Second Chance Husband (First Time #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Paisley

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

It felt as if those words were an echo cascading within my own memories—as if there was no way those words had been spoken to me not once, but twice .

And both times, just a reverberation, a faded version of what I wanted. Or perhaps what I’d thought I’d been set on a path toward, with no ending in sight. No beginning, begging me for my attention and passions.

“With the power granted to me by the great state of Colorado, I now pronounce you…”

“Just sign here on the dotted line,” another voice said, though they all blended into a similar vibrato. The real, the memory, the imaginary—all part of a whole.

Only I knew what voice should be the real one in this instant.

After all...it was my ending.

As an owner and financer of multiple businesses and someone with the power to change the destinies of others, at least in the business sense, I had signed my name on the dotted line countless times.

I knew every flourish, every flick of the pen, and every movement of my wrist as I signed. I was quick, efficient, and not verbose.

And yet, with this final signature, it would be an ending.

An ending before I was even ready for a beginning.

“Ms. Renee.”

Renee. Oh yes, that was my name. At least part of it.

I looked up at the sound of the lawyer’s voice as he frowned at me. “Is everything not to your liking?”

To my liking? That didn’t make much sense, did it? Because that would mean I would have to like being here. But there was no way I wanted to be here in this moment, with these people, signing my name to a piece of paper that would once again prove I was a failure.

But, then again, my signature did more than that. I was powerful, I was competent, and I made my own way. That’s what my signature evoked. It provided hope for others, it provided safety for me.

It proved I could handle anything.

So I would handle this. Just like I had the first time.

I gave my head a minimal shake. “No, we went over this a few times, the details have been ironed out.”

Without looking at my lawyers or the two people across the large desk, I signed a promise. Or perhaps it should have been called a broken promise.

I wasn’t signing my life over, wasn’t giving it away; I was finding a way to make it my own again. And then I handed my lawyer the pen and scooted the divorce papers toward him. “Thank you, will there be anything else?”

There was a slight cough across the table, and I did what I hadn’t wanted to do this entire time. I turned to see Jacob sitting there, a slight smirk on his face, even while anger burned in that gaze of his.

Jacob Barton, my newly ex-husband.

After nearly two years of marriage, we had proved to be a failure. Of course in his eyes, I was the only failure, and he was the one who had to deal with the inadequate wife.

For the Bartons of Denver, Colorado, were royalty—in the strictest of society sense. His grandfather had been a governor, his father a senator, and Jacob Barton would one day rise out of the ranks of lowly local politicians and become governor of Colorado himself. That was always in his dreams.

I had thought I had been the one in his dreams.

Instead I had kept my name, kept my business, and kept my path.

I hadn’t become the wife he had wanted.

It was something I should have been used to as this wasn’t my first marriage and divorce. In fact, I was becoming quite an expert at failing at relationships.

I still held on to one of the names I had kept in a divorce, because I was young and stupid and hadn’t known any better at the time. I didn’t know about or understand the paperwork of changing your name. The first time was atrocious, let alone doing it again. I’d gone through the entire process to wipe my first mistake from my life, and yet I’d kept it as a middle name—an albatross around my neck to remind me to never make that mistake again.

And that was the excuse I had given myself and Jacob when I hadn’t taken his name.

Just another mark against me.

Never the perfect politician’s wife. Just the ballbuster who couldn’t even bother to love him enough to change for him.

I raised a single brow at the man I had thought I loved but then realized I had made a mistake the moment I said, “I do.”

“Are we done here?” I asked again, my voice chilly. I’d practiced the tone for years so I could blend in with the boys’ crew of my job and place in life. And I knew with every word, with every brittle edge of my sentences, it would cement who I was in Jacob’s eyes.

A frigid bitch not worth the paperwork.

And that was just fine with me.

“Yes, everything’s done.” He droned on about the legalities of what had just occurred, as if signature after signature hadn’t cut ties between two people who should have never been together in the first place. “Each of you had prenups, and the paperwork splits everything evenly. Any shared assets are divided 50/50, but as you barely had any, this divorce was simpler than most.”

Simple . I didn’t scoff, neither did Jacob. But the rage in his eyes, that was anything but simple.

I hadn’t told my best friends or anyone else that this was happening. The only person in my circle who knew I was divorcing Jacob, or in his words he was divorcing me , was my mother. Because there was no way I could ever hide anything from that woman.

I was more of a failure in her eyes than I was to Jacob, but I didn’t have enough caffeine in my system to deal with those kind of mommy issues.

“Yes, all nice and tidy,” Jacob said after a moment, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say back to him.

I had married this man because I thought I loved him. Or maybe it was because I had clung to something that wasn’t quite mine. How was I supposed to know that falling for somebody because you were trying to run from another person and those feelings would blow up in your face?

And as spectacularly as they have now.

“Say hello to Lydia for me. Or don’t. I don’t care anymore.”

