15. Carina
fifteen
Carina
W e’d walked in on something heavy, and it only got worse with Sophia’s call to Jacques. She’d screamed at him—I’d never heard her raise her voice before. Even when he was an unruly teenager getting into trouble all the time, she sat him down and spoke to him calmly. Sophia believed in gentle parenting—she was strict, but never loud.
But this time was different. She was hurt and angry. Her disappointment in Jacques was obvious in her scolding. The betrayal in her voice when she mentioned my name—the way she’d spat it out with venom behind her words—was enough to rip my heart out and tear it to shreds.
I knew she’d be upset. Drunk me hadn’t understood the gravity of the decision I was making. Stone-cold sober me knew all too well. I’d destroyed a lifetime of friendship with one night of fun.
I’d na?vely hoped that she’d laugh it off and say we were family now. But I’d been kidding myself.
When Cara told me she was dating her best friend’s father, I’d been angry that an older man was taking advantage of my innocent daughter. I’d known she’d never even been kissed before. Then she ended up in a polyamorous relationship with a man accused of cheating with his teammate’s wife and another man nearly twice her age. I’d barely managed to keep my opinions to myself, and it wasn’t because I was understanding and well adjusted. It was because my life was such a mess that I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.
Sophia was reacting exactly the same way I had. But then I’d come around. I’d seen the photographs on social media of Monroe and Alec with Cara. I’d seen the way they looked at her—the adoration in both their gazes was unmistakable.
Maybe Sophia would come around too. But even if she did, our friendship would never be the same. I’d broken her trust. I’d had sex with her son. Repeatedly. I may have loved it and fifteen minutes ago was still contemplating how we could do it again, but now I’d been schooled on exactly what it had cost.
The phone call with his team’s PR rep had been just as bad. From the one-sided conversation I’d borne witness to, it seemed pleasant enough on the face of it, but there was an underlying current of discomfort. Jacques was schooling his answers and his tone, hiding more than what he was saying.
“Darlin’,” Trav said as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “This is Rusty. Rusty, meet Carina.”
“Lincoln,” he corrected and held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Same. Trav’s told me a lot about you.”
Lincoln raised a brow and looked to Trav, a question in his expression.
“Can we talk?” Jacques asked. “All of us?” He gestured to the open-plan living room behind us where there was an oversized corner sofa.
The brown leather couch looked soft and inviting. It faced a fireplace ringed in stone with a mantle that was raw-edged timber polished to a shine. It was masculine and homely, comfortable in a way my own house had never been.
He put their adorable dog outside, and I followed them over, watching the way Trav stuck close to Lincoln, resting a hand on the small of his back. It was the same thing Jacques was doing to me.
“Take a seat,” he offered, gesturing to one end of the sofa. Trav and Lincoln took the middle seats, and Jacques sat on the heavy timber coffee table.
He rested his elbows on his spread knees and clasped his hands together. Then he exhaled. “Carina, there’s something we didn’t share with you last night, but I need you to know now. It’s not something we tell just anyone, so I hope you’ll understand why I didn’t initially share this with you.”
“Go on,” I said warily, my heart in my throat. Nothing good ever came of “Can we talk” conversation openers, especially when there was a “I didn’t tell you everything” straight after. I was on edge.
“Travis, Rusty, and I are in a committed open relationship. We have been since college—”
“You’re what?” I asked far louder than I should have.
I could have sworn he said they were together. But that couldn’t be right. I’d had sex with both Jacques and Trav. They’d cheated on Lincoln with me, and now they were telling me in front of him. What sort of fucked-up game was this? Had they done it to destroy my friendship with Sophia? What did that achieve? And why would he have agreed to marry me when I’d made that idiotic suggestion?
Jacques reached for me, but I couldn’t bear for him to touch me. I needed space. I needed air. I jumped up and paced away from them. Tears sprang to my eyes, and my heart shattered in my chest.
So much for doing things on my own. So much for turning over a leaf and starting fresh, for discovering who I was. All I’d found out was that I was a na?ve idiot who’d been taken for a ride.
“How could you do that?” I gasped, as tears tracked down my face. Jacques was in front of me, reaching for me. But I shook my head and held my arm out to keep him at bay. “You brought me back here so you could, what, rub the woman you fucked in Lincoln’s face? Rub your relationship in my face?” I cried.
