Chapter 46
COLE
Freshly showered, I run downstairs, eager to see Yasmine and support her as she’s already stressing about the weekend, and it hasn’t even started yet.
She’s been nervous about this for weeks, and now that the weekend is finally here, she’s been a bundle of nerves and seems very unlike herself when she’s usually confident and strong. She’s the most independent woman I know—aside from my mother, that is.
I feel for Yasmine, I really do, because even though she isn’t the biggest fan of her new stepmother, she’s never mentioned it to her father or voiced her concerns—that he’s being led astray—which she has shared with me several times.
Surveying my grand surroundings, I can’t believe her father is one of the highest-paid film producers in Hollywood, yet she still refuses his help.
She also lives a much simpler lifestyle compared to how her father lives.
She’s very private too. I would never have known she was Hugh Montgomery’s daughter.
I love how she chose to protect her identity and isn’t a nepo baby like so many others in LA.
Fiercely independent, except for accepting the cost of her college tuition from him, she not only covered her mother’s heart surgery but pays for all her monthly medication as well.
On more than one occasion, she’s mentioned wanting not to worry about her mom because, as she gets older, her medical expenses will continue to increase.
I don’t think Yasmine understands that while she’s living under my roof, her mom falls under my care and protection too, and she never needs to worry about anything ever again.
And I know she doesn’t need saving, but I can help carry the burden just to help ease the stress on her shoulders.
That’s why I am so excited for her to meet Douglas Zenon next week.
While I could invest in her app, something I offered to do and she turned down, I’m not the right type of investor.
She needs someone exactly like Douglas to help catapult her innovative app, and I know he’ll jump at the opportunity to invest. It won’t be the app he’s investing in; it will be Yasmine.
She’s got so many ideas that she’s worth more than gold to him.
It’s time for her big break. I just know it is.
Voices echo into the hall, and when I reach the bottom of the stairs, I follow Yasmine’s voice followed by her laughter as she shares a funny story with whoever she is talking to. Her father and stepmom, I assume.
I smile, feeling better than I have in years, my muscles relaxing as I get closer to her, because while I’m not a warm and fuzzy kind of guy, it’s how I feel inside. Content. There is no other word for it and I’m happy and so stupidly in love it’s not funny.
Rounding the corner, the voices now louder than before, I quickly tuck my shirt into my black dress pants, wanting to make a good impression, before striding through the door.
There’s a moment where I take in the scene, and my brain cells misfire because I swear to fuck I’m seeing things, or I’m in some kind of nightmare.
I blink and, nope, it’s still the same scene and setting, and all the happy feelings pour out of me, the blood draining from my body.
Like I’m underwater, the muffled pounding beat of my heart bangs against my eardrums as I stare across the room at the last person I ever want to see.
Her features hit me all at once: blonde hair, disapproving mouth, and eyes that I know are far from innocent.
Since I last saw her, she’s undergone a lot of cosmetic work on her face, including her nose, and she hardly looks like the same person anymore.
She might be able to change her face, but she’ll never be able to change who she really is inside: rotten.
“Oh great, you’re here.” Yasmine’s cheerful voice cuts through my internal meltdown. “My dad is just grabbing some wine from the cellar.”
I nod and pull a fake smile, my lips twitching at the edges.
Yasmine introduces me to her stepmother. “This is—”
“Stephanie,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
My ex looks furious to see me because she probably wants to bury me six feet under right now.
The last thing she wants is her new husband and daughter to know that she cheated on me, and I know her well enough to believe she’s most likely tricked Hugh, Yasmine’s father, into thinking she’s a virgin bride.
Of all the fucking people in the world to be marrying Yasmine’s father, there isn’t any amount of magic in the world that could have predicted this.
It’s not just fate, it’s the universe screwing me over yet again.
Yasmine looks back and forth between the two of us, Stephanie and I locked in a stare-off before she drops her chin and blushes pinker than the fucking stupid flamingoes she’s having at the wedding.
