Chapter 13
Meirna
“We’ll start at the Prague Castle. I’ve arranged most of the day for you to explore and see everything there is to see inside. Then we’ll have dinner at the Terasa U Zlaté studně. It has the best view of Prague, however, it’ll be cold so—”
“I know what the Terasa U Zlaté studně is,” I ground out, glowering at Bronte over my steaming coffee and the beautiful tray of fresh fruit, eggs, and sausage.
Someone has been doing their homework.
However, I’m far from impressed, and Bronte doesn’t miss a beat when I shove his itinerary plans back at him with uninterest.
Instead, he casually opens the French doors that lead onto the large balcony, allowing the winter air and snowflakes to begin dancing inside the bedroom.
Snowflakes, I should be able to awe in because I’m in Prague. It’s magic here at this time. Like being in a historical snow globe with possibilities and stories.
But I’m with Bobby’s lookalike, and it’s strange to be sitting here, my brain thinking it’s one man, but it’s a completely different breed.
“Well, since you know more about Prague than me,” Bronte pipes in evenly after a few seconds. “You can plan the rest of the trip.”
“That wouldn’t include you in it.”
I fully expect him to turn and give a glower my way, but he doesn’t.
He doesn’t move.
He doesn’t offer me anything else other than what he’s given me.
You were too deep with Bobby, and I was going to tap out, let you live happily ever fucking after, until I discovered his whore, Jolene.
You, daydream, were clickbait.
You were everything my family was going to use to get Bobby’s perfect little fucked up world in line.
Was I a pawn in a game I didn’t know I was in? I haven’t done my research, and I have nothing to back Bronte’s story.
Maybe this is a sick game, and he doesn’t know me at all.
“What was I wearing?” I ask, taking in the way his body fills out the space between the doors. “The day we first met.”
“Dark blue jeans,” he immediately replies. “And a white Britney Spears shirt.”
He wouldn’t know that.
He wouldn’t be able to look that up anywhere.
There could’ve been pictures at the event. He could’ve looked them up.
“What was I eating?” I lift my chin because Bobby could’ve told him everything about me.
“You weren’t eating anything.” Bronte turns on his heels and hits me with an uneven expression. “But I did tell you not to go flirting with those three guys who were eye fucking you that day. You said you’d try. I told you I didn’t share and I’d fight for it.”
“Well, I did.”
“You didn’t,” he says confidently. “Because I sent them to another block to help out. I didn’t need the alleged competition. Not that they were anyway, but still.”
I adjust myself in my chair under his gaze and force myself to proceed. What he said—even if it was accurate—doesn’t make me buy into his story. “You said…you’ve been with me before…”
“Several times.”
I can feel my skin flush everywhere, but I inhale through my nose and exhale with, “When?”
“You didn’t notice?”
I don’t know if he’s teasing or taunting me, but it’s not funny.
Because, no, I don’t think I did.
“Your first Christmas with Bobby,” he claims, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dress slacks. “He told you he was working late…but he showed up, didn’t he?”
Yes.
I’m irked that he knows that. But, again, it could’ve been Bobby who told him specifics.
“No,” I lie, hoping it makes him give me some sign that he’s over his depth here. That he only knows certain things.
“Why don’t you ask me how I know?” Bronte imparts. “Maybe it’ll help fill in some of those blanks in your head.”
He’s challenging me to be smarter about this, but I don’t believe anything I say will make this better.
Because it’s all shit.
“I bugged my brother’s phone,” he fills in after several beats. “When I found you…and you were with him…I hacked it.”
“W-why?”
“To protect you.”
“From who?”
“Them.”
“You can’t—they’ve been nice to me.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re nice people, Daydream. I know them, more than I’d like you to know. And they’ll drag you down with them when they crumble—”
“How?”
“How will they crumble?” He tilts his head to the side. “Or how did I see you on Christmas?”
I’m going to regret this. I know it.
“Both.”
I don’t think I’m ready to hear both answers. There is nothing that’s going to prepare me for the atomic bomb he’s going to drop on me because I’m questioning things I don’t want to question.
“Bobby is involved in the mob,” he says matter-of-factly. “And I came to you on Christmas so you wouldn’t be alone.”
That’s…the first time I slept with Bobby.
