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CHAPTER THREE

AMEDEO

“So, you’re telling me that this isn’t a legitimate marriage. Right?”

The man across from me at his desk sighed. “It’s complicated.”

I wasn’t a violent person by nature. Even pushed to my limits, I was more inclined to dig a hole and shove my head into it until the chaos passed. But I kind of wanted to smack this jackass. He was one of those people who bought a three-piece suit only to wear the slacks and button-up part and chronically forgot how to keep his shirt closed above his nipples.

He looked like a TV gigolo. And his name was Jacques—pronounced the French way, even though there wasn’t a drop of French blood in his veins.

My gaze dropped to the small stack of papers sitting on his desk. The stack of papers I’d found lying in a pile beside two prosthetic legs that had been left in the lobby with my room number attached. I’d been called down to the desk, the ringing phone dragging me from the best sleep I’d ever had.

Which, it turned out, was because I was curled up in the arms of a man I was pretty sure I’d never met before. He was soft and warm and absolutely, annoyingly gorgeous. The only weird thing about him was that he slept with one eye open, but he didn’t flinch, even when I waved my hand in his face.

I also didn’t notice he was missing both his legs until I got tangled up in the sheets trying to get out of the bed and landed where knees should have been. Huh . That was something I probably should have remembered from the night before.

Then again, coming back to my hotel room and getting mostly naked with a stranger was also something I should have remembered too. Had we slept together? I shoved my hand down the front of my boxers and felt my dick for evidence as I stumbled toward the room phone.

The guy didn’t even budge from the noise, and my dick was dry and not sticky. So…no. Probably.

“Um? Yes?” I whispered into the receiver.

“Hello, is this Mr. de Luca?”

Was it…right. Yes. That was, in fact, my last name. I was Amedeo de Luca—a tired IT nerd working for an accounting firm in Vegas on a work trip. Which was also a trip to get away from…

Right. Shit. My fiancé. I’d needed space from my asshole fiancé.

This counted as cheating, right? Because I was technically engaged. We’d been together for years, me settling for less than I deserved, him stringing me along and refusing to set a date because he knew he could get away with it.

But Bryce had been a real monster lately, and while I’d put up with a lot of his crap over the years, getting away from him for a week just went to show me that I was at my breaking point. Hours before whatever had happened, I’d been crying on the phone to my sister about how I couldn’t take it anymore. That I was done.

It was time to leave him for good.

Alessia wholeheartedly agreed with me, and that was the plan. But it wasn’t supposed to go like that. I wasn’t supposed to find some rando in Vegas and take him to my room and…do whatever it was we did.

Oh God, was I the monster now?

“Sorry, yes. Speaking,” I’d said once I pulled myself together and remembered I was in my room, with a sleeping stranger, on the phone with the hotel front desk.

“Your car is here, sir, and I also had some items turned into the lost and found desk for you last night.”

I’d frowned and glanced around. My wallet was on the table, along with my keys. My suitcase had already been left downstairs for checkout, but my phone was…ah. In the middle of the floor. Strange, but at least it was there. The rest of the items beside the bed—a jacket, a T-shirt, and…boxers? Those had to be the sleeping man’s.

“I’m sure I have everything,” I’d told her. “Whatever it is, it’s not mine.”

“Sir, these seem…sensitive in nature. It might be a good idea for you to come and take a look.”

Glancing at the stranger in the bed, I hadn’t wanted to wake him. I wanted to take a moment to process whatever the fuck happened, have my little freak-out far, far away from this stranger, and then figure out what I was going to do with my life.

I didn’t need him waking up and asking me questions—or worse, expecting me to know what went on after that first chocolate cake shot I’d ordered at the bar.

I hung up, gathered my things, and found out that the front desk was holding two prosthetic legs and a folder full of papers that I was too cross-eyed to make heads or tails of. “I don’t know what to do with these,” I told the woman at the desk. “I think they belong to—ah. My friend. But I can’t remember where he’s staying.”

I didn’t know his name. Wonderful.

She flipped open the manilla folder she’d said was mine, typed something into her computer, then said, “Looks like he is a guest here at our hotel, but I’m afraid I can’t give you his private information.”

