To Love and to Cherish

by Gina Robinson

  To Love and To Cherish

  Switched at Marriage Part 7

  Gina Robinson

  Copyright © 2015 by Gina Robinson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Gina Robinson

  http://www.ginarobinson.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover photos and Design: Jeff Robinson

  To Love and To Cherish, Switched at Marriage Part 7/Gina Robinson. — 1st ed.

  Created with Vellum

  GinaRobinson.com

  Visit ginarobinson.com to sign up for my VIP New Releases List. You’ll get exclusive access to new release notifications, series announcements, and more! Get the Gina Robinson Starter Library Free for signing up!

  The Switched at Marriage Series

  Part 1—A Wedding to Remember

  Part 2—The Virgin Billionaire

  Part 3—To Have and To Hold

  Part 4—From This Day Forward

  Part 5—For Richer, For Richest

  Part 6—In Sickness and In Wealth

  Part 7—To Love and To Cherish

  Gina Robinson’s Contemporary New Adult Romance Series

  The Rushed Series

  These standalone romances can be read in any order. But it’s more fun to read them all!

  Book 1—Rushed, Zach and Alexis’ story

  Book 2—Crushed, Dakota and Morgan’s story

  Book 3—Hushed, Seth and Maddie’s story

  The Reckless Series

  Ellie and Logan’s love story begins one hot August night. This series should be read in order.

  Book 1—Reckless Longing—FREE!

  Book 2—Reckless Secrets

  Book 3—Reckless Together

  Chapter One

  Kayla

  Looking into the eyes of the man you love can be like looking in the mirror. If you're lucky, and he loves you back, it's like gazing into Snow White's mirror and having his eyes tell you you're the fairest of them all.

  At the sound of the elevator doors opening, Data barked and danced around excitedly. Which could only mean one thing…

  I froze, wrapped compromisingly in Lazer's arms. The world spun in slow motion as I turned and saw Jus standing in the entryway, Data bounding to him as happily as a puppy in a dog food commercial.

  Jus held a bouquet of baby-blue and pink you're-having-my-baby balloons so large it looked like the balloons were about to carry him away. I had no idea how he'd wrestled them into the elevator. Or how much ribbing he would have endured because of them. Even the quantity of balloons was boyish and over-the-top happy. Like Jus. It was so like him to show his happiness in a big way.

  On his face was a look of utter devastation and shock as he took in the scene before him—me in my robe in Lazer's arms. He paled. Right then, I felt my world cracking, shattering into a million tiny pieces too small to ever be glued back together into any kind of semblance of whole.

  The words on my lips to Lazer froze in place. I'd been saying, I'll always love you…

  To a casual, outside observer, my words, the embrace, the whole scene, looked damning, yes. But what I was about to say wasn't what they would think. It was so totally innocent as to be laughable. The rest of my unfinished sentence made all the difference. But the remainder of my thought had deserted me. I'd always love him for the good friend he was? Maybe that was it. It was something like that.

  I wrenched free from him. Actually, wrench was the wrong word. Lazer dropped his arms from around me at the same time so there wasn't much actual wrenching involved.

  "Jus!" I took a step toward him, arms outstretched, hoping against hope that he hadn't misunderstood. That he could be talked down from that ledge of assuming the worst. "Are those for me? How sweet!"

  His face was set. He was scarily silent and his jaw was ticking beneath all that facial hair. Irrelevantly, I noticed he needed a trim. My world teetered on the brink of destruction. And I was noticing his personal grooming?

  I took a step closer, trying not to act guilty when I wasn't and flame the fires of betrayal. "You're home early! Did you take the afternoon off?" I tried to put perky and happy into my voice. I think I mostly succeeded in sounding supremely artificial.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Lazer. Who was looking at the balloons and me. And the balloons and Jus. Understanding dawning slowly for someone so sharp.

  Crap, crap, crap!

  I pled with my eyes for help. But Lazer stood there stunned. A bachelor in the headlights of domestic happiness being obliterated.

