“And if he kills you, what does that accomplish?”
I grinned. She sounded sick to her stomach even asking that question. I could see it written all over her face.
“Same thing. It goes to my sister, which then goes to him.”
She looked heavenward. “Why? Why haven’t you just married some random chick?”
“A, because Pablo ruins anything that even looks a little bit genuine. B, because I have to stay married to her for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hate my wife. I want someone that I actually like, that’s going to not be scared away by the things that Pablo’s going to do to me…to us.”
I stepped back and went to the back porch door, and opened it. The chill in the air rolled over me like a blanket.
“Uncle Pablo spent years poisoning my father, and nobody but him knew. At least until he told my father on his deathbed, who then told me.” I turned around and let her see my ire. “That man was like a father to me. He was there for every birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. My father gave him a family—and Uncle Pablo thought it’d be perfect to repay him like that. To take away his life because he saw him as weak. Then, the icing on the cake was that Pablo thought I was going to fall in line. Marry his daughter, do his bidding, and be a better man than my father was.”
She swallowed, not saying a word.
“But I’m not the man my father was. My father was soft. He loved hard and was loyal to a fault. Which killed him in the end.” I took a deep breath. “Pablo doesn’t kill women or hurt them for that matter as long as they don’t cross his imaginary line. Otherwise he would’ve taken out my mother when she was leading my father around by the dick. He also knew that all he had to do was go after my sister, and I would’ve fallen in line like he wanted me to. But, his moral compass seems to have a problem crossing a line in regards to a woman—meaning if you take me up on my offer, you’ll be safe.”
She looked surprised. “I would’ve never thought that you wouldn’t protect me. It never even crossed my mind, but…if that’s the case, why not just let your sister have it? If he won’t hurt her, both of you know it.”
Something inside me loosened at the knowledge that she trusted me. But I could still read the fear and the uncertainty in her eyes.
“My sister has absolutely everything she could ever want out of life…why would she take that chance…just in case?”
“But…why me?” she asked. “I’m nobody. I’m just me.”
“And that’s why it has to be you.”
She frowned.
“I know I can trust you not to treat me like my mother treated my father. I know you won’t cheat on me. I know you won’t hurt me on purpose, and I know that you’ll do everything in your power to make sure that this marriage works.”
“So, this won’t be…temporary?”
Was that hope in her voice?
It made my gut clench that she thought she wasn’t good enough.
“No. Not even a little bit.”
She looked like it was too good to be true.
“I…I have to think about this. How long do I have?”
I looked back outside to my own patio door.
“About forty-eight hours.”
She blinked, and her mouth fell slowly open.
“What do you mean forty-eight hours?” She tilted her head in the cutest way I’d ever seen. “Why forty-eight hours?”
“Because,” I hesitated, knowing she wasn’t going to like this next part. “That’s when I start back with the Lumberjacks. Starting Monday, as long as everything is good at my checkup tomorrow, I’m officially free to start playing again.”
Her mouth opened, closed, and then she turned around. “Un-fucking-believable.”
I bit my lip, knowing that she’d be back.
And she was an hour later.
Only, I never expected what came out of her mouth to actually come out of her mouth.
“I’ll do it…on one condition.”
Chapter 17
You know you’re getting older when you walk past a bathroom and think, ‘I better go ahead and pee.’
-Henley’s secret thoughts
Henley
My life had irrevocably changed, and I wasn’t even quite sure how the hell it’d happened. One second, I was an employee of Rhys Rivera, and the next I was his fiancée.
One moment, I was trying to figure out what in the hell I was going to do after time came to an end and I had to find a job, and the next I was practically a kept woman.
I was still in a state of shock.
I mean, I was a deaf girl that always thought that I’d never find someone.
Who would want me?
I was slightly overweight. I had long, bland, straight as a board, boring brown hair. I had acne—and there was no way in hell he was missing the pimple on the end of my nose. My boobies were literally the only asset that I had that was at least considered attractive. Then there were my millions of freckles that covered the entire expanse of my exposed skin, and even some of the skin that wasn’t.
I hadn’t thought the man had even glanced at me twice—and he’d said that I was more than attractive. Twice.
In all honesty, it was all quite hard to believe.
But…I couldn’t pass the deal up.
I mean, who the hell wouldn’t want to be married to Rhys Rivera? He was hella attractive, he had a great personality, he was hard working…and he cared.
A man doesn’t get a woman a transmitter overnight because he didn’t.
He didn’t care that I spoke funny. He’d introduced me to all of his friends.
I mean, really, the lie was perfect.
I’d literally walked right into the part and hadn’t even realized it.
I’d only had one stipulation for him, and that was what we were about to go do before his appointment in an hour.
“You have to make it look like we fell in love, so my mother doesn’t completely lose her shit.”
We were going to play the part in front of my mother, and I was going to have to act like the man didn’t affect my every single nerve ending.
“You ready?”
I looked up to find Rhys in the doorway looking at me.
