Page 43 of The Backup Bride Proposal

“Of course I do. Who wouldn’t? I mean, I guess if you don’t like kids it might bug you.” She paused, looking over at him. “Does it bug you?”

“Hell no. I love kids.”

She looped her arm in his. “Good to know our date can continue, then.”

He laughed, realizing he felt more at ease with Mae than he had with anyone in recent memory.

After winding their way out of the maze, they stopped in at a pizza place for glasses of iced tea, found a bench to sit and watch the kids play on the ropes and slides. He put his arm on the back of the bench and Mae leaned back as if instinctively searching for his touch. He didn’t want to presume, but he couldn’t help but reach out to play with a strand of her hair. Since she didn’t shrug him off—or punch him—he continued, letting his fingers wander over to her shoulder, keeping his touch light and easy, though the feelings that touching her evoked were anything but light.

“Can I ask you a question?”

She looked at him and nodded. “Of course.”

“You mentioned in earlier conversation that marriage would be the last thing you wanted. I wondered why.”

“Oh, that. I told you I was engaged once. It didn’t work out.”

He took her hand in his and squeezed. “Right. You mentioned that when you talked about the falling-out with your mother, though you didn’t get into detail. Want to tell me about it?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

They went silent then, so he resumed watching kids and parents chasing after kids.

“He cheated on me,” she said, her voice a low whisper. “Repeatedly. Even after we were engaged.”

He turned to look at her. “What? What kind of guy cheats on the woman he’s going to marry?”

“A jerk. Asshole. Scum-sucking jackass. Reprehensible piece of shit. A lowlife loser with no sense of honor.”

Impressed, he nodded. “You seem to have summed up his character well.”

“Yeah, but what does that say about me? I didn’t see it coming.”

“Maybe he didn’t let you see it. Some people are good at hiding who they really are.”

“I don’t know.” She took a sip of her tea before continuing. “I should have seen it. As the wedding date drew closer, he was disappearing more and more, canceling out on more dates with me. He’s a musician, so I knew he was busy, and Ithought he was just trying to fit in more bookings since we’d be taking off a couple weeks for the honeymoon.”

“Wasn’t gigs, huh?”

“Hell no. He was seeing another woman—multiple women, in fact. And when I found out and confronted him, he acted like it was no big deal. He told me he loved me and he was marrying me and I should be flattered. That he’d always be there for me, and I shouldn’t be upset about the small issue of him having a few, as he called them, fun pieces on the side.”

Kane blinked. “Well, fuck that. And you didn’t kill him?”

She laughed. “Surprisingly, no. But after I got over the cancellation of the wedding and the heartbreak, I did some digging and found out from former girlfriends that that was who he was. Who he always was. A serial cheater. And I never knew.”

He rubbed her arm. “You know who really lost out on that relationship? He did. You didn’t lose anything other than some asshole who didn’t deserve you.”

She nodded. “I know that now and believe me, I’m grateful I found out before the wedding. But seriously, what kind of person does that?”

“I’m sorry to say that there are people out there who only think of themselves and their own version of happiness. I see plenty of it in my business. There are some people who buy into their star images and believe they’re deserving of being put on a pedestal, thinking that no matter what they do or who they hurt, they’re never in the wrong.”

“That must be a lonely existence.”

“You’d like to think so, but if they have a big enough entourage, with assistants and hangers-on who continually stroke their egos, then they don’t feel lonely. It’s all fake, of course, but they don’t realize it.”

“I notice you don’t have an entourage.”

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