Chapter 13
JUNO
My stomach rolled saying those words out loud.
My fiancé cheated on me with my sister—well, stepsister, if we were technical about it.
Mom married Stephanie’s dad after mine left us high and dry.
Apparently, he wasn’t “happy,” and that meant it was okay for him to bolt.
So for almost two decades, Stephanie had been my sister.
We were opposites in every way, but we had loved each other like biological sisters would.
Had being the key word. Though I guessed I did still love her—I just didn’t like her after catching her kneeling on our kitchen floor giving Eric a blow job when I came home early from work.
Why did I do that? To get an early start on my birthday dinner, which I had planned to cook like I had done years prior.
That was how it worked with Eric and me.
Anything that was special or important to him was important to us both equally, but if it was something for me, well, then it was only special or important to me.
I realized the absurdity of that now, months removed from the somewhat emotionally abusive and controlling relationship. Eric was as selfish as selfish could be, and our entire relationship was about him.
It shocked me that Stephanie would go behind my back like that or do anything that soiled her reputation.
Between the two of us, she was the sweet one, the naturally beautiful, submissive one, the…
everything opposite of me. I knew that because my stepfather loved to remind me how perfect she was while I wasn’t, not by a long shot.
After hearing that so many times, I attempted to mold myself to mimic her, but it never stuck.
“Can you repeat that last part?” West stood from the cozy leather couch, crossing his arms over his chest, and I couldn’t help but stare at the way his shirt sleeves stretched to the max around his thick biceps.
I bet he was that buff everywhere, and I desperately wanted to find out for myself.
And there was this frantic need crawling under my skin to touch him, to wrap my hand around his cock just like Langston had last night.
I jerked in the chair at that thought. There had been something very wrong with me lately.
Those kinds of thoughts, desperate sex thoughts, were not me.
Even when I was with Eric, I didn’t enjoy being touched all that much, and I for sure was never excited for sex.
Though, considering the two men in front of me could make me wet with a heated look, I wondered if the problem wasn’t with me but Eric.
“Juno,” Langston snapped, directing my blurred gaze at him. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and focus on him. “Did you really say she’s your sister?”
I nodded slowly. “Well, stepsister. I’m sure you noticed that already, though, since she and I look nothing alike. She was always the pretty one,” I murmured.
“Like fuck she is.” With both hands, Langston shifted his ball cap from side to side.
I noticed he did that a lot when he was really agitated, which meant constantly when I was around.
“She’s a fucking beanpole with zero curves and so much of that shit on her face that I bet I wouldn’t even recognize her without it.
Oh, and that nasty fake hair.” He huffed while I just gaped at him.
“If you can’t tell, Lang and his sister, Mattie, are very close.
” I blinked up at West, who didn’t notice, too busy smirking at his best friend.
I wondered what it was like when they kissed.
Did they kiss, or was it just sex? “Which is why he has a cat, a gift from her, why he loves Hallmark movies, her favorite, and how he knows about hair extensions. Because of her job, she’s surrounded by fake people and complains, in detail, about their fakeness. ”
“Don’t fucking distract her,” Langston sighed, but I caught the curve of his lips, an almost smile. “I need more detail than that, Juno. Your reaction earlier was sheer panic.”
Staring at my lap, I pulled at a loose thread on my sweats. “Besides catching them in the act, on my birthday,” I griped, disdain dripping from my tone, “it was more about what I came to realize after I left that makes me panicked to see him. I’m not sure if I’m strong enough yet to face him.”
“Did he hit you?” Langston asked, so gently it took me by surprise.
“No, which was why it took me so long to realize….” I took a deep breath.
“No, he didn’t hit me, but he was controlling, manipulative, and so selfish that he was a borderline narcissist. Everything revolved around him: what he wanted to do, what he liked, what he needed.
For the longest time, I thought that was normal, how every relationship worked.
It didn’t start out that way, though. It was great at first, but then the little things I’d do here and there were never good enough.