It suddenly dawns on me that I don’t feel an ounce of anything for Stephanie. Only pity.
The way I love Yasmine, confirms without a doubt that I was never really in love with Stephanie. Not even a smidge.
“No, it’s Annie.” Yasmine laughs at what she thinks is my error.
“Her name is Stephanie,” I say, my voice full of loathing. “Since when did you start calling yourself Annie? Is that to hide who you really are?” A cheating, lying, manipulative bitch? I keep that to myself.
“Cole, don’t do this. Not now,” Stephanie pleads with me, looking more nervous than she was the day I caught her in bed with my best friend.
“Don’t do what? Am I missing something?” Yasmine asks, sounding confused, laying her hands out in front of her as if waiting for an explanation.
“I’m really sorry, Yasmine, I can’t do this.”
“What? Wait. Cole?” Yasmine shouts after me from behind as I storm out of the living room and she catches up with me just as my foot hits the first stair.
This is the last place I want to be, and I refuse to spend the night under the same roof as the woman who made me believe that I was the problem in our relationship.
“I don’t understand. What’s going on, Cole?” Yasmine asks, pleading with me to explain my urgent need to go. “Do you know Annie?”
“She’s not Annie. That is Stephanie.” I hate saying her name.
“Stephanie? Who is… Oh, my, God.” The penny finally drops. “She’s your ex?” Yasmine screws her face up, then raises her hands to the sky, before running her hands through her dark, glossy hair. “This cannot be happening. My stepmom cannot be your ex.” She sounds like she’s about to cry.
“You think?” It isn’t just complicated; it makes every celebration and vacation a no-go area. This is a shit show and I can’t think straight. I have to get out of here.
Stephanie walks out of the living room and heads toward us, looking much more confident than she did a minute ago. She’s clearly gained the bravado she needed in the short time she took to recover from the shock of seeing me again.
I need a fucking beer. I need to recover from this truly shitty day it’s turned into.
Yasmine turns to face Annie or Stephanie, whatever the hell she calls herself now, and snaps at her. “You cheated on him?”
Her new stepmother bites back. “He was never home. And our relationship had broken down months beforehand.”
Ah, of course, there it is. The classic deflection.
I knew she’d come out of this seeming like the queen of the stars.
She’s a gaslighting manipulator, and I bet she’s convinced Hugh she’s a saint, while in reality, she’s a spoiled brat who likes to spend her time screwing rich men, and squeezing as much money out of them as possible.
Poor Hugh doesn’t know what he’s getting into.
I know for a fact Stephanie is down on her luck, and it seems that since her father cut her privileges, she’s had to find someone to replace her income stream.
It looks like she scored big with Hugh. She hit the fucking jackpot.
“That sounds like admission to me,” Yasmine states, sounding angrier than I have heard before.
I can’t believe that all this time, Yasmine has been talking about her new stepmom with distaste, and I knew she was a good judge of character before, but now I know she really is—she was spot on about Stephanie.
“It wasn’t like that,” Stephanie whines.
If I weren’t standing in Yasmine’s father’s home with staff close enough to hear, I’d say something crude and degrading, like, Oh, I’m sorry, did my best friend’s cock just volunteer itself to slip down your throat?
But I don’t. I’m better than that.
And a businessman. A man of the law. I have higher values in my pinky finger than Stephanie does.
A broad man, who I assume is Hugh, appears, all smiles, looking jolly and like he’s living his best life, until Stephanie begins to fake cry and his face drops. Knowing Stephanie the way I do, I can tell they’re crocodile tears, nothing more.
“I have to go.” I dart up the stairs to leave before he stops me in my tracks.
“What the hell is going on? Who upset my Annie?” Hugh looks from me to Yasmine and back to Stephanie in confusion, bellowing, his voice booming through his obnoxiously oversized house. “Did Yasmine’s boyfriend upset you, baby girl? Tell Daddy.”
The use of the word “daddy” makes me want to puke; Stephanie always did have daddy issues.
