CHAPTER 9

Jane

The cab smelled like stale cigarettes and air freshener, and I pressed myself against the worn vinyl seat, watching the city blur past through rain-streaked windows.

I slept with Julius.

The thought kept circling my mind like a vulture, picking at the carcass of my morality.

I had actually done it. I fucked my fiancé's father. Ex-fiancé?

No. Hudson was still my fiancé. We had never officially broken up, which meant I had cheated on him.

Just like he cheated on you, a small voice whispered.

I shoved it down viciously. Two wrongs didn't make a right. My mother had drilled that into me since childhood.

What Hudson did was horrible, unforgivable, but what I had done in response...

God, what had I been thinking?

I hadn't been thinking. That was the problem. I had been hurt and angry and when Julius offered me that escape, that oblivion, I had taken it without considering the consequences.

"Stupid," I muttered under my breath. "So fucking stupid."

The cab driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror, but said nothing.

I pulled Julius's sweater tighter around myself, and immediately regretted it because it smelled like him.

I could smell the expensive cologne and something masculine and intoxicating that made my stomach flutter traitorously.

Stop it, I commanded myself. Just stop.

I needed to focus on Hudson. I needed to fix this disaster.

I needed to focus on salvaging what was left of my relationship, my future and my life, because what was the alternative?

Walking away from years with Hudson? Being alone? Starting over at twenty-three with nothing and no one?

The thought terrified me more than I wanted to admit.

Hudson loved me. He did. He was just flawed and imperfect. He made a terrible mistake with Maribel, but people made mistakes.

People could change. If I went to him right now, if I apologized for running off, for overreacting, maybe we could work through this.

We could still get married. We could still have the life we had planned.

I just had to be mature about this. I would be reasonable and forgiving.

“He fucked your best friend minutes before your wedding.”

I flinched, my hands clenching in the soft cashmere of Julius's sweater.

No. I couldn't think about that. If I thought about it, I would fall apart again, and I really couldn't afford to fall apart.

I needed to be strong and composed. I needed to be ready to have an adult conversation about boundaries and—

My thoughts stuttered as a flash of memory hit me. Julius's hands on my thighs, spreading them wide.

His mouth between my legs, doing things Hudson had never done, had always said were "degrading." The way Julius had looked at me like I was something precious.

Heat flooded my body, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

No. Absolutely not.

I couldn't think about Julius that way. I shouldn't remember the feel of him inside me, thick, hard and so deep I had seen stars.

The way he made me come over and over until I had been sobbing with pleasure, my voice hoarse from screaming his name.

Hudson had never made me come. Not once in years.

I always assumed it was my fault. That I was broken somehow, that my body just didn't work that way. Hudson had certainly implied as much whenever I had tentatively brought it up.

"Not all women can finish, Jane," he had said dismissively. "It's just biology. You should be grateful I'm willing to put up with it."

But Julius had made me come multiple times. With his mouth, his fingers and his cock. He played my body like an instrument, finding notes I hadn't known existed.

"Fuck." I breathed, pressing my thighs together against the sudden ache.

What was wrong with me? I was on my way to apologize to my fiancé, and I was sitting here getting wet thinking about his father?

I was disgusting and depraved. I was everything Hudson had always said I was when I didn't live up to his expectations.

"Maybe you're just selfish," Hudson had told me once when I had asked why sex never felt good for me. "You think about yourself too much instead of focusing on pleasing me."

So I stopped asking. I stopped expecting anything. I just laid there and let Hudson use my body for five or ten minutes before he rolled off satisfied, leaving me empty and vaguely disappointed.

But with Julius… Fuck, the way he had touched me, like he had all the time in the world. Like my pleasure was his pleasure.

The filthy things he had whispered in my ear, telling me how beautiful I was, how good I felt and how he had wanted this for so long.

"You're fucking perfect, Jane. Do you hear me? Perfect."

No one had ever called me perfect before. Hudson certainly hadn't. Hudson had a running list of things wrong with me that he had been systematically working to "fix" over the past few years.

My hair was too plain. My clothes were too boring. My personality was too quiet. My laugh was too loud. My opinions were too strong or not strong enough depending on his mood.

The list went on and on, and I had spent years trying desperately to mold myself into whatever Hudson wanted me to be, and it had never been enough.

The cab hit a pothole, jolting me back to reality. I stared out the window, recognizing the neighborhood. Hudson's house was only a few blocks away.

My stomach twisted with nerves. What was I going to say?

Sorry I ran off after watching you fuck my best friend. Can we still get married?

When I put it like that, it sounded insane, but what else could I do?

Hudson was my boss and my source of living literally depended on him. If I didn't have a job, I couldn't pay rent.

I had no savings either. Every penny had gone into my half of the wedding costs. I literally had nothing without Hudson.

You have yourself, that small voice whispered again.

But what good was that? I wasn't enough to pay rent. I wasn't enough to build a future. Hudson had been right when he told me I needed him more than he needed me. It was just the truth.

A harsh, humiliating truth, but truth nonetheless.

The cab pulled up in front of Hudson's house. It was a sleek modern townhouse in an expensive neighborhood I could never afford on my own.

I always felt out of place whenever I visited. I felt like an imposter playing dress-up in someone else's life.

"Here you go, miss." The driver said.

I paid him with the cash Julius had pressed into my hand before I left, ignoring the way my chest tightened at the memory of his face as I walked out his door.

He looked devastated, angry and resigned.

Stop thinking about him.

I climbed out of the cab on shaky legs, Julius's sweatpants dragging on the ground.

I must look ridiculous like a drowned rat in borrowed clothes, about to grovel to the man who had humiliated me in front of over 200 wedding guests.

But I didn't have a choice. Did I?

I walked up to the front door, my hand trembling as I punched in the security code. The lock clicked open, and I stepped inside.

The house was quiet. All of Hudson's cars were in the driveway, so he was definitely home. Maybe he was sleeping? It was still early, not even nine a.m.

"Hudson?" I called out, my voice cracking slightly. "It's me. It's Jane. I... I wanted to talk."

There was no response. I moved deeper into the house, past the pristine living room that had always felt more like a showroom than a home.

Everything was exactly where it should be. Hudson was meticulous about that. A place for everything and everything in its place, including me.

That thought should've been comforting. Instead it made me feel hollow.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor, heading toward the master bedroom. Our bedroom. Or it would have been, after the wedding.

That was when I heard it. A rhythmic thumping. Bedsprings creaking, and a woman's voice, high and breathy, moaning.

My blood turned to ice as I instantly recognized that voice.

No. No, he wouldn't. Not again. Not less than twenty-four hours after I had caught him with her. He wouldn't be that stupid and cruel to do this again.

But even as my mind screamed denials, my feet were carrying me toward the bedroom door. It was slightly ajar, and through the gap I could see movement. Skin. The flex of muscles.

I pushed the door open, and there Hudson was, naked and sweating, his hands gripping Maribel's hips as he pounded into her from behind.

They were on the bed, our bed, the bed I was supposed to share with him after we were married, and they were fucking like animals.

Maribel's face was pressed into the pillows, her back arched, her body moving with each brutal thrust, and Hudson's face looked almost bored.

He looked like this was a chore he was getting out of the way. Mechanical. Detached.

Nothing like the passionate lover I had imagined he would be with someone he actually desired.

And then his eyes met mine.

Recognition flickered across his features, but he didn't stop. He didn't even slow down.

He just kept thrusting into Maribel while staring directly at me, his expression shifting into something that looked almost like satisfaction.

Like he had been expecting me. Like this was exactly what he had wanted me to see.