Page 27 of Bad Boy Husband

SADIE

“You should leave,” Jameson whispered against my lips. He was still breathing hard, his forehead resting against mine and his fingertips gentle on my cheek. “Go. I’ll deal with him.”

I finally managed to tear my gaze away from his smoldering eyes and glanced over his shoulder to see my brother standing near the door. Trent’s arms were crossed, a deep scowl on his face. He stared at us with undisguised disgust and disapproval in his eyes.

While I didn’t know how Jameson had known it was him, I wasn’t about to leave him here to face my brother’s wrath on his own. My heart was racing and pounding all at once, my head was spinning, and my palms were suddenly clammy, but this wasn’t only Jameson’s fight.

Shocked as I was about the kiss—and as much as I was definitely going to do a whole heck of a lot of thinking about it later—I shook my head and broke away from him but didn’t move very far. “I’ll stay, thanks.”

Jameson sighed softly, a strange uncertainty flickering in his eyes, but he nodded and turned to face his friend. He crossed his arms over his chest too, mirroring Trent’s stance, his feet planted about a foot apart as his chin came up.

“Trent,” he said flatly, shifting so he was effectively shielding me from view of my very own brother. “What are you doing in here, man? We were having a private conversation.”

“Oh, a conversation?” He scoffed. “Right. That’s exactly what it looked like. We need to talk, Westwood.”

“Yeah, we do, which is why I’ve been calling and texting you. Hell, last week, I even emailed. I was weighing up the pros and cons of carrier pigeons versus smoke signals until I heard you were going to be here tonight.”

“Excuse me for needing time to process that the guy who’s supposed to be my best fucking friend randomly got engaged to my baby sister.” Trent sneered. “Days after I told him that she’d be getting her inheritance as soon as she got married, no less.”

Jameson’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you seriously accusing me of marrying her for her inheritance ?”

Trent’s gaze was as cold as the Atlantic as he shrugged. “The timing is pretty suspect, so yeah. I’m wondering if that’s where it came from.”

“It’s not,” he said incredulously, laughter edged in his tone. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with five million, Trent? Lose it in my couch cushions?”

My brother’s jaw ticked. “It’s a lot of money.”

“Yeah, and I plan on turning it into even more, but for her .” Jameson finally uncrossed his arms and let them hang loosely at his sides. “I don’t need her money. You know that.”

“What are you really doing with her, then?” Trent asked after a beat of just glaring at his friend. “She’s my little sister. You shouldn’t be anywhere fucking near her.”

“Your family has been putting Sadie in a corner for years and I’m sick of it.

I needed a wife. She needed a husband. It makes sense.

We’ve known each other a long time and I can protect her.

Turn that five million into fifty or even five hundred so that she’ll never even have to look at any of you again unless she wants to. ”

“You’re a fucking coward,” Trent seethed. “If you were half as honest as you’re pretending to be, you would’ve told me about this. Instead, I had to find out through the grapevine.”

“That’s why I tried calling you,” Jameson insisted. “I meant to tell you myself. In person, if I could swing it, but my father was quicker on the draw. You would’ve known all that by now if you’d picked up.”

“Classic Jameson Westwood, shifting the blame.” My brother’s fingers rolled into fists. “It’s not going to work this time. I’m not going to stand by and let this happen.”

“I’d like to see you try to stop it.” Jameson stood his ground, not wavering or flinching as he stared back at Trent. “Your family should be so lucky as to be accepted into our flock. Your parents are onboard and I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but it’s a done deal.”

As Trent took a step forward, I moved out from behind Jameson’s back and looked at my brother. His reddish hair was sticking up in a few different directions. It hadn’t been that way in the dining room, which told me he’d been tugging at it while he’d looked for us.

He was paler than he should’ve been too, with a shiny gleam I didn’t recognize in his eyes.

Taking a few tentative steps closer to him, I prayed that I could make him see reason.

“Why aren’t you happy about this? You know Jamie.

You’ve always trusted him. This solves my problem and his. It’s a win-win.”

“Because you’re my little sister and he’s my friend,” Trent snapped harshly, his eyes narrowing as he scoffed. “It’s wrong, Sadie. You are right about one thing, though. I trusted him and clearly I shouldn’t have. That should tell you something. Teach you something, even.”

Jameson moved closer to my side, his presence calm and reassuring. “However you’re feeling about me right now, don’t pretend that I can’t be trusted. Not after everything I’ve done for you over the years. All the times I’ve covered for you. Helped you.”

My eyebrows twitched, curiosity blooming deep in my chest, but I knew I would never get any answers out of either of them about what Jameson was referring to.

They might be at odds with one another now, but they’d shared a very close bond for many years.

I was sure they had stories that would make my hair stand on end, all of which made me regret it even more than I hadn’t spoken to Trent myself.

I’d never wanted to get between them. All along, even way back when, I’d known how much they meant to each other. Jameson had insisted he would deal with Trent, but I should’ve known better. I should’ve spoken to my brother.

“This is my fault as much as it is Jameson’s,” I said quietly.

“He might’ve proposed, but I said yes. We’ve been on the same page about everything since the beginning and he’s been very good about keeping me in the loop.