I didn’t DM Bobby on Instagram until a month after I thought I met him because Nettie wouldn’t shut up about it.
We talked for about two, back and forth, until I felt comfortable enough to go on a date with him, and he wasn’t out of his mind.
I blame crime documentaries and living single for over two years, that I was paranoid.
In September, Bobby claimed he was going to Paris to bring in new clientele for Harding Holdings.
He was here for a few weeks, and he went a bit MIA. I thought he just wasn’t interested in me, and was showing me why he was called a playboy on the internet.
Then he came to my condo.
Begged me for a second date, which brought us into October.
In November and December, he wooed me off my feet.
Christmas…he fucked me for hours.
“Again,” I ground out, feeling sick to my stomach, but my blood pressure is through the roof right now. “You…tricked me.”
“In your defense, you didn’t know there were two of us—”
“You assaulted me.”
His brows furrow. “Excuse me?”
“I didn’t know you were a stranger,” I exclaim, dropping my coffee mug aimlessly on the table before I stand on my feet. “You weren’t the man I was dating and texting—”
“I should’ve been.”
I glower at him. “Are you out of your fucking mind right now?! I love Bobby. I’m supposed to marry Bobby.”
“Not anymore.”
Those two words knock the wind out of me, sending me stumbling back a step. “You’re…” I can’t breathe, and the room begins to spin again. “I hate…you. I don’t—”
“Meirna.”
I don’t realize I’m falling until I’m caught between two large hands and lifted against a hard chest.
Bronte carries me somewhere in the suite, and I can feel my lungs trying with all their might to suck in oxygen.
It doesn’t work.
I love Bobby. I’m supposed to marry Bobby.
Bobby is involved in the mob. And I came to you on Christmas so you wouldn’t be alone.
“Meirna.”
His voice sounds miles away, and I want it to stay that way. I want to go back to New York. I need to figure out what’s going on.
Seconds later, my butt is gently planted on something hard, and a wide body is between my spread thighs.
“I came with all the evidence,” I hear him say in this hushed, low tone. “So you could see for yourself what I took you from.”
“I didn’t…” I attempt to lift my head, but the same dizziness I felt on the plane decides to come and swoop in again.
How could this have happened?
How could I have been so blind to so many things?
“Daydream, look at me.”
“I don’t want to,” I forcefully expel from my lips. “I need…Bobby.”
I feel his grip on my waist tighten a bit, but his tone doesn’t match when he says gently, “I won’t allow him to touch you, let alone talk his way—” He abruptly stops then, and it takes everything in me to keep my eyes from closing. “Fine. You wanna talk with him?”
I bob my head up and down, prompting Bronte to shuffle around a little bit before a phone is pressed to my ear and I hear ringing on the other side.
“Talk.”
Half a ring sounds in my ear when I hear, “Hello?”
Bobby.
“B-Bobby…”
“Meirna?” I bob my head again, tears swelling up in my eyes because I want him here so much with me. I want to go home. “Where are you? You’re not in Paris, and I’ve been searching everywhere for you.”
He’s searching for me.
He loves me.
This Bronte guy is lying his ass off.
“I’m in—” Fingers suddenly wrap around my throat, prompting my head to lift and allow them room.
A small amount of pressure is applied, enough to warn me that my whereabouts aren’t going to be given.
And I’m dealing with someone off his rocker so I comply until I can figure out another solution.
“Where?” Bobby asks frantically in my ear. “Meirna, I’m going to find you. I just need you to tell me where you are so I can send people out to get you.”
“If he wants to know where you are…” Bronte levels his face with mine. His green eyes fused with annoyance and anger. “He’d know you’d be here. Of all places on your honeymoon.”
I stare back at him because he must be out of his mind if he doesn’t think I’m not going to try and get out of here myself.
“Meirna,” Bobby forcefully coaxes in my ear. “Are you there?”
I notice the slightest of differences in their voices then. Bronte’s voice is a bit deeper, perilous. If I’ve been with him before…
“Do you remember…” I muscle through my ongoing growing anxiety. “The day we first met?”
Bronte’s grip on my neck loosens when Bobby claims, “Of course, I do. Best day of my life, babe. I knew my life was going to be forever changed.”
Apparently, that would be two of us.
