This sentiment is nice and overly sweet, but I can’t have him continuing to think that what I did was a great sacrifice.
Because it wasn’t.
“I’m going to tell you this just once, buddy.” I lean forward in my chair, holding my glass in both hands as my elbows go to my knees. “What the three of us had together… it was never more than a fling to me. An experiment. A cautious foray into the taboo. But it was never something that involved my heart. I didn’t concede any battle to you for Avril’s love because I didn’t want her heart in that way. So please stop thinking I’m this saint for backing out of our little ménage. I didn’t lose anything.”
Dane appraises me, his eyes pinned to mine, trying to see if there’s a hint of any deception in what I just said. He doesn’t quite trust I won’t continue to shoulder the burden of a broken heart so he and Avril can feel good about their relationship.
I merely stare back at him without blinking.
My expression remains resolute, and he knows I mean what I just said.
With a sigh, he nods and says, “Thank you anyway. For just now… making me feel better about everything.”
“You’re welcome,” I say glibly, and slouch into my chair. I knock back my drink, draining the glass.
“What are you going to do about the marriage?” Dane asks, and I jolt in my seat over the abrupt change of conversation. It’s a subject I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
“I’ve got the final documentation for us both to sign. The attorney will file it, and it’s a done deal.”
“Then why haven’t you signed and filed it yet?” His tone says he knows the answer to this question, even if I don’t fully understand myself.
I shrug. “No rush. I’ve been busy.”
“You just spent this past weekend with her,” Dane snorts, then slugs the rest of his bourbon back. He pushes up from his seat and crosses over to the wet bar, continuing to talk. “I’m quite sure you had a few moments of time you both could have signed the documents.”
“When I say I was busy, I meant to say that my time with Brynne was so enjoyable I forgot about getting them signed.”
“Bullshit,” he retorts with a smirk. “You don’t want to sign them.”
“So what if I don’t?” I grumble.
Dane pauses with the bottle of bourbon in his hand, his expression is no longer teasing. “What about doing a post-nuptial? I mentioned it before, but—”
“I don’t want to do that,” I cut him off. “There’s nothing that will put the damper on new love like asking your woman to sign a post-nup.”
“It’s a business decision,” Dane chides with potent reprisal. “You’re a businessman, Drew. Don’t let your heart get involved in something that is merely designed to protect you.”
“I don’t want it,” I say through gritted teeth, then try to smooth my voice out. “I don’t need it. What Brynne and I have is real.”
One of Dane’s eyebrows arches high in skepticism.
“Look,” I say gruffly as I rise from my chair and cross to the wet bar. I hold my glass out to him and he refills it, then pours his own. “I know this is fast, and that I’ve only known her for a little over three weeks, but I’m listening to my gut here. And it’s telling me that Brynne is that one perfect woman I’ve been waiting for. More than that, it’s telling me I could trust her with anything. Now I know that might seem silly to such a shrewd businessman as yourself, but I’m going to listen to my gut instinct here and not my brain.”
Dane stares at me only a moment before he inclines his head, a silent indication he cedes the argument to my better judgment.
I give a short cough. “And to wrap up your original question, I’m not going to do anything about the annulment unless she asks about it.”
“No harm in that,” he agrees carefully, then takes a sip of his drink.
“It’s just,” I begin, then stall for words. I’m not sure how to convey the confidence I have in this relationship without sounding stupid and trite. “It’s just…”
I falter again.
Dane smiles knowingly. “Your soul recognizes hers. It knows hers. That’s why you’re trusting your gut.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, letting his words sink into my head. “I just know that what I’m doing, even with how quickly this is moving, plus with how she feels about me and me about her… I just know that what I’m doing is right.”
Dane reaches out a hand, claps me on my shoulder, and regards me with utter confidence. “Then it must be so, because next to Avril, there’s no one’s judgment I trust more than yours.”
“Thank you,” I say gratefully, because no matter how good I feel about Brynne and what we have going on between us, hearing Dane’s validation means the world to me.
CHAPTER 18
Brynne
I snuggle down into Andrew’s couch—no, my couch now, too—and flip through my email.
There’s a few from some friends back in San Diego. There was no time for personal goodbyes, so I sent an email letting everyone know about my move to Vegas, although I called it a “temporary relocation”. It’s not that I didn’t foresee a long future here with Andrew, because I do.
I just didn’t want to open up invitation to a whole lot of concerned emails wondering if I have gone off my rocker. As far as these friends knew, I’d decided to leave the practice and relocate. Most knew the reason the wedding was called off. I’m not sure how the exact details got out, but they did, and it was now common knowledge I’d been cheated on.
But the existence of Andrew isn’t well known. Tara was my closest friend, and yes, she knows about him, but not because I wanted to share such a confidence with her. It was more of a necessity of sorts.
I need Jesse and Tara to know they didn’t break me.
That I came out of this just fine.
Pulling myself from my thoughts, I take in Andrew’s condo. It’s a typical bachelor pad. He’s got a lot of junk piled around, but not in a nasty, slovenly way. His kitchen is pristine, devoid of dirty dishes. His tables are dusted.
