“It’s the perfect place,” Jesse murmured to the crowd, the tone like a whisper he told just one secret friend, “to announce that my longtime girlfriend, Kimber, and I are getting married.”
CHAPTER 10
Deke unrolled the morning paper on the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in hand.
“Any news?” Luc asked tightly.
Those were the first civil words his cousin had spoken in over a week.
Standing as he sifted through the newspaper, Deke set the front page aside and rifled to find the other sections he enjoyed, so he could throw out the rest. So he could focus on something other than Kimber’s absence eating away at his sanity.
Not that he was having any luck.
Especially not when the headline on the Entertainment page screamed out at him.
Jesse McCall Engaged!
Beneath it was a black-and-white picture of Kimber next to McCall, his arm around her, along with a caption that stated Jesse had informed the crowd at last night’s concert that he and longtime girlfriend Kimber Edgington were engaged to be married.
Son of a f**king bitch!
The coffee slipped from Deke’s numb fingers and crashed to the kitchen floor.
Luc spun around. “What the hell is the matter with you? Clean the damn coffee—
”
“I don’t give a shit about the f**king coffee.” He thrust the paper in Luc’s direction.
After a quick scan, Luc sank into a chair at the kitchen table and swore. “Damn it.
Shit! You let her go. Hell, you pushed her out the door.” Luc threw the paper back onto the table with a glare in his direction. Deke found his gaze glued to the picture of McCall with Kimber. The wondering was killing him. Had she slept with the pretty-boy singer? Most likely. And just as likely, McCall had shared her with someone, watched some stranger f**k her to orgasm.
What hurt even more was wondering if she actually loved Jesse. But Deke knew Kimber. She had to believe she was in love with the bastard pop star to agree to marry him. At the thought, his knees melted underneath him and he stumbled into a chair. Kimber married to someone else. In love with someone else.
Hell no!
But that was reality, and it shredded his guts like a thousand dull razors. McCall had proposed, and she’d said yes. Jesse was happy, if his smile in the picture was anything to go by. Kimber’s picture was in profile, but she had to be happy. This was the realization of her little white lace, virgin-girl dream. While he… Hell, he’d been a f**king pissed-off wreck ever since she’d left, wrenching his heart out with her tears.
“She wasn’t ours,” he managed to croak out. “This just proves it.”
“Kimber might have stayed if you’d been decent to her. She offered you her—”
“I wasn’t taking her virginity. It didn’t belong to me, just like she didn’t!” The fact that the girl and her virginity belonged to the smiling crooner in the picture didn’t exactly thrill him. Correction: it made him want to tear McCall apart slowly, with his bare hands, and inflict maximum pain.
Lord knew the army had trained him to do it.
Luc pointed an accusing finger in his face. “You made her believe she didn’t belong with us. If you had admitted your feelings and just made love to the girl—”
“Yeah, then what? How long before she wound up like Heather?”
“She’s not Heather,” Luc insisted. “Kimber is stronger and she would have survived. I think she loved you.”
Bittersweet. That possibility made joy burst through his chest, even as fear gripped his belly and yanked hard. Damn, he was one f**ked-up bastard. He wanted her, but couldn’t have her. If she’d stayed, it was only a matter of time before he would have taken her virginity. Too many risks. Too much at stake. He’d made the right choice.
It just hurt like hell.
“And then what?” Deke barked back. “Would she have married one of us? Why the f**k do you persist in this stupid fantasy?” Deke grilled his cousin. “And what about…later? I know you want her to have our babies so we could all live happily ever after. And you know how I feel about that. Besides, no woman wants to lie between two men every night and wonder which is the father of her children. We can leave petty jealousy out of a simple screw, but out of a committed relationship?