Page 75 of Tempting Fate

“Calm down, angel. She meant nothing to me—it was a mutually beneficial deal.” Always a drama seeker, Alex pauses to ensure he has everyone’s attention as he drops the second shoe. “You were a delicate little virgin who needed coaxing. While I finessed you, I got my rocks off with your best friend and she was provided with all the pills and crystal meth she needed to make your twin dependent on her in return.”

“Nadia wouldn’t… she didn’t…”

“Come on, Cherub,” Slash urges me forward. “Let me take you home.”

Every part of my body is numb as I let him tow me outside.

I allow myself one look backward.

At Zeke.

He continues to evade my gaze.

“It wasn’t like it sounds.” Slash tries to reason with me once we’re separated from the others. “Just weed. That’s all.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yeah, ya do,” he tells me. “You wouldn’t be shakin’ like a leaf if you didn’t.”

I wrap my arms around my middle, hugging myself tight as I try to make sense of Alex’s allegations. The stupid games. The lies. The damage wrought. The guilt. The suffering inflicted.

Could my man and my best friend have really been the catalyst?

When we emerge into the bright late-afternoon sun, my father leaves the huddle he’s in with Joseph and Kristoff. He takes one look at my face, and a grim yet oddly exhilarated lustre enters his eyes. “She knows?”

“That you set this up… yeah, I’m pretty sure she knows that.”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Dad warns Slash. I blink at them, black spots in my vision that match the dark thoughts in my head. “It’s for her own good.”

“Keep tellin’ yourself that.” The two men stare at each other for a moment, then Slash shakes his head. “Fuck. I don’t even know you anymore.”

“Take her home,” Dad demands.

For reasons he doesn’t voice, Slash follows my father’s directive. He grabs my helmet and sunglasses from Zeke’s bike, then pulls me over to his Harley. While I zip up my jacket and prepare for the ride back to the compound, I try to hold on to the hope that Slash’s cryptic comments have given rise to.

If it was only weed, maybe I can move past it?

“He was gonna tell you when you got out of the hospital and a heap of fuckin’ times after that.” Slash pulls his own helmet on, then yanks his pillion pegs into place for me. He tries to explain the secret that’s been kept from me, “But I’d tell him not to rock the boat, and so would everyone else. You weren’t copin’, we couldn’t add another betrayal to your plate.”

“None of you had the right to keep something so important from me.” My voice rises an octave or two as my anger grows at the knowledge of yet another lie. “I brought Nadia into our life.”

“By the time we realised we’d made a mistake, too much time’d passed.” He mounts his bike, then pats the seat behind him. “We knew you’d shut him out—shut every one of us out—if he told you the whole truth.”

Knees shaking, my limbs heavy yet light at the same time, I tighten my chin straps and clumsily climb onto Slash’s bike. A huff leaves me when he takes hold of my wrists and pulls me tight against his back. I shake off his grip to push my sunglasses back up my nose before I offer him one final rebuke. “So what? If I shut him out, it was because he deserved it! You all did! Nadia’s my best friend. I see her. Every. Single. Day. For God’s sake, she’s one of the Shamrocks’ old ladies. You guys kept me in the dark… let me pick her to be my matron of honour… not that it matters now.”

As I gaze down at the engagement ring that sits on my left hand, I’m filled with sadness.

How can I marry a man who doesn’t see me as worthy of the truth?

“Now is not the time to do anythin’ rash,” Slash cautions. “Reserve your judgement until you know the whole story—I guarantee that it’ll make you see things differently.”

“I hope so.”

When his Harley roars to life, I settle in behind him.

I watch Cub, Isaiah, and two other Shamrocks pull to a stop in the yard.

They remain on their bikes, revving their engines, as they scan the situation.

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