That was fine with me. The less I knew, the better. I reached past her—rude, I knew—and grabbed one of the Post-its on her desk and then held my hand out for a pen. Yes, I was kind of a dick. But I was hungover and holding back a barely contained panic attack, so social propriety was the first thing to go.

“Can you please have someone leave these at that door? Also, can you extend my checkout for another couple of hours? I don’t mind paying the fee. Just charge the card on file.” I had no idea when he was going to wake up, but I didn’t want to be charged some fee for traumatizing some poor housekeeper either.

“No problem. Here are your papers, and I hope you have a wonderful day.”

I didn’t reply. I just gathered what she’d given me and hurried out the sliding glass doors toward the rideshare waiting to take me to the airport.

Then I’d put the thought out of my mind until I was ten minutes away from my gate when it hit me: how was this poor fucker going to get back to his room with no legs?

It had been too late for me to do anything about it, so I just carried that guilt with the rest of what I was holding and waited until I was in my apartment before losing it completely. Luckily, Bryce wasn’t around when I got in, which meant I could fall apart without him asking me awkward questions because there were things I just did not want to explain yet.

I didn’t regain my composure until Monday morning when I walked into a family attorney’s office with that manilla folder the front desk had been holding. It turned out to be a Vegas wedding license signed by me and a man called Tucker Banks. There were copies of our driver’s licenses, which told me he was from the East Coast, and a photo of us kissing in front of Elvis.

I still wasn’t sure I’d cheated all the way, but this was cheating enough. I mean, I’d married another man, so there was no coming back from this. I had to tell Bryce. I just…didn’t know how I could get the words out. Or how I could tell the truth without risking him losing it completely and beating the shit out of me.

I hated that I meant that literally, but I could see it in his eyes that he was close to raising a hand to me. He’d progressed to slamming doors and hitting the walls beside my head when he was angry, and every time we fought, it got worse. I knew the signs.

I was up the creek, and there was not a paddle to be found.

“Mr. de Luca…”

Right. Yes. I was in a meeting with an attorney. I cleared my throat.

“Now, it looks like you two managed to get an actual marriage license, which is impressive. Most people just do the civil ceremony with Elvis.”

My face was on fire.

“The license needs to be filed before this can become legal.”

“So…I just get it annulled or…?”

“You don’t even need to go that far. Technically, you can forget about it, and it’ll go away.”

I stared at him. “Oh.”

“But I recommend speaking to your husband?—”

“Definitely not my husband,” I cut in.

Jacques smiled, showing off his freakishly square veneers. “—and make sure both of you are on board. You have the hard copies here, so it’s not something he could do without you, but he might be able to make trouble if he was expecting you to file everything.”

I doubted he was. If his night had been anything like mine, he wouldn’t even know my name. Maybe pretending it never happened was for the best. Would this come bite me in the ass later? Yeah, there was a damn good chance, but I was an expert at avoidance.

It was my go-to. My comfort zone.

It was why I was still with Bryce after everything he’d put me through.

I reached forward and grabbed the papers. “Thank you. So, should I write a check, or…?”

“Belinda can take a Venmo up front,” Jacques said with a half grin.

Venmo . Jesus Christ. I said a quick goodbye, then stopped at Belinda’s desk, who was busy flossing with one of those little green toothpicks. She didn’t even look ashamed. She just set it aside, sucked her teeth, then handed me a card with Jacques’s Venmo handle.

“Five sixty.”

I almost choked on my own tongue. “It wasn’t even an hour.”

She smiled. “We round up.”

Of course they rounded up. I had the money, but lord, it was a lot just to be told that I didn’t need to do anything. My fingers shook a little as I typed in the amount and then his handle, but I told myself this was penance for what I’d done. No matter how shitty Bryce was, no one deserved to be cheated on. I was the villain here.

At least in this one case.

I remembered being a little pissed off when I walked into the bar. I remembered the bartender flirting with me, but only because she wanted me to order top shelf. I remembered a sulky man sitting next to me and…

Tucker. It was definitely Tucker. He was upset about something, but I couldn’t remember what. He’d laughed—it had been a nice laugh. He asked me if I’d ever had a chocolate cake shot and then giggled like a little kid when I was surprised that the shot didn’t have any chocolate liquor in it.

