that I remember and has brought me to orgasm more times than he’ll ever know. I’m glad he remembers me and I wasn’t just another one-night stand to him. Without a doubt, I know my face is chalk white. I’m frozen on the spot, staring at him. No one exists besides him and me. He takes a step closer but stops. In a second, I realize why.
Gavin.
Gavin comes up beside me and puts his hand on my waist, pulling me to him. I want to push him away and ask him not to touch me but I don’t. Gavin is my boyfriend, and I need to remember that. “Sweetheart, I was wondering where you disappeared to.”
Jake’s jaw clenches as he takes in Gavin’s possessive hold on me.
“I was talking to . . . an old friend,” I say, uncertain on how best to describe Jake. And my voice comes out in a strained whisper. I’m standing stiffly so I deliberately try to relax into Gavin. He pulls me closer. The air is thick with awkwardness but Jake is looking at us with an unreadable expression.
Gavin, amazing as always, attempts to smooth over the tension. He offers his hand to Jake.
“Gavin Hunt.”
Jake takes it. “Jake Charlton.”
Charlton? Is he related to Luke? I stare at him, and that’s when I see the resemblance. They have the same bone structure [jaw and nose]. Why didn’t I see it before? All the times I saw Luke, he never once looked familiar to me. I can’t believe that Jake is Luke’s brother.
They both have black hair and are roughly about the same height, maybe six two. Jake’s eyes are light blue and Luke’s eyes are green. Luke looks a lot more intense than his brother who looks like he could be easy-going.
TWO
Jake
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you knew Mia?”
My younger brother looks at me, scowling. Most likely, not pleased that I dragged his attention away from his fiancée. She is on the other side of the room talking to a couple of guests I don’t recognize, and he’s ogling her. They’re virtually living together, but he looks like he can’t get enough of her, and he’s never happy whenever she’s not by his side. I’ve never seen my brother like this.
“Mia? Ana’s friend? Why would I tell you –?” His voice trails off as I glare at him. I know the exact moment that comprehension dawns. “Mia? She’s the Mia you’ve been looking for? The one you haven’t stopped talking about? The girl that made you mope for weeks?” He looks shocked. He scans the room until he spots her standing in the corner talking to Gavin.
“Yes, Lucas. The same one.”
“Shit. I had no idea.” He looks apologetic but that doesn’t calm me down. “I’m sorry, man.”
“How long have you known her?”
“A few months. There was no way I could have known she’s your Mia.”
“Who’s the guy she’s with?”
“Her boyfriend, Gavin Hunt.”
“How serious are they?”
“They just started dating. I don’t think it’s more than two months.”
I would have found her sooner. I should have found her before she got involved with [started seeing] the douchebag.
[MORE]
“Jake, you need to be cool about this. Mia is Ana’s best friend.”
What the fuck is Luke asking me to do? To keep away from Mia? He knows that’s not going to happen. He knows how long I’ve yearned for her. Yeah, he doesn’t know how desperately I’ve wanted to just catch a glimpse of her and find out if she’s okay. But he knows she’s the only woman who has affected me. The only thing I’ve had to hold on to is the photograph. When she left, she didn’t leave a single thing behind. I know because I checked the entire suite. If not for the photograph, I would have wondered if she was a dream [a figment of my imagination].
“So? You expect me to just let her walk away from me a second time?”
“Jake, she’s dating Gavin and he’s a nice guy. She seems happy.”
I eye my brother menacingly. I still haven’t forgiven him for not mentioning that he knows a Mia. I’ve had to listen to him talk about Ana – a lot – but not once did he mention Mia.
“Well, if you had told me you knew her, she wouldn’t be dating him right now, would she?
Luke chuckles, which doesn’t improve my mood. “How do you know that? I could have told you and you would have flown here to see her but she could still have been dating Gavin now. She did leave your suite on her own that morning, right?”
What the hell was I thinking when I confided in Luke? He’s just kicked me where it hurts. (It grates.) Yes, it bothers me. It’s been bothering me for two years why she walked away . . . how she could so easily walk away from me that morning after everything we shared the night before. For a while, it made me question the genuineness of what we shared.
I start to walk away, not bothering to dignify his question with an answer. I’m done talking to him. But he stops me with a hand on my arm. I give him a cold look but he’s not intimidated. Most people would be, but not him. After all, the guy’s my kid brother and we’re pretty damn close.
