Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
L ark was wearing a ball cap with all her hair tucked up underneath it, huge dark glasses, and clothes she’d never worn before beneath an oversized men’s jacket. Most people, even those who knew her well, wouldn’t be able to pick her out of a crowd.
But Ren could have.
He’d know her anywhere, no matter how she disguised herself. Because for him, she was one of the only things he’d ever found that made him think this entire fucked up world was worth saving.
She glanced at him from the passenger seat of his SUV. The ridiculously oversized glasses Tenley had given her slid down her little button nose, giving him a glimpse of her gorgeous-but-terrified eyes. “Are you sure you’re OK with this?”
He shrugged. “I mean, I would prefer you not be in public until this thing is resolved. But we took plenty of precautions. I’m not too worried.”
Or, he was no more worried than usual, he supposed. He pretty much existed in a constant state of worried readiness. That wasn’t anything she needed to trouble herself with, though. It was admirable that she wanted to break up with her douchebag fiancé in person.
And he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t willing to move heaven and earth to help her scrape this particular piece of gum off her shoe.
She shook her head. “No, I mean the whole pretending to be my boyfriend thing. Are you OK with that ?”
Would it be creepy to admit he was looking forward to that part because it might give him the opportunity to touch her in a casual way without her shrinking away from him in fear? Yeah. That was creepy. “I don’t mind.”
All bow to the king of understatement .
She looked across the parking lot toward the diner he’d chosen as a meeting place for the breakup and his debut as Lark’s boyfriend. Her obvious nervousness made his gut clench. For a person who was as sweet and kind as Lark, this had to be terribly difficult.
He wished he could’ve sent Tenley to break up with the guy for her. Tenley would’ve gotten the job done in under three minutes, convinced him never to darken Lark’s door again, and pocketed his wallet while he wasn’t looking.
But Lark wasn’t anything like Tenley. Or him, for that matter. He’d never had a long-term romantic relationship, so he’d never had to break anyone’s heart. He didn’t think it’d be a problem for him, though. Unless he had to break Lark’s heart. Which he wouldn’t because he’d rather die.
God, he was pathetic.
“Are you ready?” he asked quietly.
She squared her shoulders and sat up a little straighter in her seat. He loved that about her. She was nervous, she’d had the worst week of her life, and she was still ready to march in and do what needed to be done. He admired the hell out of her strength and her desire to do the right thing, even when that thing was painful.
“This has been a long time coming,” she said. “I never should’ve accepted his marriage proposal.”
“Why did you?” he couldn’t help but ask. She was light years out of his league. He’d always wondered why she even agreed to date the little turd, let alone marry him.
Her nose scrunched up in a way he found utterly adorable. “I’ve been with him since college. I guess maybe I got…complacent? At some point, I got tired of waiting for the whole heart fluttering, super passionate, sexy, fairy tale kind of love, and figured the safer bet was to stick with the steady, predicable guy who seemed to love me a lot.” She shrugged. “It seemed like the best way to not end up hurt, you know?”
It also seemed like a good way to end up disappointed with her entire life, but as someone who’d never even bothered to get into a bad relationship, never mind a good one, who was he to judge? “I understand.”
She gnawed on her thumbnail. “Plus, I’m a people pleaser. I’ve always gone out of my way to make other people comfortable. I wish it wasn’t true, but…it is.”
He couldn’t help himself. He grabbed her hand. “Maybe it’s time to think about what you want for a change.”
Her breath hitched as her gaze moved from her hand in his, up to his eyes. It’d be so easy to kiss her. She was right there . So close. He might never get another opportunity. Surely, once this was all over, she wouldn’t want anything to do with him. Which was why he let her go when she eased her hand out of his grasp and told himself it didn’t matter.
“Maybe it is,” she whispered.
Neal looked more disheveled than Lark had ever seen him look, and she’d seen him after he’d had his wisdom teeth removed when he looked like a bloated chipmunk, so that was really saying something.
She took a steadying breath as she made her way to the booth he was sitting in. His coffee looked untouched, which was good. The way his knee was bouncing under the table told her the last thing he needed this morning was caffeine.
That’s when his eyes lifted from his cup and locked on her. The relief on his face was like a guilty punch to her gut.
Neal leapt up and yanked her into a bone-crunching hug. “Thank God you’re OK,” he said into her hair. “I heard about what happened at the shop, then you weren’t answering your phone. I was so scared I’d lost you!”
His wording bugged her. Like always, he’d found a way to center himself in something she’d been through. Or was she just being overly critical because he’d annoyed her for so long?
“This whole thing reminded me that we really should get your will in order,” he added. “If something had happened to you before the wedding, no one would know that you’d want to leave the house to me.”
There it was. She definitely wasn’t being overly critical. Neal was a douchebag.