“Who the fuck drinks chocolate liquor?”

“Who the fuck drinks a shot called chocolate cake that doesn’t have chocolate in it?” I’d fired back.

His smile had me weak in the knees.

We did three in a row, and then he leaned in. His breath smelled like the sugar rim on the shot glass. “I know something fun we could do. And it would really piss off my brother. He always wanted to go first.”

His brother…he was angry at his brother. I couldn’t remember why. But whatever it was, it had seemed like the most genius idea. And he was the most amazing man I had ever known, even if it had been less than an hour.

Everything was a foggy blur after that. I’d woken up in his arms feeling safe and warm, and then everything had come crashing down.

I’d turned my life upside down, and I had no idea why.

* * *

“Well, I’ll give you credit,” Alessia said, staring at me over her wineglass.

The smell of booze was still making me sick, so I’d gotten a passion fruit tea and a salad while she dug into a massive plate of carbonara. We were at the little hole-in-the-wall Italian place that actually got the cuisine right.

“For what? Being a jackass?”

She laughed, snorting cheese down the back of her throat. “That too, but for going big when you decide to torch something.”

“I wasn’t trying to go big! I was…” I didn’t know what I’d been thinking. That I wanted out? That I needed a way to make sure I could never come back from this? Except I had a sinking feeling in my gut that Bryce would forgive me for this just so he could use it against me for the rest of our lives.

I couldn’t live like that.

“Are you going to cry?” She used to say that to me when we were kids to mock me. I was a crier up until high school. But right now, she sounded genuine.

I realized my eyes were hot and blurry with tears. “What if this isn’t enough to get away from him?”

“You don’t need a reason to leave, Deo. You can just go. You can pack your shit and sleep in my guest room. And get a fucking restraining order against him because the dude has bull-sized balls full of audacity that he has not earned, and I don’t trust him with you when you finally tell him it’s over.”

I felt sick. My phone began to buzz in my pocket, and I immediately knew who was calling. I’d been avoiding talking to Bryce since I’d gotten back into the city, which had been easy because he was out of town. But his flight had landed two hours ago, and he was probably wondering why I wasn’t at the airport picking him up.

I didn’t want to see him, but I also knew I had no choice. I had to end this, and I needed to do it in person. I wanted him to see my face so he knew that I meant it this time when I said it was over.

“I can’t go back to the apartment after I tell him. He has a key, and I know he’s not going to give it back.”

“So don’t.” Alessia set her fork down and reached for my hand. “Answer the phone and tell him you need to talk. Pick somewhere public. End this misery circus, Amedeo. Please.”

My heart was in my throat. The call went to voicemail, but instead of leaving one, he called back. It wouldn’t stop until I answered. My hands shook so violently I could barely hold my phone, but I managed to answer the call.

“Bryce.”

“What the fuck is this shit, Deo? Where are you right now, and who the fuck are you with?”

I flinched. “What are you talking about?” There was no way he could know what I’d been up to.

“Jacques Aspey, family attorney?”

My heart sank to my feet so fast my head began to spin. “How…are you logged into my Venmo?”

“You know I’m keeping track of your expenses, babe. You’re a chronic overspender. What is this almost six hundred bucks? What is going on?”

I swallowed heavily. “That’s…personal.”

“Cute.”

“It is. It has nothing t-to do with you. But…” I looked at Alessia as I gripped her hand harder. “W-we need to talk.”

“No we don’t. You need to meet me at home so I can set you straight.” I didn’t want to know what that meant. “You’re stuttering again, babe. Something is up, and I’m not going to just sit on my ass and wait for you to tell me what it is. Come home right now.”

I glanced behind me, frantic to find somewhere I could meet him. There was a little café with a cat on the sign. “I’m n-not going to do that. Meet me at Café Rouge. It’s on the corner of First and Marks.”

“You’re serious,” he said flatly.

Alessia obviously heard him, and she nodded at me. I took a breath. “Yes. I’m s-serious.”

There was a long pause, and then he snorted. “You’re at Rossi’s right now.”

Fuck. I needed to turn my location off. “I’m having a late lunch with Alessia.”