But he has stacks of mail sitting unopened on the counter, and paperwork with the Caterva logo spread out over the dining room table. His walls aren’t barren of art, but what he does have is masculine with rich colors of rusts, taupe, and gray. His furniture is high end, but all in monochromatic colors of gray, black, and white.
His fridge is typical of a man living alone—bologna, cold pizza, and beer. We just got here yesterday afternoon with the trailer of my stuff, but Andrew promised to take me grocery shopping later this afternoon when I told him there was no way I was living on bologna and pizza.
For now, Andrew is at Caterva. On Sunday mornings, he meets Dane at the company’s gym, where they work out together. After, Andrew is going to sneak in a few hours of work. That’s his normal routine, and I was very adamant he was going to continue to follow it. I didn’t want him to deviate for me, because I wanted to become a part of his normal life.
Giving my attention back to my laptop, I consider the email I’d received last night but chose to ignore until now. It caused me no small amount of heartburn, but I did have to give it some serious thought.
The email was from the boss of the dental practice I’d left in order to open one with the betrayers. He had heard through the grapevine I was selling out, and he wanted to offer me my old job back. It was not a big change in circumstance from when I left his employ before. Only a slight raise, but the forty-hour workweek was very appealing. For people who own their own businesses, forty-hour weeks are not feasible. It’s more like at least sixty hours a week, if not more.
The offer is something to consider if I want to stay in San Diego. More importantly, he told me that I didn’t have to start right away if I wanted to take some time off myself. That meant that I could stay here in Vegas with Andrew for a while as if I were on an extended vacation.
But the thought of leaving Andrew doesn’t appeal to me at all. In fact, it feels very, ver
y wrong. So maybe I should just write back and decline the offer.
I consider it a moment, then become sidetracked by a notification of an incoming email from Jesse.
Normally this would cause me to brace for some bullshit he’d be sending my way, but this past week he’s proven he’s very serious about buying me out of the practice. He had an attorney draft a buy-sell agreement, which I reviewed. Because Andrew insisted, I hired my own local attorney to review it as well. He had a few changes, there were some back and forths, and this looks like it might be a final draft we can agree on. All I have to do is review it once more, and if it meets with my approval, sign it. Jesse then has forty-eight hours to give me a certified check for the buyout. We agreed he would just pay my regular salary each period for my six months’ severance.
Clicking on the email, I read the very succinct paragraph from Jesse.
I smile over the formality, but merely in an appreciative way that he’s being mature and professional about this. Just like I’ve moved on, it appears Jesse has, too.
It takes me only about five minutes after I pull up the document to read it for the changes I’d requested before. They’re all made to my satisfaction, and I’m ready to print.
Except that doesn’t go quite as smoothly as I anticipate. My laptop won’t connect to Andrew’s wireless printer, which sits on a small desk by a window in the living room. I’m not overly tech savvy, but I can install a print driver, but that doesn’t help. I spend a few minutes trying to Google a solution, and when that fails, I shoot Andrew a quick text.
Trying to print something to your printer. No luck. Any advice?
I sent the text not really caring if he responded right away. The printing of the document could wait until he returned, but if he did have a quick tip, I’d be able to at least knock that out.
I’m surprised when he does reply right away. Wireless hookup on the printer is spotty at best. My PC is hooked up to it. Feel free to log onto it to print from there. Password is nerdDoc3409.
My thumbs fly over the screen. Thanks. I’ll give it a try.
I then send him a kissy-face emoji.
Setting my phone down, I pull out the chair from the desk and sit in it. Moving the keyboard to his desktop unit toward me, I bring up the login screen and enter his password.
His background screen makes me laugh out loud, a vintage comic book strip of Batman and Robin. He’s a total DC dork while I love Marvel, because really… who can compare to Tony Stark’s Iron Man? He says I’m swayed by pretty faces, and I can’t understand the complexity of the DC characters.
I pull up Google Chrome, log in to my Gmail account and pull up Jesse’s email. It takes me less than a minute to print two of the double-spaced, three-page agreements.
After giving them one last quick scan, I find a pen in the narrow drawer at my lap and scrawl my signature on each one.
With my work for the day done, I go to log off Andrew’s desktop, but something catches my eye.
A folder icon that seems to stand out against the Batman and Robin vintage comic book strip. It’s labeled Wicked Horse.
It almost doesn’t even fully penetrate and I start to ignore it, but then I remember why that name sounds so familiar.
It’s the sex club Andrew and I walked past that night, the one where the crazy amount of people stood outside in a line to get in.
I stare at the folder for a moment, my stomach starting to churn. I have no clue why Andrew would have a folder with the same name as a sex club on his computer, but something deep in my gut tells me it’s no coincidence.
My conscience makes me hesitate. I’m not a snooper, and I don’t believe in prying. I also believe in honest communication, as well as giving people the benefit of the doubt. What I should do is ignore it. If I still feel curious about it by the time Andrew gets home, I should just ask him about it. I inherently trust he won’t lie to me, regardless of what it is.