  "Lazer just stopped by to drop off your present early. It's something special just for the two of us. For our eyes only. So naturally he didn't want you opening it in public."

  Jus was holding my cell phone. Odd. How did he get that? I didn't remember losing it. But I'd been so preoccupied with the party I hadn't missed it. I must have left it at Flash. No wonder Lazer had used the buzzer rather than texting me to let him in.

  As I took another step toward Jus, my robe slipped open, revealing my sexy lingerie beneath. An outfit meant only for him.

  He shot me a disgusted look, so at odds with the way he usually looked at me with love and adoration that I stopped short. My reflection in his eyes was distorted and ugly, a funhouse version of me. My heart stopped beating for a second.

  This couldn't be Jus. He'd never, from first meeting onward, looked at me like that. With desire, with want, with admiration, with love, yes. But never with anything as twisted and ugly as disgust and betrayal.

  Outwardly Jus was too calm. Silent fury was the scariest kind. Jus was calculating and analytical. His eyes narrowed. The gears turned, but to the wrong conclusion.

  Rage and hurt rolled off him and filled the room with tension so oppressive I could barely breathe. He let go of the bunch of balloons. Opened his fingers and let them go, done with them. Done with me? They were weighted with a shiny blue plastic anchor and fell to the floor with a startling thud and a racket of rattling Mylar. And then blew in the breeze created by the air conditioning, rustling harbingers of relationship death.

  "Fuck, Kay." Justin's voice was tight, constrained, violent in its calm stillness. More lethal and frightening than if he'd yelled and shouted. He clenched his fists. "I loved you."

  Verb tense was everything, and he was using past tense. "Jus—"

  His voice broke. "I loved you beyond reason. I'd hoped…" He slapped my cell phone on the console table and scooped up Data.

  "Jus!" I grabbed his arm. "This isn't what it looks like."

  "What does it look like, Kay? Like I'm the dumbest douchebag on the planet?" He shook me off, turned, and strode toward the door with Data cuddled in his arms.

  Sensing something was wrong, Data barked unhappily and whined, appealing to me to do something, like a child caught in a bad divorce.

  "Don't leave!" I reached for Jus and got caught in a tangle of balloon ribbons.

  He brushed me aside and kept walking as I freed myself.

  "You can't leave! Let me explain! You have to listen!" I turned over my shoulder to appeal to Lazer again.

  He was staring at the balloons with a look of shock and some odd emotional combination on his face. Awe? Disgust? Praise?

  A w
ave of nausea rolled over me. I swallowed a gag. No. No. Not now!

  "Do something! Tell him, Lazer!" I said, fighting back the rising tide in my throat. If I sounded choked up, it was because I was. In so many ways, including literally.

  Lazer shook his head, took a step toward me, and grabbed my arm. "Let him go, Kayla. Give him time to get his head out of his ass and think straight." He glared at Jus and puffed up, going alpha dog on me.

  Jus didn't look back. The elevator arrived just as my stomach lurched again. I had Hobson's choice—run after the guy I loved and hurl all over him. Which might, or might not, stop him. Depending on how determined he was to leave. Or dash to the bathroom and hope I wasn't too late to hit the toilet. Either way, I was about to retch big time. Vomiting on Jus wasn't likely to make him any happier with me. Or see my point any more clearly. I opted for the bathroom, wrenched free from Lazer, and ran for it.

  I puked until I was as empty inside as my heart. When the wave of morning sickness finally passed, I was shaky and paler than usual after an episode. I rinsed my mouth and wiped my face. And dashed out, hoping to still catch Jus even if I had to run out in the street in my underclothes. Hoping he was going slowly, wanting me to catch him. Hoping he'd turned around and come back and was waiting in the living room for me.

  I had a momentary image of myself in the news. Trouble in paradise? Billionaire Justin Green's crazed young wife runs desperately after him through the streets of Bellevue in her underwear. Story at six.