“Like, the food I made wasn’t flavorful enough, or I didn’t have enough food on the table.
Or I wasn’t presentable enough to go out with him unless I was totally put together; anything less, I heard about it the entire time we were out.
Or if he was unhappy, then he made sure I knew about it, so then I started pouring all my energy and time and focus and own happiness into keeping him happy because, well, things were just easier that way.
And then after I found him and my sister, he said I caused him to cheat. ”
“The hell?” the two men said in unison.
“He blamed his cheating on you?” Langston asked, completely confused. “How?”
“Because we weren’t having enough sex, of course,” I stated bluntly, staring just over Langston’s shoulder so I didn’t have to see his reaction.
“And it was true, we didn’t, and that was on me.
I’ve never really been an overly sexual person anyway, but I needed a deep connection with him to want the physical aspects of the relationship, and it wasn’t there. I tried to like it—”
“Juno, you know that’s utter horseshit, right?” West moved to sit on the armrest, concern swirling in his dark eyes as he stared down at me. At least it was concern and not pity.
Pieces of my disheveled hair brushed my cheek with my confused head tilt. “Which part?”
“All of it,” Langston snorted. “If I found out my girl, much less my fiancée, wasn’t getting what she needed from me in or out of bed, I’d figure that shit out in a hurry.”
“Yeah, well, Eric didn’t feel the same way.
It was easier for him to blame me for what was wrong instead of focusing on himself.
After I found them, he cut it off and said he was sorry, that he loved me.
And like the idiot I was, I wanted to fix it, us.
Maybe if I could do better, be more of what he needed, then we could work it out.
There was just so much history between us…
.” I paused, wondering how to explain the initial infatuation I had with Eric, how I felt special for being noticed by him.
“His parents are wealthy, and mine weren’t, so when he asked me on a date, I felt honored, I guess.
It didn’t help that my mom and stepdad liked to remind me how I should have been grateful that someone of his caliber would want me—”
Langston ripped off his hat and twisted it between his hands. “My ‘strangle with my bare hands’ list is growing longer by the fucking second. Your stepfather and mom said that to you?”
I nodded.
“That’s messed up, sweet cheeks,” West said softly.
My throat worked as I tried to swallow, throat scratchy and dry. “Then Mom got sick.” Unshed tears burned behind my eyes. “That was when most of my time and energy shifted from Eric and our relationship to taking care of her, visiting her at the hospital, then hospice.”
Langston’s massive hand reached for mine, thick fingers intertwining with my much smaller ones. “Losing a parent is an awful thing to go through, especially alone, which it sounds like you were with that bastard as a partner.”
He wasn’t wrong. Eric wasn’t really there for me like I needed him to be, more worried about how it affected him instead.
“I mean, my stepfather helped some, but yeah, you’re right about Eric.
Looking back, I realized he actually made me feel guilty for spending that time with her.
He would complain about how I wasn’t around as much.
He said it was because he missed me, but when I was home, he was frustrated at how exhausted I was, making me the bad guy for taking care of my mom.
I honestly think he was relieved when she died,” I whispered.
A fraction of the tension in my chest eased at that, having never said that suspicion out loud before.
“That’s what I mean by history. He was there through so much, and we’d been together for so long, that I didn’t want to give up easily. So I tried, I really tried to fix me—”
“Damnit, Juno,” Langston snapped, cutting me off. “There is nothing to fucking fix.” He leaned in close, freezing me with his intense stare. “You hear me, Juno Jones. There is nothing about you that needs to be fixed or changed.”
“You don’t know me,” I rasped, wishing like hell he was right. “It’s why I prefer computers and online games. I’m better virtually than I am with actual people—”
“Tell that to the people here you’ve become friends with since you arrived. I know most of the women here would disagree with you,” he countered.
“Fine, I make female friends okay, but as far as relationships go, I suck. I’m not what a guy wants. I’m introverted, not very affectionate, and then there’s the not liking sex thing, which every man needs—”