Lark gave him a little shove to get him off her. “I’m fine.”
His confused gaze shifted over her shoulder, then up—and up and up and up—to Ren. She glanced back at him and winced at the damn-near violent hatred on her fake boyfriend/stalker/kidnapper/protector’s face as he eyed Neal like he was silently doing the math on how many ways he could end him.
“Why is the utilities guy here?” Neal asked.
She gestured to the table. “Sit down, Neal. Let’s talk.”
Lark slid into her side of the booth and Neal sat across from her. Something told her Neal would’ve sat beside her as he often did when they went to restaurants (something that never failed to piss her off because why did he always have to be right there ) but couldn’t because Ren was sitting next to her.
And for some reason, being wedged into the booth with Ren touching her entire left side didn’t make her feel claustrophobic like it always did with Neal.
When this whole thing was over (if she survived, of course), she was definitely going to therapy.
Neal’s eyes hardened and his jaw tensed as he stared at the spot where Ren’s arm was touching hers. “Why the hell are you here with my fiancé?”
Ren didn’t answer. He glanced down at her instead. His expression, though…well, that was communicating volumes. He was silently asking her if he could make this idiot disappear. She gave him a little headshake. He sighed in disappointment.
Lark cleared her throat. “Neal, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to spit it out. I don’t want to marry you. I haven’t in a long time. So, I want to break up.”
His gaze shifted back to hers, and he frowned. “That’s ridiculous. I placed an order for the cake last week.”
“You ordered strawberry,” she said dryly.
He nodded. “Yes. It’s my favorite.”
And wasn’t that just symbolic of their entire relationship? He always got what he wanted, and she went along for the ride because she was a weak, sniveling little people pleaser. If she was a character in one of her favorite romance novels, she’d be a sidekick. Someone not strong enough to be the heroine. Which was just pathetic.
“She’s allergic to strawberries, dumbass,” Ren snapped.
Lark supposed she shouldn’t be surprised he knew that about her because he seemed to know everything about her. But she was. “The cake isn’t the point, Neal. I should’ve ended this long before a date was set, and a cake ordered. I haven’t been happy in a long time.” She took a deep breath before adding, “It wasn’t until I met the right man that I realized it wasn’t fair to you or me to stay in a relationship that wasn’t ever going to work.”
To further solidify her point, she grabbed Ren’s hand. He didn’t hesitate to lace his fingers through hers. That’s when her brain short-circuited. His hand was so warm and callused and just… perfect. She was feeling more heat and passion from holding hands with Ren than she’d felt having sex with Neal for years.
Neal’s face reddened as he watched Ren’s thumb lazily stroke her wrist. “You can’t expect me to believe you’d break off our engagement to be with someone like… him .”
Ren actually chuckled, but Lark didn’t find Neal’s tone funny at all. She raised a brow.
“You mean someone who knows I’m deathly allergic to strawberries and would never order them just because they were his favorite? Someone who wouldn’t let himself into my house without knocking using a key he was given for emergencies, then proceed to eat and drink everything I spent an entire weekend meal prepping for myself?”
“Well, that’s—” he sputtered.
But she wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot. This was the main character energy she needed to embrace more often. “Someone who didn’t give me tickets to a baseball game for my birthday—tickets you got for free from a client, by the way—when I hate baseball?”
“Those tickets were worth a hundred dollars!”
She ignored him. “Someone who didn’t abandon me every time I got sick and needed the slightest bit of care because he was afraid to miss work? Someone who didn’t get himself a second credit card on my account without asking me?” Shame on her for letting him run up a thousand-dollar bill before she shut that one down.
Neal made a dismissive noise. “That’s all so superficial. You’re not a superficial person. There’s no way you’d end a years-long engagement because of any of that . This man clearly has done something to trick you into thinking we weren’t happy.”
“Neal,” she said on a disgusted sigh. “I’m not an idiot. I’m telling you I wasn’t happy, and I won’t ever be happy with you. I’m with someone else now.” She let go of Ren’s hand to tug at her engagement ring, which, damn it all to hell, was stuck like she’d glued the damn thing to her finger.
After a few seconds of tugging and grunting, Ren grabbed her hand. She glanced up at him just in time to watch him slowly pull her hand up and…
Suck her ring finger into his mouth.
Holy. Mother. Fucking. Shit balls .
Her mouth dried out (other parts of her not so much) and her heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest as he ran his tongue around the ring on her finger, all while maintaining the most intense eye contact she’d ever had.
When he pulled back, he smoothly slid the ring off her finger and set it in front of Neal without saying a word. She could feel her jaw gaping open like a landed trout, but she couldn’t seem to care. And if the half smile on Ren’s face was any indication, he was enjoying her shock.