  Stupid notoriety! I took a deep, shaky breath.

  When I came out of the bathroom, only Lazer was sitting in the living room. With a drink in his hand, swirling it so the ice clinked against the glass.

  He watched me rush toward the door with calm curiosity. "You're too late. He's gone. He peeled out of the parking garage in a fury. I saw him blast down the road." He pointed in the general direction of the street below.

  "Which way did he go?" I balanced on the balls of my bare feet, ready to chase after him.

  Lazer raised a single eyebrow. "Does it matter? He can get to the freeway either direction. And from there, anywhere."

  He studied me with a calm tenseness. Like he was worried I was going to burst into tears. "The way he was driving, the best thing you can do now is pray he doesn't kill himself. Or someone else. Or both. If you're lucky, he'll get pulled over. The cops will pull his license and drag his sorry butt home."

  Lazer could be such an ass.

  "You're so reassuring." My legs were about to give out. I grabbed my phone from the console table where Jus had left it and collapsed in a chair opposite Lazer.

  "Don't even think about texting him! Until he's ready, he'll ignore it. Or delete it. He's not ready to hear what you have to say. And certainly in no mood to believe it."

  He paused. "And if you think he's going to call, you are an optimist. Though I have to say, Jus doesn't usually overreact like this. He didn't walk in on anything that damning." Lazer frowned. "I've been caught in many situations that were much more compromising…"

  I ignored Lazer as I looked at my phone and read the email from Britt that was on the screen.

  Congrats, girl! Way to take advantage of the situation. You got pregnant ASAP!! Just like I told you to. Hook him for life. His money is yours. Did you flush the pills like I said? Ha ha! Whatever you do from now on doesn't matter. You're set for life! Money, money, money!!

  "No. No. No no no, no!" I couldn't breathe. Having the air sucked out of me was becoming a habit I would gladly break if I could.

  Why? Why would Britt email me something this damning? Something that in the wrong hands, and out of context, could be so totally misconstrued? She knew better.

  Jus had been holding my phone when he'd walked in and thrown it on the table with enough rancor to try to break it. He must have read this message. He had to have read it!

  Which explained so much. No wonder he'd taken the situation completely wrong. I'd hit him with a one-two sucker punch. He wouldn't know Britt was teasing. But why would she email me this message now? And he couldn't know that what was going on between Lazer and me was absolutely nothing. Piled on each other…

  I felt about to throw up again. Not from morning sickness this time. I was heartsick. How was I going to fix this? How would he ever believe me?

  "Kayla?" Lazer had set his drink down.

  "Damn it!" I threw my phone across the room with the full intention of cracking its screen. But Jus, damn him, had bought me one of those covers that made it simply indestructible. He'd probably regretted the same thing. The phone bounced and came to a rest coyly face up, none the worse for the wear.

  Lazer stared at me. "What does everyone have against that phone?" He got out of his chair.

  I was out of mine and on his heels. But he retrieved it before I could stop him. He held the phone out of my reach and read that email while I tried to grab it out of his hands like I was in junior high and he was a boy who was teasing me.

  His face went to stone. "Every billionaire's nightmare." He sounded sympathetic. But whether for Jus or me was up for debate. "We never know for sure if the woman we love loves us or our money. And Jus with no prenup, I'm assuming. Given the nature of your sudden marriage." He paused. Opened his mouth. Shut it.

  Lazer at a loss for words. The world really was spinning backward.

  "What will you do with your half of Justin's share of Flash?" he said at last, so calmly and deadpan I almost missed that he was teasing.

  "She's joking!" I held my hand out for the phone. "Britt's joking. What can I say? She has a warped sense of humor. She's joked about it since the beginning. But I would never…I don't want Justin's money!"

  He handed the phone back to me.

  I clutched his arm. "You believe me, right? You have to believe me."

  "That's becoming your catch phrase today."