Anger and devastation surged in me, warring for dominance. I was shaking, yelling at Jacques, and disgusted in myself all at once. I couldn’t help it. I’d fucked up everything. I’d just lost my best friend in the world, and I was the other woman.
Jesus Christ, I was the other woman .
I’d just done to Lincoln what Danielle had done to me. I was responsible for getting between them.
“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed. It was like a knife wound to the chest to look Lincoln in the eye, but I needed him to know that I never intended to hurt him. Hell, I hadn’t even known about him. If I did, I never would have gone anywhere near Trav and Jacques. “I was so drunk. There was a bride. I don’t even know why, but I had this crazy idea that if I was married, I’d be happy again.” I shook my head, appalled that I couldn’t even be single for six months before I was telling myself I needed a man to be happy.
“Getting married seemed like a great idea.” I was rambling, my words tumbling out in one long stream without a breath between. I couldn’t see him anymore through my tears, but I kept going, needing to show him that I wasn’t a monster like the woman who’d destroyed my marriage.
“We had sex. A lot of sex. Unprotected too. I’m on birth control, and I’ve been tested, but—” I sucked in a breath and my knees threatened to give out from underneath me. The first time I’d walked into the doctor’s office and asked to be tested for every STI known to man had been humiliating. Now I’d have to do it again. “—I think we should get tested again. I don’t know who else they’ve been with. I didn’t know that you were together. I didn’t do it to hurt you, I promise. If I’d known you were together, I never would have touched either one of them, drunk or not. Last night, this morning….” I paled and held onto my protesting stomach. “Just then.”
I wiped my eyes, and both Jacques and Travis stepped closer.
“Stay away from me,” I warned.
Jacques halted, his broad shoulders slumping. He blinked and tears ran down his cheeks. I hardened my heart. This was his fault. I hadn’t known about his relationship, but he did. He was the one who’d cheated.
Same with Trav. Only moments earlier I’d been inexplicably drawn to the jokester who was now silent. I wanted to nut him. He’d taken me horse riding, we’d had sex again, he told me he wanted our little outing to be a date and that he was going to be all sweet—he was—but the whole time he was cheating on his boyfriend. He was despicable.
Lincoln went to them and whispered something, and then he turned to me. “Come and sit with me, Carina. We have some explaining to do. You aren’t in the wrong here. There’s nothing for you to apologize for and nothing for me to forgive.”
I blinked. It took a moment for his words to sink in.
He gestured to the sofa where he’d been sitting and took my hand. “Just over here. Let me explain.”
I sucked in a wobbly breath and followed Lincoln. He sat, so I did the same, and he took both my hands in his.
“We have an open relationship. We’ve been together since college. First it was Jacques and Travis, then after about six months, I told them I was attracted to them too. We’ve been together since. But we’ve always agreed to be open.”
“I crossed a boundary in a big way,” Jacques explained, and I gritted my teeth.
I didn’t want to hear what he had to say, but I think I needed to. It was the only reason why I didn’t tell him to shut the hell up.
“I hurt you, and I hurt Rusty, and that’s the last thing I wanted. I regret that. I love them—”
“So why did you do it?” I asked, my voice harsh with criticism. “You’ve been together for years, but you still have sex with other people. You say you love them, but you leave one of your partners here and go on a weekend away where you fucked me on every surface of the hotel room. That’s not love. That’s fucking shit.”
I hadn’t even realized I’d let go of Lincoln’s hands until he took mine in his again. Lincoln explained, “As a public person, Jacques needs to maintain the facade that he’s single. He needs to be able to… date women. Both he and Travis have always done it, and I’m okay with it. It was what we agreed right from the start. They’re free to have sex with other people. They don’t sleep with men other than me, but they do occasionally have sex with women.”
“What?” I asked, angry and confused. But my anger and confusion had been turned on its head. How could they treat him so badly? “Why can’t you sleep with anyone else? Why is it one-sided?”
He smiled and reached under the coffee table for a box of tissues, then held it out for me. I took one and wiped my nose as he looked down at his lap. When his gaze met mine, it was warm—the complete opposite of what I’d expected. He was throwing me for a loop.
“You’re unexpected,” he said with a smile. “I can see why Jacques and Travis are so infatuated with you.” He chuckled and shook his head as if he was surprised by my outburst or perhaps by his admission.
“To answer your question, I’m demisexual. I don’t experience sexual attraction without having an emotional connection with a person first. I can sleep with other people, but it doesn’t interest me.” He shrugged. “If I ever experienced that attraction again, I know Jacques and Travis would encourage me to explore it too.”