This isn’t something he’s doing to me, Trent. It’s something we’re doing together.”

My brother’s gaze darted from mine to Jameson’s, narrowed and serious. “If you ever fucking hurt her in any way, I will make your life extremely unpleasant. Do you hear me? I know things that?—”

“He would never hurt me,” I interjected, wanting to jump in before his threat got too explicit.

Although I was curious to know what he knew, I also knew that if this became about their egos clashing, things would only go further south.

“Jameson and I both know what we’re getting into.

We’re clear on the terms we’ve agreed to and that’s all there is to it.

If it has to be anyone, I’m happy it’s him. You should be too.”

Trent scoffed, raking a hand through his hair before he shook his head at me. “You know what you’re getting into? I doubt that, Sadie. Honestly, I don’t think you have a fucking clue what you’re getting into with him regardless of what fancy contract he’s made you sign.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “We’ve been over this. He’s been very good about?—”

“I’m sure he has, but do you know why?” Trent shot back at me. “Do you have any clue how many contracts this guy has had women sign over the years? Fuck, his yacht parties came with an exclusively drafted NDA just so no one could talk about what happened on that boat.”

“To protect all of us,” Jameson ground out. “Trent?—”

“No,” my brother snapped, but his gaze never left mine. “If she’s marrying you, she should know exactly what she’s getting into. Have you ever wondered why the press call him the bad boy of their family?”

“What do you mean?” My heart was suddenly fluttering in discomfort. “Spit it out, Trent. Because I’ve seen the tabloids. I know that he has a wild reputation with past flings, but I also know better than to believe anything I read. I thought you did, too.”

“Oh, I don’t have to read anything about this guy, Sadie. Really? Why would I have to read about it when I was there for most of it? He’s a serial dater who’s allergic to commitment. Monogamy doesn’t exist in his vocabulary and he’s notorious for being proud of it.”

I blinked hard, thrown off by the accusation, but when I glanced at Jameson, he didn’t deny any of it. He just shook his head at Trent. “This isn’t anything like that. I’ve had my fun and it was great while it lasted, but I’m not that guy anymore.”

“Like hell you’re not.” Trent snorted. “You’ve never cared about a woman, Westwood. The last time I thought you did was with Shelby, but I bet you don’t even remember her.”

“Of course, I remember her,” Jameson ground out. “She has nothing to do with this.”

“Doesn’t she?” A cold smile crept onto Trent’s lips before he glanced at me.

“Shelby was Jameson’s girlfriend that last summer he spent with us on the ranch.

He cheated on her. She was my friend, and I fucking told him to stay away from her, but he didn’t.

In fact, he was talking a lot like he’s talking now, about not being like that anymore. ”

That last summer he spent with us on the ranch? That was the summer he and I finally got together. The best summer of my life. He had a girlfriend back then?

“Bullshit. It didn’t happen that way,” Jameson argued. “If that’s what she told you?—”

“She didn’t have to tell me,” Trent cut him off.

“Again, Westwood, I was there . Just like I was there all the other times, watching you cycle through every other woman you came into contact with like she didn’t mean anything, but Shelby?

You told me you were ready for a relationship and you fucking cheated on her. ”

He cheated on her, alright. With me.

Nausea swirled through my insides. My stomach felt hollow after it bottomed out. “If you two will excuse me, you can fight this out amongst yourselves. I’m not feeling very well all of a sudden, so I think I’m just going to say goodnight.”

Without waiting for either of them to respond, I strode out of the room, reeling and desperate to get away from all of this. That summer had been a magical time for me. To know that it had all happened while he’d been cheating on someone else was heartbreaking.

I swallowed hard and made a beeline directly for the closest door. When I got back to Jameson’s, I would text Laney and apologize for disappearing. The Westwoods were probably going to think I was the biggest drama queen ever after this, but I couldn’t stand the thought of facing anyone right now.

Not when I’d felt the color draining out of my cheeks. Not when hot, fat tears were welling on my eyelids. Not when it felt like I’d just gotten that old wound stomped all over again.

I finally made it to the garden, gulping in big breaths of fresh night air. I kept my chin tucked as I walked back to Jameson’s house as fast as I could. About halfway there, the heavens opened up again, dumping rain that soaked me to the bone in a second.

I stopped walking for a moment to scowl up at the sky, wondering why it kept doing this to me. Last time it had happened, I’d taken it as a sign from the universe that I should go back home to Dallas, but that obviously hadn’t been what it meant.

So what do you want from me? What am I supposed to do? A choked sob fell out of me just as I felt a warm palm press against the small of my back.

“I’ll explain what Trent said,” Jameson said over the sound of the driving rain. “Let’s just get home, okay? I promise you, I can explain everything.”

My eyelids slammed shut. Of course, he caught up with me.

I let him grab my hand and ran with him the rest of the way to his house, but I honestly wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what he had to say.

Jameson Westwood had already broken my heart once.

I’d promised myself I wouldn’t let him do it again, and this, what I’d learned tonight, that had already come dangerously close.

We weren’t even married yet, but if tonight had been any indication of what that would be like, then I didn’t want it. Maybe Trent is right. Maybe this isn’t a great idea after all.