  I searched his eyes, hoping one damn person in this world believed me right now. And since it obviously wasn't Jus, praying that one person was Lazer Grayson. If he didn't, I was going to collapse. I needed his help convincing Jus that nothing was going on between us. If I lost Lazer's support, I was really and truly sunk.

  "I wouldn't take his money," I said. "If Jus doesn't believe me, I'll walk away with nothing."

  "Not smart, Kayla," Lazer said softly. "You have to think of the baby, too. Its father should support it. He has a legal obligation to provide for it. Which makes your grand gesture, however honestly felt, completely empty." He sounded halfway condemning.

  I stared at him, resisting the urge to lash out at him. "There's no way I can win this, is there?"

  "Assuming it's Justin's—"

  "Of course it's Justin's! Do I even have to say it? Whose else would it be?" I shrieked, my voice pitching near that range that only dogs could hear.

  "Well, you did throw yourself at me." His voice was serious, but his expression was teasing.

  It was clear he was trying to be kind and break the tension, in his own perverse way. I was an emotional, hormonal wreck, so I didn't exactly appreciate his sense of humor right then. This wasn't funny.

  "What am I going to do, Lazer? You have to help me get him back!" I covered my eyes with my hands and sobbed.

  Lazer pulled me into his arms and held me. "You know, this is really the wrong thing to do. If he comes back and sees us like this—"

  * * *

  Justin

  I squealed out of Bellevue, hell on wheels. At that precise moment, I was blinded by rage, fear, heartbreak. I hated Lazer. But what had I expected? I should have known Kayla would choose him over me. It had never been a fair fight. I just hadn't thought she'd betray me for money, too. Get pregnant to get more of mine. She wasn't satisfied with ten million and the chance to go after Lazer in less than a year?

  Was she afraid of losing him in that time? Or just tired of pretending to love me?

  I wondered if Kay had just shot her chances with Lazer all to hell. Would he want a woman who was pregnant with m
y kid? I couldn't picture Lazer as a dad, especially to a kid who wasn't his. I couldn't picture him with a pregnant woman at all.

  Which raised the question—was the baby mine?

  I laughed softly to myself without mirth. Kay wouldn't be dumb enough to try to pass a baby off as mine that wasn't. She'd have to know that if there were ever any question, I'd demand a paternity test. If she'd been planning to leave me for Lazer all along, she would have made sure the child was mine. Billions depended on it.

  Which, in an odd way, should have comforted me. Odds were she hadn't slept with Lazer. At least not until she was sure she was pregnant with my baby. The thought of her and Lazer together made me sick. I trembled with rage.

  Could Kay be such a fine actor? She'd sure as hell fooled me in Italy. But now everything she'd done was suspect. Had she staged her rugby accident to cut our honeymoon short and keep me from touching her more than necessary?

  Every geek-guy insecurity I'd ever had rose to the surface. All this money. Shit! All this money, nothing more than a curse. I would never be certain of any woman's love. I thought I'd found genuine love with Kay. If she could betray me, how would I ever trust another woman?

  And now this baby. This morning I'd been delirious with happiness. Now it tied me to a faithless woman. I had to think. I had to decide. I was too blinded by rage and hurt to think clearly right now.

  Somehow I ended up back at Flash. I pulled the car into my reserved spot, turned off the engine, and pounded the steering wheel. I was stunned to be at Flash. I didn't remember the drive at all. And damned lucky I hadn't been pulled over. I had a vague memory of blasting through a red light at an intersection monitored by cameras. I could expect a ticket. Shit. Like I cared.

  I was in deep trouble. Without Kay to vouch for the validity of our marriage, I was at the imposter's mercy. And if Kay wanted more money, she had the power to blackmail me for it now.

  I took a deep breath, grasping for my coping mechanisms. When I was young, I'd been bullied to the point of breaking. As a bullying victim, there are two ways to fight back. Go completely crazy on your attackers. So crazy they're afraid of you. I was too physically small to apply that method with much success. And not violent enough by nature.