“Yes,” she lies, and it comes so naturally to her. It’s so convincing as she pretends to sob, wiping away fake tears that aren’t even there. “He said the wedding sounded awful and that I was only after your money.”
“No, he didn’t. What the hell?” Yasmine yells back in retaliation, her voice laced with anger.
Hugh’s face turns a funny color of red, his neck flushing with blotches as he fights his fury. “You need to leave, son.” Hugh looks at me as if I’m the criminal, even though I’m not, but no one wins when Stephanie is involved, and she always gets her way.
“Don’t worry, I was just leaving.”
“No.” Yasmine stomps her foot on the marble floor, and I’m already at the top of the stairs. “You have no idea what you are talking about. Cole is a good man.”
“He upset my bride. I will not have him in my home,” Hugh argues back in a standoff with his daughter, doubting his own flesh and blood over the treacherous woman who can lie her way through a phony.
I switch off and stop listening to their argument, only hearing bits and pieces moving in and out of my ears as I make my way down the corridor.
“He’s not good enough for you. Have you seen his tattoos?” I hear Hugh tell Yasmine.
Interesting how everyone shares the same stereotyped opinion that I’m some sort of hooligan because I have tattoos.
“This is not good for the baby,” Hugh says next.
Fuck, Stephanie must be pregnant. She’s well and truly got her claws into Hugh.
I step into the bedroom I spent an afternoon of happiness in with Yasmine and grab my overnight bag, then start throwing the few things I had unpacked back into it.
“Don’t go.” Yasmine dashes into the room, looking frantic.
“Eh, in case you didn’t notice, your dad asked me to leave.” I won’t stay where I’m not welcome.
“Cole.” Yasmine says my name sharply. “Tell my father what she did to you.”
“No.” I can’t, and I won’t, do that. I will not be the man who destroys someone’s wedding.
That’s not who I am.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, no matter how badly Stephanie screwed me over.
It doesn’t matter that she didn’t just break my heart, but for a while, I honestly thought I was broken until I met Yasmine, who showed me what it’s like to be loved completely without wanting anything in return, unlike Stephanie, who wanted the latest purse from her favorite designer as proof of my love for her.
Regardless, I still won’t shit on her parade.
“I’ll come back for you on Sunday.” I don’t want to leave her, but I’m respecting Hugh’s wishes, and if Stephanie wants to make me out to be the bad guy, then let her. I know my truth. “You enjoy the wedding, okay?” I survey the room to make sure that I have everything and zip up my bag.
“But we’re supposed to be going out for dinner tonight.” Yasmine looks lost standing over by the door, twiddling her thumbs and looking out of sorts.
I’ve lost my appetite. “We’ll do it another night. When we return to San Francisco.”
“Please don’t leave.” She’s weeping now.
I approach her, holding my bag, and kiss her on the forehead. “It’s just one day, and I’ll see you Sunday morning.”
I don’t want to go but I know when I’m not welcome.
“But where will you go?”
“I’ll get a hotel. Don’t worry about me.”
“She lied to my dad about you.” Yasmine whimpers, her eyes red-rimmed with tears and upset.
“Hey. I know the truth. I hope you believe me, too.”
“I do. Your brothers even told me what she was like.” She pauses. “I want to come with you.”
I shake my head. “You should stay, you know it’s the right thing to do. He’s your dad, baby. Be here for him. At least this way he can’t hate us both.” I plant a soft kiss on her lips.
I’m not trying to be a martyr; I simply don’t want Yasmine to have a falling-out with her father. He’s her family, and I would never interfere in their relationship.
“Now all you have to do is paint on a smile tomorrow. Don’t upset Stephanie or her baby and I’ll see you on Sunday.
I love you.” Then I run down the stairs, out of the house I hated from the second I stepped inside, and jump in my car, driving away from the only woman I know I’ve ever loved fully and truly, so deeply.
My Yasmine. My fucking everything.
Well, fuck you, Stephanie.
Thanks for blowing everything to shit again.