Page 5 of Sinner's Vow

I never imagined it would be in Las Vegas.

To someone I’d just met.

To someone who wouldn’t even remember me the next day.

“Kennedy, I…” but Noah trails off, speechless.

“Look, I didn’t sign a prenup or anything,” I say without looking at him. “But I’m not looking to take your money if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I didn’t…” He shakes his head.

“Did that woman mean it?” I ask as slowly, I look back at the man who made me feel better than I’ve felt in years. “That she wants me to go on tour with you? Sing with you?”

He rubs a hand over his lips, and by the look in his eyes, I know what his answer is going to be before he speaks. “Tori doesn’t joke around.”

I look up, finding myself in the reflection of a mirror. I look pale. I mean, I’m always pale. But I’m white as a sheet. That hurt and that hollowness is easy to read on my face.

“I’ll go with you on that tour,” I say, my tone flat as I look back over at him. “If you don’t have any objections. If you don’t want me to, I get that too. But I’ll come on that tour. We’ll play up the publicity part of it. And when your tour is over, we can get a divorce, okay?”

I watch Noah’s face blanch paler. He swallows once. “Why…why would you go through all of that? You don’t owe me, or the band, anything.”

I think about that for a moment. Why would I?

Maybe because I had the best night of my life last night. Maybe because some part of me is praying that Noah will remember.

“Because you are a good person, Noah,” I say, even though the words hurt. “And last night I vowed to be there for you. Always.”

Noah’s eyes are wide and he stares at me so intensely, his expression filled with awe and fear. “Kennedy, I don’t think I am a very good person.”

I shake my head. “You are,” I counter. “You’re a good person who had bad things happen to you. That doesn’t make you bad.”

I rise from the bed and cross to the bathroom. I linger in the doorway. “I’m going to rinse off before we have to leave. We better get moving if we’re going to make that flight.”

Noah blinks at me three times, his expression filled with utter disbelief.

But I can’t look at him anymore. I walk into the bathroom and close the door behind me. I turn the water on hot, hot as I know I’ll be able to stand.

In front of the mirror, I take Noah’s shirt off, letting it fall to the floor, and look at my reflection.

There are marks all over my body. A light bruise on my hip. A hickey on the left side of my neck, on my right collarbone, the underside of my breast.

The best sex of my life, and he doesn’t even remember it.

The best night of my life, the happiest I’ve ever felt, and he doesn’t even remember it.

I climb into the shower, and I internally scream at myself drill Sergeant style, not to cry.

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