“Oh.”
He took my hands again and squeezed my fingers. “I’ll be honest with you, I’m fine with them having sex with other people—they always come home to me. But when I heard you two were married, I was hurt.”
He looked at Jacques, and I couldn’t help following his gaze. Travis and he were holding hands, squeezing so tight their knuckles were white.
“I thought I was going to lose Jacques to you. But Jacques and I have spoken, and I feel secure again in our relationship.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, completely dumbfounded by the calm this man was exuding. I didn’t understand how he was okay with this, but it was his relationship. I suppose I didn’t need to understand it.
Jacques kneeled before me, and I flinched.
“I’m sorry. I should have been upfront. I should have told you that the three of us were together. I didn’t because we’ve never told anyone before. There’s only a handful of people on this earth who know we’re in a relationship.”
Sophia’s shouted accusation about Jacques never being in love played on a loop in my head. “Your parents don’t know.”
He shook his head. “No. They don’t.” He looked to Trav, who nodded, then back at me. “Travis hasn’t wanted to tell them, and we respected his wishes. But I’m the reason we’re not out, not Travis or Rusty. I keep my sexuality hidden because I don’t want to be the latest headline. I just want to play hockey.”
I nodded. I understood what he was saying. There was a footballer back home who’d been outed, and it wasn’t pretty. Then another one on the same team had come out in support. They’d been through a lot since. Every time they were in a slump, questions about their performance were related back to their sexuality. Whenever they were playing well, there were questions about which referee they were sleeping with.
“Okay, so you didn’t tell me because you don’t tell anyone. I get that, but I’m still the other woman. No one—especially not Lincoln—wants me to hang around here. You shouldn’t have invited me here.” My voice wobbled, and visions of my ex fucking his way around the house with his new girlfriend popped unbidden into my mind.
I squeezed my eyes closed and fought back the tears. “Drop me back at the airport. I’ll let you know where to send the divorce papers to.”
“No,” Trav said. He stepped closer and fell to his knees next to Jacques. “I don’t want you to go.”
I shook my head. “I can’t stay.”
“You can,” Lincoln said. “That’s what we’re trying to tell you.”
Jacques slid his hand around my calf and shuffled closer. He rested his forehead on my knees for a moment before pressing a kiss there and looking up at me. “I want you to stay too. Please,” he begged.
“What was the conversation with your agent about?” I asked, suddenly remembering his comment that he wanted to talk to me.
He exhaled. He closed his eyes and hung his head low. Then he met my gaze and spoke again, his voice quiet but as strong as steel. “What I want and what my agent wants to achieve are somewhat the same, but we have very different motivations. I want you to stay because I want to date you. I think Travis might too. I want you here as part of us.”
My breath hitched. I’d wanted that too. But now I didn’t know. “So why aren’t you telling me what your agent wants?”
He sighed, and when he spoke again, his voice was resigned. Robotic even. “To minimize negative fallout with the team and the possibility of my contract not being renewed at the end of this season, he wants us to stay married for a year. He’s preparing paperwork for us to sign that will give you an agreed sum as payment for you playing my happily married wife for the year. There will be a confidentiality clause too. He suggested that once I have my renewal and the year is up, we can quietly get a divorce.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. A sick feeling, like an oil slick welling up inside me, turned my stomach. This was my prenup all over again, but in some respects, it was completely different. Either way, I couldn’t even fathom getting paid to stay with him.
“If that’s what you want to do, Carina, I’ll pay you whatever you want. You can stay in the guest cottage the whole time rather than the house. I’ll pay for everything. We don’t even have to see each other except at functions. If you want to leave, I’ll respect that too. I won’t ask you to do something you’re uncomfortable with.” He reached out and touched the ring I was inexplicably still wearing.
“But I really want you to stay—not for those reasons.” He waved his other hand as if dismissing them. “But because what I feel for you in here”—he thumped his chest—“is more than a one-night stand. It was a stupid move on all our parts to get married, but I don’t regret it. How could I when it’s you?”
“I was serious too,” Trav said. “I want something more with you as well. Stay. Please.”
I exhaled and stood up, stepping away from the three men surrounding me. “I need some time. This is a lot. I just… I need some time.”
An hour ago, I’d wanted to make it work between us. But so much had changed. The attraction was still there. They were both gorgeous—so was Lincoln—but they weren’t who I thought they were, and this was big. So much could go wrong.