But on the flip side, what if it’s something really bad? So bad that perhaps he’ll feel pressed to lie to me, as sometimes our human nature makes us do when we’re confronted with things that take us by surprise.
Damn, I want to just leave it be and trust Andrew, but then all of these ugly feelings rear up inside me. I remember trusting Jesse once. And Tara.
And then finding a photo of them doing something so unthinkable that it ruined my wedding day.
Doesn’t matter that I might have dodged a bullet with Jesse by finding out about him cheating on me. In fact, what if I was meant to find this folder to keep me from meeting another bullet head on?
What if the fates are looking out for me and I was meant to see this?
Without another moment of hesitation and before my conscience can talk me out of it, I double click on the folder.
A window pops up, listing several MP4 videos that are named with a long numeric code followed by a date. The most recent one is dated four months ago, and there’s no equivocation within me now.
I double click on that video, holding my breath while it starts playing.
At first, I’m not understanding what I’m seeing, probably from the actual shock of what is on the screen. I thought that maybe I suspected this might be video from a sex club, but there was a part of me that must have been refusing to believe that because my shock is genuine and nausea inducing.
It’s a room that’s fairly dark, but various portions of it are highlighted by overhead spotlights shining down.
Casting their illumination straight down onto furniture and mounds of pillows that are occupied by naked, writhing people in the act of performing all types of sexual favors on one another.
It takes me only a moment to focus in on a certain threesome, and that’s because they are the ones the video seems to be focused on. It’s then my stomach stops churning, and instead fills with what seems to be a huge lead ball of disappointment.
On the screen are two men and one woman having sex.
Except watching this is about a million times worse than seeing my fiancé in a threesome, and that’s because Andrew is one of the participants.
What makes my stomach really start to curdle is the fact I recognize the other two people involved—Dane and Avril.
I settle back into the chair, my hand locked in a death grip on the mouse, and I watch.
It’s almost seventeen minutes long. When it’s done, I start it over and watch it again. Not for titillation and not because I want to punish myself, but mainly so I can let the anger that had started to build reach a fervent froth of violent disgust.
When it’s done the second time, I sink farther into the chair, gazing out the window at the hustle and bustle of Vegas below me. Even on a Sunday, people are still walking everywhere. It’s a city known for never sleeping.
Not sure I’ll ever be able to again after what I’ve just seen, either.
CHAPTER 19
Andrew
The minute I open the front door to my condo, I know something is wrong. This is before I even see Brynne standing at the window in the living room.
Back to me.
Arms crossed over her stomach as if she’s physically ill.
Shoulders hunched inward.
Utterly still.
“Brynne?” I say hesitantly, and my entire body locks tight when she flinches from my voice.
I stand there, rooted to the spot, and watch her.
She doesn’t turn to me.
Doesn’t say a word.
I step into the living room, shut the door behind me, and set my keys ever so quietly onto the foyer table as if I’m afraid any loud noise might cause her to bolt.
My gaze makes its way around the room, taking in the couch, two overstuffed chairs, the desk, the entertainment unit, the—
The desk.
With the computer screen lit up and blazing, paused on a video that makes my throat go dry and my stomach to spasm with—for the absolute first time since I got involved sexually with Dane and Avril—complete shame.
> A million curses and laments lay upon my tongue, but I can’t even open my mouth to let them out, so they sit there and fester.
Brynne is the one to speak first, and it startles me.
“You told me to use your computer to print my stuff out.” Her voice is flat with a distant quality to it that tells me with just those few words about my printer that I’ve lost her. “I didn’t mean to be nosy, but when I saw the folder named Wicked Horse, well… I just couldn’t help myself.”
I stand there motionless, unable to even come up with something reasonable to say in response. I’m not mad or offended in the slightest that she opened that folder up. I’d completely forgotten it was there, which only goes to show I’ve been over my fling with Avril and Dane for a very long time.
Brynne turns to face me, and the confusion on her face guts me. I’d expected anger, maybe even disgust, but the mere fact I’ve confounded the woman I love—who should have utter trust and faith in me—hurts beyond measure.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my throat finally unclogging to let the most important words out. “I should have told you about that part of my past, but I was afraid to. I didn’t want you to think I was a freak or something.”
Brynne’s expression transforms, and her cheeks mottle red with anger. She points a shaky finger at my computer screen, and I internally cringe. The section of the video she’d paused it on appears twisted and heinous. It was one of the few times Avril, Dane, and I used the Wicked Horse together as a threesome. Dane had thought it would be hot to send me and Avril the video the next day at work to rattle us.
And it did.
Also gave me a hard-on as I watched it in my office.
Dane on his back, hands to Avril’s hips as she rides his cock. Her blonde hair is in a ponytail, and I can vividly remember it bouncing and swaying as I fucked her in the ass from behind. I’d wrapped my hand around that thing, holding her head tight while I pounded into her.
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