He’d come over to my house while I was getting ready to head to my mother’s house for our monthly dinner.
Rhys had gone more than once since he’d been recuperating, but this would be the first time that our togetherness was anything but professional.
I was nervous.
I wasn’t sure if we could pull this off—or at least, I knew that I could. It was him that I worried wouldn’t be able to pull it off.
He’d have to pretend to be attracted to me—and that wasn’t going to be easy.
I didn’t have to pretend…not even a little bit.
“Ready,” I agreed, abandoning my perusal of my freckles. “Do you have the ring?”
He held it up and then walked to me.
He flipped the box open, and before I could so much as gasp, he was on his knee in front of me.
“Henley, will you marry me?” he asked, his beautiful eyes twinkling.
There were a thousand different ways I prayed for a man to propose to me, and not one of them went this particular way.
I thought it’d be romantic.
I thought we’d be in the park, surrounded by falling leaves, while being blissfully in love with the man asking for my hand.
I’d planned out the perfect proposal in my head.
But, this wasn’t that.
This wasn’t going to be what I’d hoped and prayed for since I was a young girl—and honestly, that was never going to happen anyway.
I just wasn’t that kind of girl. Never had been, and never would be.
Those dreams were just that—dreams. This was reality.
“Yes,” I grinned. “I will.”
He surged up and then wrapped his hands around my waist, spin
ning me around before dropping a chaste kiss on my cheek.
I felt my face flush at his attentions, but before I could respond to his exuberance, he dropped me down on my feet and stepped away from me so fast that I felt myself teeter slightly to the side before catching myself.
Then I had the ring placed in my hand.
“Put that on,” he ordered.
I did as he said and admired the ring.
It was absolutely beautiful—the ring was everything I’d always imagined.
“I love it,” I told him with a beaming smile on my face.
He grinned. “Good.”
Then he was hooking his arm around mine and guiding me out the door.
“Let’s go convince the rest of your family.”
Surprisingly, it wasn’t anywhere near as hard as I would’ve expected it to be.
They weren’t surprised in the least.
“I just knew that this was going to happen the moment you told me how you met him!” my mother cried. “Your brother is going to be so excited!”
I looked at her blankly, wondering what alien had replaced my mother.
Surely this woman standing before me with her giddy smile on her face wasn’t my mother.
My mother was a skeptic. She didn’t believe in love. She had two marriage and one divorce under her belt to prove it.
What she did believe in was hard work and commitment.
None of which I had.
My mother loved me in her own way—as one would love a daughter that wasn’t hers.
Yes, you heard me correctly.
My father had been her second husband. Shortly after they’d divorced, my father had been in a car accident that had taken his life, leaving me with no one at the age of six.
Mom—who’d ordered me to call her mom shortly after my dad had married her when I was four—had taken me home with her after picking me up from the hospital where I’d been transported after the accident. From then on, she’d fought for me, and given me everything that one could give her daughter—even one that wasn’t hers by blood.
It was a miracle that my mother took me in, to be honest. Especially after the way my father had caused their marriage to fail.
Let’s just say that multiple hookers in their marriage bed wasn’t something Mom could overlook.
“I won the bet, by the way,” my sister exclaimed moments later. “What did we bet? Two hundred bucks? I’ve slept too much since then.”
“It wasn’t two hundred bucks, you boob. You damn well know it was a hundred.”
My sister grinned at my mother’s words, and Rhys’ hand on my hip tightened slightly. I looked over and up at him, seeing his large grin widening on his face.
“I’m glad y’all are both on board,” Rhys said sweetly. “Now, y’all can try to convince her to take a few photos for the press so we don’t have to have them following us around at the mall stores trying to sneak some shots. Luckily, the one they published yesterday of the two of us only showed some cleavage instead of anything too intimate. But they got us both, and the look I was giving her wasn’t a chaste one.”
My cheeks blushed a fiery shade of red that I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, was quite obvious to my sister, my mother, and hell, even my niece.
Shit.
“You’ll have to go shopping,” my sister teased.
I hated shopping, and she damn well knew it. But if that was what I had to do to look good in pictures…
“A simple pair of jeans and a tee will work for now,” Rhys said. “She’s damn beautiful in anything she wears. No need to get fancy.”
The words flooded my heart with pleasure, and though I knew them to be a simple ‘prop’ so to speak, they still made me feel good.
“I don’t know about that,” I hedged, picking at my clothes. “I’m not all that attractive in simple jeans and shirts. And I’m sure they’re gonna want to see the wedding dress, right?” I shuddered. “I’ll have to take them off for the picture. Putting on a wedding dress for thousands to see? Then, to have them all see my transmitter? Yeah, no. I’m defective enough. I don’t need them to point that out. That’s my worst nightmare.”
“But someone’s going to want to take a photo of you. I mean, you’re marrying Rhys Rivera. It’s bound to happen at some point. Why not just allow them to take a photo of you and be done? Then you don’t have to worry about paparazzi swarming,” my sister pointed out.