Because, fun fact, I’ve adopted a stalker who claims he’s slept with me and now we’re allegedly married.
Fun times.
“I’m going to find you,” Bobby claims. “We’re going to get this straightened out.”
“I know,” I whisper, still holding Bronte’s heated gaze.
Then it clicks.
He gave me his phone to call Bobby to see how I was going to handle everything he brought forward.
Everything Bronte said were heavy accusations, and there were several.
About Bobby, his family, and what he had going on in the background.
“Do you remember what you said to me?” I press lightly, holding on by a thread that he gets this right. That Bronte is wrong and way past help that any therapist can offer him.
“When?” Bobby asks softly.
“When I gave you the water. Because it was hot that day.”
He chuckles lightly. “Thank you? I don’t know. You were the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. I knew I was going to marry you when you dropped that mulch.”
Right.
“What were you doing again? Before—”
“Meirna,” he presses. “We’re running out of time, babe. I need you to tell me if you’re by any monuments. If anything looks familiar.”
“I dunno,” I lie, surprised that I’m not freely offering my position even though I could get it out before Bronte squeezed my neck into silence. “I just needed to talk to you.”
“I’m here. I’m here, babe.”
“I love you, Bobby.”
That has Bronte’s focus sliced back up to mine before he wedges himself deeper between my thighs.
“I love you, too,” Bobby quips. “We’re going to get this figured out. I’m going to find you. It’s all going to be okay.”
Bronte’s mouth quirks, as if he finds that amusing, before he dips forward and nestles his face between my free shoulder and my neck.
“Hurry,” I quickly reply. “I need—” Bronte’s mouth clasps over the sensitive space of my throat before his merciless tongue lashes out to taste my skin.
I all but groan with pleasure and distress because I know what this man can do.
He can fuck me stupid and get me to say things like how much I want him to fill every hole inside my body.
That I love how rough he thrusts into me just by my moans and the way I arch into him.
“Are you alright?” Bobby asks worriedly on the side, and when I don’t answer quickly enough, he barks out, “Meirna.”
“No,” I answer to both those questions as Bronte continues his offensive attack on my neck. “Why didn’t you tell me about him? Why didn’t you warn me?”
Silence greets me on the other end of the phone, but Bronte responds when he begins sucking and lapsing viciously at my neck.
Maybe that’s why. He’s vicious.
“He’s…complicated,” Bobby finally says after a few long seconds. “Bronte hasn’t been in the family for years. I need you to tell me—”
“Why?”
“What has he said?”
My eyes narrow because Bronte’s confessions are still fresh in my mind, but Bobby’s immediate defense has me side-eyeing why he was so quick to do so.
He’s getting in your head.
Focus.
“Meirna, I’ve been losing my mind over here. And I don’t feel like giving you a history lesson on the motherfucker who just kidnapped you under false pretenses that it was me. I’m not okay.”
I’m not either.
I’m in defense mode. Everything and anything makes zero sense. I have another side of the story that I didn’t know.
Two, actually.
One that Bronte didn’t exist.
And, the other, that he had while Bobby was the bad guy.
“Maybe it was a cry for attention.”
Bronte and Bobby both scoff at the same time from my comment, for different reasons, I’m sure.
“He’s a grown man, Meirna,” Bobby argues. “And he’s coming back for the family fortune, and I don’t know what his intentions are.”
One of Bronte’s hands falls to my thigh, and he cups the inside of it.
“You said you didn’t share,” I mutter.
“Yeah, I did,” Bobby says. “And I don’t. And I’m not going to. That first day we met, it changed everything. That kiss…I couldn’t resist myself because I knew you were it for me.”
I freeze from the blatant lie that just came freely from his lips.
He didn’t kiss me.
He doesn’t remember.
No, Meirna…he wasn’t there.
Bronte’s tongue lashes out against my neck, once, twice, before pressing another long and dangerous kiss along the length of my neck.
Then he pulls back and straightens his spine.
Towering over me, he looks down at me with an impassive stare, alluding that he’s confident enough to let me fill in the blanks.
That everything he said to me was true.
I met him first.
He was the one I wanted.
“Meirna, I need you to look out the window,” I hear Bobby say. “Tell me what’s around you.”
Deception, Bobby.
Deception.