Lethal Wedding (Wedlocked Trilogy Book 2) - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,3

and I aren't the types of friends to talk about anything serious that's going on in our lives. I feel dumb telling him all about any of this.

Also, I don't want him running back home and blabbing to everyone that we both know about how pathetic I am.

"That's really fucked up, man," Jackie says, finishing his coffee. "I wonder if that had anything to do with what happened to her dad."

I look up at him, my ears starting to buzz.

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"Well, it was all over the news."

"What was?"

"I thought that you knew."

"No, I don't fucking know," I snap.

"Her dad got arrested," Jackie says. "They even had a perp walk for him."

I stare at him, dumbfounded.

"Perpetrator walk?" I ask.

"Yeah, you know, when the cops specifically call the media and walk the accused past the press so everyone can get those pictures and videos of him in handcuffs with his head hanging low."

"Yes, I know what a perp walk is," I say, urging him to continue. "What was he arrested for?"

"That I'm not so sure about," Jackie says. "Insider trading, I think. Isn't that the only thing that the rich elite ever get arrested for?"

I shake my head, uncertain as to what to think.

"There's more."

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"Well, the thing is that right after the arrest, he had a heart attack. While in custody."

3

Aurora

I miss him more than I ever thought I would.

No, that's not entirely true. I knew that it would hurt. I just didn't realize it would hurt this much.

But we got so used to being apart.

It's not like we lived together and were with each other every single day. Still, my heart aches for Henry.

I think about him all the time, almost every minute of the day, and especially when I should be thinking about something else.

My father is in the hospital.

My father has been arrested.

My father has had a heart attack.

Yet all I can think about is Henry.

I want to see him and I want him to hold me and promise that everything is going to be alright.

When we first broke up, I waited for him to call me back. I wanted him to fix everything and to make everything better.

But he didn't.

He made me wait.

That made me angry.

When he finally called, texted, and called again, I didn't write back, not because I didn't want to but because I wanted him to suffer as much as I did.

And then something changed. After some time had passed, I couldn't bring myself to call him back even though I wanted to more than anything.

Each hour is just a blur of the one before.

I'm angry and mad and sad all at the same time.

I have no control over anything that's going on in my life.

I'm lost and anything that I try to do is not enough.

At the hospital, minutes and hours tick by at an excruciatingly slow pace. It doesn't help that my mother is omnipresent, like some sort of malevolent God who watches you all the time, waiting for you to screw up.

Nothing I have ever done has ever been good enough and that has never been clearer than it is now.

She's taking her anger out on me and there is only so much I can take. The one time that I escape for a casual walk down the street, and pop into a bookstore, to find something to take my mind off my shitty, shitty life, I run into him.

Henry has been following me.

He doesn't hide this fact.

He wants me to know.

A big part of me is happy, overjoyed even, to see him. I have missed him and just being in his presence is overwhelming.

Henry is as tall and gorgeous as ever, with his thick black curls and broad shoulders and that trustworthy Roman nose and piercing eyes.

He is one of the few guys in New York City who doesn't seem to know quite how attractive he is and the fact that he doesn't know makes him even more so.

He's humble in that way that people who are truly humble are, without pretense and without putting on airs.

When he corners me in one of the aisles, it takes everything within me not to run into his arms. I want to tell him that I forgive him and I want him to make everything better.

But I can't.

I can't do anything until I figure out what's going on with my father.

I'm not saying that on my mother's request. Her audacity in asking me