“If you think that disgusting display is going to convince me you’re actually breaking up with me and not using him to make me jealous, you’ve got another thing coming,” Neal spit out.
That snapped her out of her Ren-induced stupor. “I have no reason to try and make you jealous, Neal. The only thing I need from you at this point is distance, OK? Please take what I’m saying at face value and know that I’m done.”
He shook his head furiously. “No. No, I won’t accept it. I love you, Lark.”
Everyone jumped when Ren slammed his fist down on the table. “Man, all you’ve done is talk about you . If you actually loved her like she deserves to be loved, you’d think about what she wants for once. Consider yourself blessed by the fucking gods that she ever had anything to do with you because she is light years out of your league.”
Neal snorted. “And you think you’re in her league?”
“No. I know she’s out of my league. But now that I have an opportunity to earn her, I’m not going to fuck it up like you did. I’ll wake up every day and think about what I can do to make her smile and to keep her safe. I’ll move heaven and fucking earth to make sure she knows how loved she is and how grateful I am that she ever gave me the time of day. That’s what she deserves. That’s what she’ll have, you stupid son of a bitch.”
Lark would like to say that what she did next was all part of the plan to convince Neal to leave her alone and never darken her doorstep again. But it wasn’t. It was all about the sincerity in Ren’s voice as he vowed to love her in a way she’d never experienced before. Oh, how she wanted that kind of love…and him.
She grabbed Ren’s face in her hands and yanked him down to kiss the holy hell out of him.
He went still for about half a heartbeat. That was it. Half a heartbeat was all he seemed able to handle before he had to take control.
And, oh, how he took control.
Ren slid his dinner-plate sized hand into her hair and tipped her head to the side to deepen the kiss. She could only hope the sounds of clattering plates and chatter around them were loud enough to muffle the moan/sigh combo she let out when his tongue slid against hers.
He tasted like coffee, bad decisions, and the kind of hot sex that left you sore and dehydrated for days. Never in her wildest dreams (and she’d had a few about Ren lately) did she imagine kissing him would be this good.
Lark slid her hands down and two-fisted his T-shirt, then yanked him closer. His answering groan did unspeakable things to her libido.
If kissing him felt like this, what would it be like in a bed with all that heat, muscle, and intensity laid out for her pleasure?
She’d waited her whole life to feel this kind of passion for someone, and now, only a few seconds into their first kiss, she was legitimately starting to wonder if she could even survive it. It couldn’t be normal for her heart to be pounding like this, right?
But somewhere in the back of her mind (far, far back), she knew this had to stop. Their timing (not to mention the whole reason why they were here together) was totally messed up. They needed to have a few more conversations before she let passion get the better of her.
So, with great effort, she pulled back, panting, trembling, and so damn turned on it actually hurt .
When she was finally able to summon up the self-control necessary to pull her lips off his, they were both breathing like they’d just done an hour of cardio and she was lightheaded, either from lack of oxygen or the stunning power of Ren’s pheromones. She wasn’t sure which.
Neal grabbed his suit jacket off the seat next to him and stood up with stiff, angry movements. “I’m not going to sit here and watch this for another minute. Lark, when you come to your senses, you know where to find me.”
And with that, he stormed off, not even bothering to throw down a bill or two to cover his coffee. Typical. In the entirety of their relationship, she could count the number of times Neal paid for a meal on the fingers of one hand.
Ren rested his forehead against hers. “You did good,” he whispered. “I don’t think he’ll bother you again.”
The relief she was feeling at finally being free of Neal was currently being crushed under the weight of how horny she was for Ren. “It was easier than I thought.”
“The kiss was very…convincing.”
She swallowed the nervous spill of hyena laughter that threatened to trip off her lips. “That’s one word for it.”
There was that ridiculously hot half grin again. He shocked the hell out of her by kissing the tip of her nose oh-so-gently before pulling out his wallet, seemingly to cover the bill for Neal’s coffee. That’s when she caught a glimpse of something in his wallet that was like a cold, hard slap of brutal reality to the face.
It was a picture of her.
Right there, next to a wad of cash, was an old photo of her. Really old. Like, one that had been taken when she was nine-ish. She was posing for whoever took the photo with a wide, toothy grin that showed off the braces she wore all through middle school. She was looking at whoever was behind the camera with complete joy, like they were her best friend in the whole world.
What. The. Fuck .
“Why do you have that?” she asked, narrowing her eyes on the photo. “ How do you have that? That’s me, but I don’t remember ever seeing that photo before.”
He sighed and tossed a few bills down on the table. “I can explain.”
Yeah. He kept saying that, and she kept believing it. Like an idiot. “Who the fuck are you, Ren Solace? And I want the truth this time.”
“I’m the one who took that photo.”
Well. That was a bit of a record scratch in the old brain, now wasn’t it ?