His eyes tightened, and there was the anger I had learned to expect from him. He had never growled at me, yelled, or made me feel like I was nothing until our wedding night. And that was the first time, and only time, he had hit me.

He had said it’d been an accident, and I hadn’t believed him, but he hadn’t done it again in the nearly two years we had been married. Of course the past six months of those had been dealing with the divorce. Things would have been complicated beyond what they were now if we hadn’t had the paperwork in place for the seemingly inevitable failure of our marriage. As he was of the Bartons of Colorado, which meant his family money outweighed most, having a clear and precise prenup had all been inevitable no matter who Jacob married.

No, it didn’t outweigh my own business, but he was old money, in this case of Colorado old, and I was new money. The two simply weren’t the same.

I was the trash who wouldn’t take his last name, and wouldn’t laugh at all of his jokes, and wouldn’t spend my nights and weekends placating him.

I wouldn’t lean into him as he called me worthless, as he gave me little digs to tell me I wasn’t enough.

That man wasn’t the Jacob Barton I had married. Or perhaps it had been the entire time and I just hadn’t realized it until it was almost too late.

Or perhaps until it was too late.

I’d be forever grateful that I hadn’t taken his last name. He had hated every minute of my independence from him and now it brought me a sort of joy.

After all, I still carried August’s last name. Even my company carried August’s name.

Talk about self-deprecation and turmoil. I surely loved hating myself more than any ex-husband could hate me.

Jacob’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything. Of course Jacob Barton of the Colorado Bartons wouldn’t. He would wait till behind closed doors then he’d tell you that you were worthless and you wouldn’t be anywhere without him.

But that was Lydia’s role now.

Lydia Sampson, the mistress, soon-to-be Lydia Barton. They would get married soon and quietly and everyone would whisper. But they would never whisper about Jacob.

No one whispered about him. No, because he was the golden child, and I was the whore. Which was funny considering I hadn’t cheated.

Perhaps I hadn’t loved him like I should, but how were you supposed to love when you had already had your heart shattered once before?

I stood up from the table and turned, my stilettos making sharp and echoing sounds down the marble hallway as I left the chambers of the high-end lawyers.

The divorce had cost far too much, but not in just money. My pride had taken a beating. And soon I would have to tell my best friends and coworkers I had failed. Because Devney and Addison were both married, happy, and mothers. They had the sweetest little babies, and the best lives.

And I was so freaking jealous it wasn’t even funny.

Only it wasn’t their fault they had married attentive and caring men. Who maybe growled a bit, but not as much as their brother. Because of course Devney and Addison had married brothers. The Cassidy brothers.

Heath and Luca were the cream of the crop, and I had appreciated them and cared about them. After all, they had once been my brothers-in-law. Because I was the one who loved making mistakes.

I had not married merely one man who had tried to break my heart; no, I had married another man who had succeeded at doing so.

August, Heath’s twin, had been my one true love .

I rolled my eyes at my own ruminations, my ankles hurting from my damn heels.

No, not my one true love. You would have to believe in that crap in order for it to happen. So I didn’t believe. Maybe for others, but not for me.

I was not the pretty princess who would find her prince. Nor was I the knight who would slay the dragon. I didn’t have to believe in fairy tales. I just needed to get what was mine.

And that was not a man, not a happy ever after, and not anything to do with what I had once thought I wanted.

So I would make my business the best out there. I would make loads of money and give as much of it away as I possibly could to help other businesses. I would be the ice queen, no princess title for me.

I’d be the one that the other men at the board meetings and golf resorts would whisper about.

That ballbuster who didn’t give a shit about men and maybe even ate them for breakfast.

That shield would be much easier to wear than any crap some silly thing like a divorce could hover over me like a mantel of whispers of what could have beens and my past. I wouldn’t wear the title of Jacob’s former flame and cover myself with the label also-ran as a shroud.

Jacob Barton of the Colorado Bartons would live on in infamy, and dust off this divorce like a silly mistake people would whisper about but never truly talk about. He would marry Lydia and have two point five kids and one day would become the governor of Colorado before a scandal broke out and he would either rise above it with his newly crowned wife at his side, or he would fade away into the distance and still make boatloads of money.

Because that’s what happened to people like Jacob.

My phone buzzed in my purse, and while I looked down at the screen, I still ignored it.

My mother was not a happy camper. In her eyes, my biggest sin hadn’t been marrying far too young and being left nearly at the altar for someone not good in enough in her eyes. No, it was how could I ever walk away from Jacob?

It didn’t matter that Jacob had hit me once. Degraded me. It didn’t matter that he had cheated on me and had never loved me. I couldn’t walk away from that type of notoriety.

Too bad I was never good about pleasing my mother.

The only time I’d ever made my mother happy was when August, a high school chemistry teacher, and a man I thought loved me as much as I loved him, had walked away.

And I hadn’t fought back.

Because in my mother’s eyes why would I lower myself to fight for something that nobody wanted? And the only regret I ever had was that I hadn’t fought. But what was the point? What was the point in pretending I had the strength to fight for someone who didn’t want me?

