Page 97 of One Wild Ride

“Hi, Trey, this is Jay,” she said as she placed the phone to her ear.

“I need you to contact Aria Dixon tomorrow. You are going to help her download the Mimir files. Yes, that Aria. How’s Damien doing? Uh huh. Just make sure those cops play their part. I’ll contact you tomorrow,” she said before putting the phone down.

She smiled at me. Or at least, tried to smile. Her cheeks and forehead were so tight it appeared she was in pain as she curved her lips.

Mrs. Hawthorne strolled over and looked down on me. “You understand Alex has to marry Alexa. He is a part of all this too. You will have to sacrifice him for the greater good.”

Her finger pushed away the hair that had dried to my face. I turned my head up and forced myself to keep my eyes on her.

I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. “Yes. I’m actually glad he’s marrying her instead of me.”

Her fingers pulled away from my head. “What?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Mrs. Hawthorne, I care for your son. He is a good guy, but I don’t ever want to marry anyone. Life has shown me that nothing good comes from marriage. When your son asked me, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. That’s why I said at the chapel that we didn’t have to get married that day. I was trying to get out of it.”

I took a deep breath before forcing the worst of my words out. “I wanted to break up with your son anyway. He’s good looking and it was nice having fun with him with the money, but I’m going to get rich from my artwork now. I really don’t need him. I already had a few galleries in New York and London contact me.”

A lot of what I was telling her was the truth, but when I said it out loud, it didn’t feel like the truth. Especially the part about wanting to break up with Alex. Because I didn’t. And it was hard not to let my tears show knowing he was about to marry Alexa and I would lose Alex forever.

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