Sandy was the perfect accomplice.
She flashed her wicked, bad-girl smile at me and closed the door to my room behind her. She was in a too-tight tank and the tiniest pair of denim shorts I’d ever seen.
“Are you ready, baby?” she asked, unbuttoning her shorts and climbing out of them. She was completely naked underneath.
I averted my eyes but nodded, my heart already dying a slow, torturous death in my chest. Indy would never forgive me. And I was counting on it. This would hurt her, but it would hurt her a lot less than a bullet to the head.
Slipping her tank top over her head, Sandy climbed onto the bed and kneeled in front of me, looking up at me with bright, come-fuck-me eyes.
“Well, what are you waiting for, honey?” she cooed.
I sighed and began removing my shirt.
No turning back now.
INDY
At the end of my shift I was surprised to see Maverick waiting for me and not Cade.
“Cade asked me to pick you up. Said he’s got some business back at the club house,” he explained.
“You’re not dropping me home?”
“He said to make sure I brought you straight to the clubhouse. Didn’t want you alone at the house during lockdown.”
I didn’t know why, but a strange tingle took up in the base of my spine. Trying to ignore it, I climbed into the SUV, but by the time I arrived at the clubhouse, the tingle had morphed into a thousand startled butterflies churning in my stomach and my hands had started to shake. Something wasn’t right.
Cade wasn’t in the bar. And he wasn’t in the kitchen or the meeting rooms either, so I made my way past the showcase corridor and headed toward his bedroom. The door was closed, which wasn’t unusual, but as I stepped up to it, I felt an overpowering sense of foreboding wash over me. Shoving it aside, I pushed the door open and came to a stunned halt.
Seeing the honey-blonde sprawled naked on the bed was like electric shock therapy zipping through my brain. She was tangled amongst the sheets—sheets that were messed up by some seriously active lovemaking by the looks of them.
In that instant, my heart obliterated like confetti.
It was like all the air left the room and I couldn’t breathe.
No.
Please, no.
The years peeled away, and suddenly I was eighteen years old again, walking into this very room, and finding the love of my life in bed with another woman.
But this time he wasn’t in bed with her.
This time he was walking into the room from the small bathroom, fresh from the shower and securing a towel around his waist.
When he looked up and saw me, he paused. His beautiful mouth parted, but then closed again. He wasn’t even going to try and deny it. And why would he? It was quite obvious what had happened in this room.
“No.” Was the only word my grief-soaked brain could form.
Cade didn’t even offer me anything. He just stared at me, raising his arms slightly before letting them drop at his side.
A bomb of agony detonated inside of me, blowing me apart. A thousand broken promises rushed at me, the splinters twisting my insides into a tight coil until they burned with the pain of his betrayal and I could no longer breathe. I stormed toward him and slapped him so hard across the face his head whipped to the side and my hand stung. He didn’t move. Didn’t fight me. So, I slapped him again. And again he didn’t move. His jaw tightened and flinched, and his teeth gritted with the pain. But still he said nothing.
“What?” I screamed at him. “You’re just going to stand there and watch me break?”
I smashed my fist into his chest.
“Why? Why?” I cried. And I pounded him in the chest again. Asking him for a good reason. Asking him who he was. Because my broken heart was begging me to find out why he had done this to us. She needed a good reason so she could at least process it while she slowly pieced herself back together again.
But then my agony overwhelmed me and the cold ache in my throat made it impossible for me to speak anymore.
I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t be in the same room as him and her. I didn’t know how I was going to survive his betrayal, but I knew that surviving it started outside of this room. So I stepped back, tears streaming down my face, and stared at him. I wanted to sear his face into my memory, because when I walked away from him, it would be forever.
And then I fled.
Only then did he react. I felt the rush of energy behind me, heard him call my name as I ran through the corridors of the clubhouse, but I didn’t stop, I kept running, blindly, until I ran straight into Caleb’s broad chest.