I shook off those thoughts, ignoring my mother’s call, and got into my Mercedes, pulled the top back, and drove like a bat out of hell toward my home.

The wind blew in my hair, the sun shined bright over the Rocky Mountains, and I laughed.

It was either laugh or cry and I had done enough crying.

Maybe I should call my friends; maybe I should tell them what had happened. But not tonight. Tonight I was going to be anyone else but me.

Because Paisley Cassidy Renee did not know how to live. She failed at everything that had to do with life.

So I would not be Paisley tonight.

I would be a stranger.

I pulled into my three-car garage, the door closing behind me. As soon as I got inside, I quickly changed into something far more comfortable. My shoes had pinched my feet, but I wanted to look like the part of the ice queen Jacob hated so much. I hadn’t been the woman he had wanted, so I would be the woman that I needed to be.

A stranger for the evening.

I slid on too-tight jeans, the ones that hugged my ass in a way I knew meant they would probably tear if I bent too quickly. I slid my feet into cute boots with only a slight chunky heel. Then put on a top that tied at the breasts, and opened up so you could see some of my upper stomach, but it still flowed down over my hips slightly. I pulled my hair out of its bun and fluffed it into the soft waves that had come from leaving it up all day. I added a bit of eyeliner, gloss on my lips, and stuffed everything I needed into a tiny bag that I could wear on my wrist.

I looked like I had in college, just a bit older, a couple of lines at my mouth. They called them smile or frown lines, and in this moment, I didn’t know where they had come from.

But it didn’t matter.

Instead, I would just be someone else for the night.

I didn’t look like the Paisley people knew. And that was fine with me, perfect in fact.

She didn’t know what she was doing.

I called a rideshare and got into the back of a smoke-blue sedan and listened to odd techno music as the driver slung around the highway. He dropped me off in a nice part of downtown, but not the upper areas. One with a few restaurants, a bookstore, and a dance hall.

“Here you go,” he said, popping his gum in his mouth.

I smiled, leaving an extra tip because he had gotten me here on time, even though the car smelled like weed. However, it was legal here, so I didn’t care.

I got out of the car and made my way to the dance hall. Oh, I should probably have eaten something; probably should’ve been doing anything but this. But I had never been there and always wanted to.

It was a line dancing bar, complete with country music streaming through the speakers, and a live band would start at eight.

It was also apparently ladies’ night, and two-dollar well drinks sounded right up my alley. I had become the champagne ice princess at one time, but now it didn’t matter.

Now I was a different Paisley. One who was going to drink those two-dollar well drinks and be anyone else.

Because this Paisley, she wasn’t working. Everything kept breaking, so I was just going to have fun.

I immediately did a shot with two random women who seemed to be on the same path as me. We nodded in agreement, as if no names were needed. Tonight was just going to be about dancing.

And so I got on the dance floor and moved to the beat.

I had decent rhythm, though I had no idea how to line dance. Thankfully people kept showing me how, laughing with me, rather than at me, as I tripped over my own two feet.

A couple of men got a little handsy, but I was the ice princess with my shroud of back the fuck off for a reason. And so they walked away, hands up with a single glare, and I kept moving within groups of women, feeling oddly safe, if not a little tipsy.

I needed to go home eventually, to cry it out, or just scream it out.

But first I was going to dance.

And just pretend.

Four drinks in, and I was not sloshed, but tired. So I did another shot. And then another. Nothing mattered in the world, and the dancing just felt good.

I laughed and I smiled, and I felt like I had no worries. It didn’t matter that I had to work the day after tomorrow. And I would probably be working tomorrow on the countless other things I had to do.

No, I was just going to be a new me for a few more drinks.

I chugged some water, made a friend in the women’s restroom as she was crying over an ex, and I told her of course that he didn’t matter, and she was going to find someone she loved eventually.

So I did another shot with her, and then went to dance with her friends before moving on to another group.

There was nothing like a women’s bathroom at a club. You made the best friends there.

I kept dancing, ignoring my phone, and decided I would have one more drink and head home. See? I was being responsible.

Of course, the room kept spinning just a little bit even though I had quit spinning. So when I tripped over my feet, I wasn’t surprised.

I expected the floor to reach me quickly, and I would probably bruise my ego as well as my body along the way. I wasn’t expecting to fall into a hard chest, or to keep going until he was forced to catch me completely.

And I sure as hell wasn’t expecting to look up into those familiar gray-blue eyes.

And there he was, my ex-husband.

No, not the one I had divorced today.

The one who had branded my soul, and my name.

August Cassidy looked down at me, eyes wide before they narrowed in anger.

Oh, I knew that look well.

It seemed I couldn’t escape my past. Not even this new me.

Well, if hell was going to open up and take me, they might as well do that while I was in August’s arms.

Because I still loved this damn man. At least part of me.

It might as well be him that I threw up on because I’d had too much to drink.

Reunions were always far too sweet for either of us.