Chapter 1

Naomi Mora leaned against Jared Trost. She was laughing so hard that she could barely sit up.

While wiping tears from her eyes, she shook her head in mock sympathy.

“Seriously, if she gets pregnant, just get rid of it. Otherwise, you’ll end up sitting there signing to two mutes. Even your worst enemy would feel sorry for you.”

Another round of roaring laughter followed.

Jared glanced at me. His smile was as warm and gentle as ever as he came over to take my hand and lead me to a seat in the private lounge.

However, the words that came out of his mouth were cruel. “Don’t jinx me. Having a kid who can’t talk would be a nightmare.”

My face went pale. I pulled my hand out of his grip.

He turned to me with a puzzled look and signed smoothly. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I simply asked, “What is everyone laughing about?”

He just stroked my hair with a resigned smile. “They’re congratulating us.”

It was the same answer he had given me many times before.

I clenched my hands and lowered my eyes.

Three months ago, when he proposed to me, he had said, “Kaitlyn, I wish you could hear me tell you how much I love you.”

I never imagined that the first thing I would hear instead was him calling someone like me a nightmare.

Then, someone suggested a game of Truth or Dare.

They spun a bottle. It pointed to Jared. He chose dare.

His dare was to unclasp the bra of one of the women in the room.

I frowned.

Jared gave my hand a reassuring pat and reached out to take a penalty shot instead, but Naomi stopped him.

“What, now that you have a girlfriend, you can’t even do a harmless little dare? If your girlfriend is too uptight about it, I guess I can do you a favor.”

Jared instinctively glanced at me.

“Who says I can’t do it? I just sometimes forget that you count as a girl. You should stop acting like one of the guys all the time.”

Naomi pretended to be offended. She threw an arm around his neck. “Oh, please. Now, you want to play innocent? Funny, considering you used to practice on me before hooking up with your girl.

“You’ve unclasped my bra plenty of times. Don’t start pretending otherwise now.”

I jerked my head toward Jared.

He avoided my gaze and simply reached behind Naomi’s back.

His hand was back at his side a second later.

The dare was over.

My stomach churned so violently that I thought I might throw up.

On the second round, the bottle pointed at me. I chose dare too.

As I reached for one of the dare cards, Naomi set it aside with a grin.

“Jared, don’t say I never do anything nice for your little mute girlfriend. This one is probably too much for her, so how about I come up with something easier?

“Push your wedding back a week and let me use the venue you booked for my birthday party instead. What do you say?”

My eyes widened. I looked toward the ring box on the table, which was now filled with cigarette ash.

The others exchanged awkward looks. Someone said, “Maybe she should just take the drinking penalty instead.”

Naomi gave an unconcerned shrug.

“I was already going easy on her. If she can’t even do one little dare, forget it then. Someone clearly doesn’t know how to have fun. Jared, good luck being married to someone this uptight.”

Jared gave my fingers a gentle squeeze.

“Fine, we’ll push it back. It’s only a week, and it’s your birthday. What’s the big deal?”

Only then did he turn to explain himself to me. “You’ve had too much to drink tonight. You’ll barely have time to recover before the wedding tomorrow.

“We might as well postpone it a week so you can get some proper rest.”

A bitter taste rose in my mouth. “Are you really worried about me being exhausted, or is there another reason?”

A flicker of impatience crossed Jared’s face. His hands began moving faster as he signed.

“What’s going on with you? I’m just looking out for you. Why are you upset?”

“You could unclasp her bra in one second. She’s the one you practiced on before sleeping with me. Now, you’re handing over our wedding venue for her birthday. Is this how you’re looking out for me?”

I yanked the ring off my finger and shoved it back into the ring box on the table, right through the hole the cigarette ash had burned into it.

All the color drained from his face.

“You could hear me?”