While my sister spoke, I happen to catch Rhys’ face, and I frowned at the look that was there.
It was somewhere in between disappointment and anger.
What the hell?
“Rhys?” I asked. “What is it?”
He turned his eyes to me, and that was when I realized that he was much angrier than he was letting on, and he’d been concealing it—poorly—by keeping his eyes downcast.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
I frowned. “Sure.”
I got up and Rhys followed. “We will be back in just a second,” I said.
“Don’t hurry. I have to look up bridal locations in Longview that’ll house at least five hundred people,” my mother cried excitedly.
I barely contained the urge to roll my eyes and followed Rhys out of the room.
He didn’t stop at just the room, though.
Nope. He continued to walk out of the house and then went even farther to round the side of the house where the trees and shadows concealed our movements.
“Rhys?”
Before I could gasp, he was on me.
His body was crowding mine, and he was practically breathing the air I exhaled, he was so close.
“You. Are. Not. Defective.”
Startled by the vehemence in his voice, I couldn’t find my voice.
And then, before I could gather my wits about me, he kissed me.
I was so stunned by his lips touching mine that it took me a while to respond, and when I finally got control and realized what was going on, he pulled away.
“I don’t want you talking down about yourself,” he whispered gruffly. “Now, how are we going to tell your mother that we’re getting married at the courthouse tomorrow?”
Chapter 18
Sorry I can’t come. Every single piece of clothing I own looks bad on me.
-Text from Henley to Rhys on the day of their marriage
Henley
I wore my wedding dress to the baseball game.
Sure, it didn’t look like a wedding dress, but I’d worn it to my wedding—so in all technicality, that was what it was.
“Are you sure you’re not pregnant?” my mother asked from her seat beside me. “You look like you could be.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not pregnant, Mom. Stop. And this jersey knit seriously doesn’t hide a damn thing. It doesn’t hide my buddha belly at all. I should’ve worn some Spanx.”
I hadn’t had time to buy any Spanx, though.
I could’ve borrowed my sister’s, but she was a size smaller than me, and I’d watched her slip into the underwear that came all the way up to her ribs. She’d literally had to shimmy and shake her way into it, and she was skinny. There was no way in hell I’d have been able to get them up over all my goods.
“That’s true,” she admitted. “But…I’m just bummed I guess. Your sister and you both skipped the marriage thing. I thought for sure I’d get to plan at least one.”
“You could plan your own,” Alana suggested.
I snorted, as did my mother.
A cheer rose in the crowd, and I looked up at the Jumbo screen at the back of the field and found butterflies attacking my belly at what I saw.
Rhys was grinning as he spoke animatedly with the player to his left—Furious George.
He was gesturing with his hands as he spoke, and I felt my heart skip a beat at remembering those hands clutching onto my hips earlier when we’d said ‘I do.’
They’d traveled a little farth
er than was respectable, and by the time our kiss had ended, he’d been cupping my ass to bring me in closer to his body. And for a few seconds there, I was sure that I’d felt the beginnings of a hard-on before he’d pulled away.
Honestly, I was as confused as a woman newly married to Rhys Rivera, baseball hottie superstar, could get.
I was Mrs. Rhys Rivera. Mrs. Henley Rivera.
I was so screwed.
“I thought you said that Rhys wasn’t playing?”
I looked at Alana, and then followed her finger that was pointed to Rhys, who was jogging out to the field.
I felt my heart slip into a horrible rhythm—one that was likely to lead me right down the road of Heart Attack Alley.
“What is he doing?” I whispered, standing up.
“Sit down!”
I didn’t listen to my mother’s hissed words. Instead, I stared, heart in my throat, as Rhys took his place in the circle thingy, swinging his bat and looking at the pitcher as he did.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
As if he heard my whisper, he turned his head toward me, caught me staring at him with horror, and made a gesture with his hand. The kind where men lowered their hand from chest level to hip level in the universal sign of ‘calm down.’
I will not calm down! I mouthed to him.
His lips twitched, and then whoever was at bat hit the ball.
I didn’t take my eyes off of Rhys, but he dropped his gaze from mine and walked up to the plate.
Alana pulled me down, and I sat, not bothering to pull my dress down this time. Nope. I was too focused on the man that wasn’t supposed to be playing.
He’d assured me that he was just dressing out. He was not going to play.
The little liar.
The moment he stepped up to the plate, the entire ballpark went freakin’ crazy.
I didn’t take my eyes off him despite the uproar.
If he got hit with that ball, I was going to hop over the wall like one would a hurdle and storm the field, taking out the pitcher by cold-clocking him before I checked on Rhys.
Striiiiiike.
The word ‘strike’ came out more as a stryyyyyyyyyy, but I knew what he said.
I knew enough about baseball to know that the Lumberjacks were home. I also knew that there were balls, strikes, home runs, and hits.
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