“Ah, the Bitch is back.”

“D-don’t.” Christ, I hated being such a stammering mess. “Don’t call her that. Just…meet me.”

“Fine, but you’re going to pay for all this game-playing bullshit, Deo. Do you hear me? You’re going to be very, very sorry.”

I hung up without answering, too panicked to say a word. “He’s going to kill me,” I whispered.

Alessia leaned over the table toward me. “He might think he can try, but trust me, Deo. He’ll be dead before he can blink.”

* * *

I didn’t have Bryce’s location. When I asked him to reciprocate turning it on, he’d shouted at me for half an hour about trust, then insisted he only needed mine because of his anxiety. I’d never known him to have real anxiety a day in his life, but it wasn’t worth the fight.

There was hate in his eyes after that, though. There were pointed insults, and sometimes, I could swear he was gleeful whenever he reduced me to a stuttering mess. The fact that I stayed so long was going to humiliate me until the day I died.

When I moved on— if I ever moved on—to another relationship, I could only pray to God they never asked me about my ex. I wouldn’t want to lie, but admitting what Bryce was like and then admitting that I didn’t cut and run when I should have would be too embarrassing to handle.

“Let me go in with you,” Alessia said, reaching for my arm.

I shrugged her off. “No. I can do this. I need to do this.”

She met my gaze and stared for a long moment before nodding. “Fine, but I’m going to be right here. Let his punk ass know that the Bitch is right outside. If he tries anything, I will rip his dick and balls off with my bare hands.”

Part of me wanted to cry because I shouldn’t need my sister nearby to feel like I could clean up my relationship mess.

Fuck it. I had this.

I turned and walked into the café. I had my speech prepared—a few dozen words telling him it was over. I’d get a hotel for the weekend, and when I wasn’t at the apartment, he could clear out his stuff. I didn’t care if he robbed me blind. I didn’t care if he broke half my things and pissed in my bed. I only cared that he left his key behind and we never had to speak again.

I grabbed a table near the kitchen where almost no one was sitting. I wasn’t sure if this was going to be one of those moments where he made a scene or where he remained eerily calm to make me seem like I was the unhinged one.

Whatever happened, it wouldn’t matter.

I was going to keep my composure.

He breezed through the door fifteen minutes late, right when I was starting to give up that he was going to show at all. He had a person with him—a tall, leggy twink wearing a mesh top. Bryce smiled at him and pointed to the coffee bar, and I knew what he was doing.

I looked down at my hands folded on the table and waited.

“Amedeo. Little god,” he said. He swore that was the meaning of my name, and the first time I corrected him about it, he didn’t speak to me for a week. Now, I swore he said it to get under my skin. “Sorry I’m late. Tanner and I were at the salon.”

His hair looked freshly highlighted, and he’d definitely had an eyebrow wax. I fought the urge to touch mine. I was always a little unkempt, and my hair was always too thick and too wild, but the first time I tried to clean myself up, Bryce had laughed himself almost sick.

It wasn’t worth the constant humiliation.

“Do you want me to get you a coffee, baby?—”

“No,” I said in a rush. “No. This won’t take long.”

He swept the chair out and set it next to me, boxing me against the wall. “You sound so serious.”

I tried not to cringe, but when he reached for my hand, I pulled away.

“So,” he said from behind a sigh, “you really did come here to be a little bitch.”

“I came here to end it.”

He blinked, then burst into laughter. “You know it’ll never stick. In a week, you’ll be begging for my dick. Just like always.”

“I won’t.” I’d succumbed to all his worthless promises that he was going to change and get better. I’d agreed to try again and let myself be sucked back into the weeks he pretended to be different. And when his hooks were imbedded in my skin, he’d tug until I was torn and bleeding. But I’d never gone so far as to beg. “I can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?” He rolled his eyes. “Look, you and I both know?—”

“I cheated.”

His jaw snapped shut, and he breathed heavily through his nose for a second. “I’m sorry? What did you say?”

“I cheated.” It felt like a thousand pounds were lifted off my chest.

“Amedeo.” His tone was tense, full of warning.

“I got drunk, and I met this guy?—”

“You had better be fucking joking,” he snarled and curled his fingers into my wrist. Hard. His nails pricked at my skin.