“Hey, man. I didn’t mean it that way. I just don’t want you rock the boat and I know how you can be when you want something,” he says apologetically. “I’ve never seen you like this . . . over a woman.”
“I’ve never seen you like this too. You’re all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns,” I say mockingly/scornfully.
Unfazed, he grins at me. “Yep. The right woman will do that to you
[MORE]
I hate to admit it even to myself but I’ve been obsessed with Mia since the night we met.
I look o
ver at where Mia is and I see the asshole’s arms wrapped around her. I hate that he’s touching her but I take small comfort seeing that he’s glaring at me. It means that they were talking about me and he’s feeling possessive. She’s mine, and the sooner he realizes that, the better for everyone.
Of course, I smile back at him.
THREE
Mia
“So, he’s the reason why you kept me at arms’ length all these months?”
How am I supposed to answer that question? I can’t even look Gavin in the eye. My reaction to Jake’s presence was intense. Seeing him here has shaken me to the core. I was finally coming to terms that I may never see him again for the rest of my life and that he may be married by now, but then he turns here and I find out he’s Luke’s brother. And not only is he not wearing a wedding ring, he remembers me.
“Is he an ex-boyfriend?”
I shake my head. “No. the truth is that I barely know him. I’m just surprised to see him here.”
“So, you never dated him?”
I tell him the truth. “No.” Yes, I know I’m lying by omission but what the hell am I supposed to do?
“Mia, tell me what happened between you. The truth, please.”
I’m not surprised that Gavin knows that there’s more to the story [I’m hiding something]. He’s an astute man. It’s hard to get anything past him.
“We spent a night together and I haven’t heard or spoken to him since. I just didn’t expect to see him again. Really, it’s nothing.”
He knows it’s not ‘nothing’ but he wants to know how big of a problem it is.
“Do you have feelings for him?” he asks.
If he means to ask if I’ve thought about him every day, if I’ve imagined what he’s doing, who he’s with, if I’ve imagined him in my bed, and if the only times I’ve had orgasms is with thoughts of him – my vibrator is of course a poor substitute – then yes.
“No. I don’t really know him. It was just one night,” I say.
“Then why does his presence here affect you?” Gavin is damned too astute.
I place my palm on his chest. “Gavin, I’m here with you and I don’t want to be with anyone else. Can we please talk about this later? This is Ana’s engagement party, and we should be having a good time.” My eyes are pleading with him. I don’t think I can handle any more questions about Jake.
He pulls me into his arms, then presses his lips to my hair and I almost slump in relief.
There are two things I’m certain of. The first is that this conversation is not over. Second, I had planned to take our relationship to the next level/step by consummating it tonight and sleeping over at his house but that’s not going to happen.
.
.
FOUR
Jake
I want to hold her but I don’t make a move. My body aches to be close to hers but I don’t want to cross the line I know she has drawn. Not to mention that her boyfriend is close by [nearby]. I can’t believe that after a long time of thinking about what I’d do if I see her again, she’s standing right in front of me yet I feel like there’s a huge gap/wedge/(synonym) between us.
“When I woke up and you weren’t there . . . I couldn’t believe you left. At first I thought you’d be back until I remembered that you said you had a flight back to New York that afternoon. So I went to your hotel to look for you, but since I didn’t know your last name, I had a hard time at the reception. Not to mention the hotel’s policy of not giving out information about their guests.”
She looks surprised. What? Did she think I’d be happy she left and not make an effort to see her?
“I was lucky to see a sympathetic lady who I showed a picture of you to, and told her that I had a very slim window to see you before you left the state.”
“You had a picture of me?” she asks, sounding even more surprised and breathless. I whip out my phone from my pocket and pulled up her picture. The one I’ve looked at for the past two years. The only picture of her I have. I show it to her. She didn’t know when I took the picture that night. She was laughing at something one of her friends said. A drink in one hand. Her brown long hair loose around her bare shoulders. Her strapless red dress clinging seductively to her body. Her perfect white teeth gleaming in the lights of the bar/lounge we were in. she was breathtaking in her beauty. She still is.
“I didn’t know you had this,” she says quietly. “I didn’t have any of you.” Does she know she said it out loud? He’s she thought of me as much as I’ve thought of her? I haven’t been with anyone serious even though I had practically giving up hope of ever seeing her again. Yet here she is with a boyfriend. I had always wondered whether she got married, had kids or moved to another country. I remember her expressing hope to work somewhere like Cape Town.
