Zach
“I can’t explain this again. I’ve just got to class, and I need to hang up,” she whispered. “Love you, bye.”
I yanked my phone away from my ear. I may have felt a pang in my stomach, or my balls—it was fifty-fifty which came first.
First, she declared her love. Then she hung up.
And before all that, she told me Luke’s ex-wife had been lurking in their back garden bushes.
I stared at my phone a little longer before tapping away a message. I paused, deleted some, reread it, and kept typing out my lecture.
Fucking blue balls were driving me crazy as it was, without Luke’s baggage turning up at Amber’s door.
The unfinished document suddenly didn’t look appealing. The cursor continued to flash, but Amber’s safety came first. My dissertation could wait.
I looked up Luke Newbury’s number.
I was fobbed off twice before I called back and told them I was his son.
“Hello, son. This is a surprise. What can Daddy do for you?”
I really hated this man.
“How about you keep your bitch on a leash, old man?”
“I can see why you might be excitable, but I’m on it,” he snapped.
Ah. Here he was. The real Luke Newbury.
“Are you? What happens when Isabella or Amber gets hurt by your psycho ex? What kind of person stalks an innocent woman and her child?”
“Like you stalked Amber?”
I froze.
How did he know?
I mulled over the speedy engagement and his bedroom fuckery.
“Like you stalked Isabella?”
Silence.
I stood up and walked to my living room window.
“Isabella is mine to protect. Her family is mine to protect. Which means anyone who hurts them will be eliminated. Anyone.”
His meaning was clear.
“Amber Rayne isn’t yours,” I said, my voice remaining cold and calm.
“I beg to differ. She is my daughter by marriage—”
“I don’t think so, old man,” I interrupted.
“—and if anything impacts my wife, then it impacts me.”
“You’re not married yet.”
“We will be in seven weeks. I’ve made sure the wedding will proceed.”
“What did you do?” I demanded.
He began to laugh.
“I’ll tell you when you’re a big boy. We’ll see you at the wedding. Isabella loves you, and it would mean a lot for you to be there,” he said quietly, before hanging up.
I stared at the black screen.
What the fuck was it with everyone hanging up on me?
? ? ?
From my research, I discovered that on paper, Luke Newbury was a stand-up bloke. The gossip columns almost had me microwaving popcorn. Multiple affairs surfaced, along with plenty of photographs of Sadie Newbury accompanied by men who weren’t Luke.
Sucker.
He could genuinely care for Isabella and Amber. It made me consider how happy Dad had been with Isabella. I could still remember all the fights Zoe and Dad had. All that stopped with Isabella. I’d taken them both for granted back then.
Then there was Amber.
I turned the cream and gold wedding invitation over again.
The honour of your presence is requested at the marriage of Isabella Rayne and Luke Newbury.
On the 6th of March, at two o’clock in the afternoon, at The Sacred Heart Church, Tiverton Rd, Lavenham.
This was Amber’s mum. The future grandmother of my children.
I sighed.
I guess I had to accept Luke, like a symbiotic single-organism life form by her side.
My phone buzzed, and I put the card down.
It wasn’t Amber—she had tuition.
Daniel: There’s a party at Julie’s place tonight at 11 pm.
Me: Nah, got to work on my dissertation.
Daniel: Plenty of time for that. Come to the party, it isn’t going to be a meatfest.
That would have been enough for me to attend in the past, but now I was organising my finances and considering my future. My grandparents had left me a solid trust fund, and now I was thinking about what kind of legacy I could leave for my children.
Me: I’ll think about it.
I wouldn’t.
One more week, and I’d be with Amber.
One more week, and I’d be inside the hottest, tightest little pussy I’d ever known.