Shaking my head, I tugged away from him, and after a small struggle, he let go. “I’m sorry.”

He laughed. “Oh, baby. I’m going to need much more than sorry. I’m going to need groveling. A big cardboard sign strapped to your chest letting everyone know what a whore you are, and then some public humiliation?—”

“No. N-no,” I stammered. I felt sick to my stomach, and I had to breathe through the rush of nausea. “ No . I’m not apologizing so we can get back together. It’s over.”

He stared. “You don’t get to decide that. The cheater doesn’t get to decide that. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I don’t remember much,” I told him, ignoring his question. It was rhetorical anyway. “I was at the bar my last night in Vegas, and I got drunk. There was a guy. M-most of it is foggy, but I woke up in bed with him the morning of my flight.”

His face went soft all over. And that was when Bryce was most dangerous. “So you don’t actually know that you cheated. Baby, listen, we can work this out. I don’t want to lose you.”

He reached for me again, and I shoved myself so hard against the wall the room vibrated with my thud. He looked a little startled. “He and I got married.”

Bryce’s jaw shut so hard the click was audible. “I’m sorry…you got married ?”

“Mm.”

“You need a marriage license to get married.”

“I know. We got one.” It wasn’t filed, and I now knew it wasn’t legal, but I had it. I could see the look on Bryce’s face. I had to do something drastic, or he was never going to let me go. Breaking up with him wasn’t enough. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks, and before I could really think, I said, “I’m going to go be with him.”

“In Vegas?”

“No. He doesn’t live there either.”

Bryce raised a brow at me and said, voice dripping with saccharine sweet, “Where, then?”

Brave. Be brave . “Th-that’s not really your business.” Tucker lived in little nowhere town I’d never heard of two hours from Boston, but I wasn’t about to tell Bryce that.

“Fine, whatever. When are you leaving?” His voice was tight and a little terrifying.

“Six days.” Six days, what the fuck? “I’ll be staying with Alessia until then.”

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Ah. I’m sure the Bitch talked you into that one, didn’t she? Leave your annoying boyfriend who never treats you right.” His voice rose to mock hers. “He’s so bad to you. All he does is love you and pay the bills and give you whatever you want so you don’t throw tantrums.”

I wanted to laugh. Never in my life had I thrown a tantrum. I didn’t even think I was capable of it as a child. I was too terrified of upsetting people. But Bryce had said this for years—convinced me it was true. I felt like I was losing my mind because logic told me he was wrong, but…was he?

“You and I both know this relationship is toxic?—”

“Oh, fuck you,” he nearly shouted, standing up. “Miss me with that therapy-speak bullshit, Amedeo. You want to whore around with half the fucking state and ruin a good thing, go for it. But don’t come crying to me when this rando makes your life a living hell.”

I smiled. I hadn’t really meant to, but it was that moment I knew that no one could make my life worse than he had. Except maybe myself. And I was going to go. I was going to look Tucker in the face, apologize for any possible complication I might have caused him, assure him that I would never bother him again, and then enjoy a few days on the other side of the country before I had to go back and clean my life up.

I’d let Alessia handle the apartment. She could do it. She was good at it, and she’d make sure Bryce lost his balls if he tried anything with my stuff.

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” Bryce said. “You didn’t win against me. I’ve been fucking around on you for years.”

I looked him in the face, my smile just a little smaller. “I know. He’s cute.”

It was clear Bryce didn’t know what to say, so he did what he did best—he turned, snapped his fingers at his current plaything, and disappeared out the door. It slammed to the rhythm of my heavy heartbeat and opened again when my sister walked in.

She was at my side in a few quick strides, cupping my jaw. “He’s gone.”

“Mm.”

“And you’re going to—what is this place again?”

“Turenne, Muh-Massachusetts.” According to Google, it was a tiny little town with two supermarkets, three high schools, a population under fifty thousand, and an entire country away from where I was right then.

A place where no one knew me—and no one knew Bryce. Where I could be a total stranger for just a little while and, maybe in that time, find myself again.

And my not-quite husband was there. The man who had—whether he knew it or not—saved my life.

It had to mean something.

Didn’t it?