She gives my phone back to me and I notice that her hand is trembling slightly.
“She told me that she couldn’t give me your last name but she recognized you and you had checked out earlier. So I took the first cab I saw and went to the airport.”
Mia looks paler.
“What?” she whispers.
“By the time I got there, all the flights to New York had left. The next one was at eleven p.m. but I knew you were gone because you said your flight was an afternoon one. The worst part was that I didn’t know what airline you used so I couldn’t talk to anyone at the counter about leaving a message for you. I hated to admit defeat but it didn’t seem like I had much of a choice. How do I find a beautiful woman in a big city when I didn’t know her surname, I didn’t know where she worked or where she lived. It was then I realized that even though I knew a lot about you like your childhood and your hopes and dreams, I still knew nothing.”
“Jake . . .” She doesn’t know what to say. I’ve rendered her almost speechless. My revelations had shocked her. I decide not to tell her that I didn’t stop there. I couldn’t stop looking for her even though I felt like I had reached a dead end. I went back to the club we met and spoke to the patron to see if he remembered her group of friends and if they made a reservation. I figured that if I could find one of her friends, I’d find her. But I reached another dead end.
She ran from me, and I need to know why.
“Why did you leave without saying goodbye?”
Her face is a mix of emotions, and I know she’s replaying the memories of our night together and the moment she left.
“I . . . I thought it would be less awkward
I raise an eyebrow. “Awkward? Was there anything awkward about the time we spent together?” We had a strong connection and I have no doubts that she felt it as much as I had.
“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel when you woke up and I just thought it’d be easier if I left.”
I see Gavin approaching. And I know we’ve just run out of time . . . for now.
“Mind if I steal my girlfriend for a minute?” he asks, his tone casual but the look in his eyes is anything but. I have no doubt that the use of the word ‘steal’ was deliberate. I don’t answer him. Gavin gives me a hard, threatening look but when he speaks to Mia, his voice is soft.
“Mia?”
“Yeah. Sure,” she says, sounding anything but certain. I can bet that she has no idea what he’d asked.
And for a moment I wonder if I’m going to be that guy. The kind of guy I despise. The guy that goes after another man’s girlfriend. Because there’s no way I’m going to let Mia go. Especially now that I know that she’s still affected by me.
FIVE
Mia
He looked for me.
Oh my gosh.
Why did I leave? I shouldn’t have left. He just seemed too good to be true.
It’s been two days since the party and right now I’m in my office but my concentration is zero/shit. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Jake. I spent the rest of Saturday night and all of yesterday thinking about him and remember that magical night. And today is no different.
“So, anything y
ou care to tell me about Saturday?” she asks.
I hesitate. “The party was great.” Why am I hesitant to tell her about Jake. She already knows about him and how much he has unknowingly affected my life. The only thing she doesn’t know is his identity. He’s going to be her brother-in-law. It’s not a big deal, right? It’s not like he’ll be living with them and I’d have to avoid visiting one of my best friends. But he’ll be in all future family events like the wedding, births and birthdays.
“Anything interesting happen?” I study my friend’s face wondering if she knows. I get my answer in two seconds. “Okay. I’ve been waiting for you to call me and spill but since that’s clearly not going to happen and I’ve run out of patience (I’m not known for my patience) . . . I know Jake, the man you haven’t gotten over in two years, is Luke’s brother.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. How did she find out? Did Jake say anything to her?
“How did you –?”
“Luke told me. Apparently, you’ve had quite an impact on his brother.” I finally open my eyes to see Ana grinning at me. “Luke said he’s always wanted to meet the mysterious Mia that has had his brother tied up in knots but he had no idea it was you. And I spoke to Jake. I get the feeling that he isn’t pleased that Luke has known you for months and never once mentioned it.”
“Did you tell him –?”
“That you’re crazy about him and that you haven’t stopped thinking about him all this time? No. I’m your friend, Mia. And I’m not a snitch.”
“I know. I know. Sorry.”
“I thought you’d be more excited. This is a good thing.”
“Really? A good thing? Have you forgotten that I have a boyfriend? Gavin?”
“Oh . . . yeah. I had actually forgotten. I guess I was excited to find out that Jake was the man you had the connection with, and that you had found each other.” “What are you going to do about Gavin?”
