Page 19 of His Cowboy Heart

I pushed up inside of her hard and fast. For the first time in forever I felt as though we were really connecting. “I want you,” I said, thrusting. “I want your body. I want this not everything else.”

“Shut up and fuck me harder,” she said, raising her hips up and down my shaft moving into her again and again. She didn’t need to ask me twice. I drove in her deep and hard the idea of running away with her was so erotic to me, so exciting, so familiar. I came shaking and throbbing.

When I opened my eyes, she was staring down at me.

“You liked that?” she said, her voice sweet.

“Yeah, yeah of course I did,” I said, confused.

“Great, because if you want to keep fucking me like that you are marrying me in front of 500 people, got it?” She laughed and rolled off of me. “Seriously, I’m not eloping. You have lost your goddamn mind.”

I felt cold.

“This is going to be the wedding of the century. Our photos are going to be picked up by all the major magazines. They will talk about our wedding for years,” she said. “And now we need to get going. Nanthany has reservations.”

“Abigail,” I said. “We need to talk. We need to talk about our relationship. We need to talk about our past.”

“No. We. Don’t,” she said raising a finger to her lips. “I don’t want to hear anything upsetting. Do you understand me? The only thing I want to hear from you is yes, honey, whatever you want.” She cupped my face with her hand and kissed my cheek. “It’s so cute you wanted to run away, so romantic, but honey that’s just not my style, and let’s stop pretending this is a surprise to you.”

She was right. The only surprise was that I’d been stupid enough to believe Abigail might love me enough to run away.

“And I know all about Shea,” she said, handing me my keys.

I froze. “You do?”

“And I’m not mad.”

“Abigail,” I said, relief and guilt washing over me and erasing my disappointment and anger with her. I had gotten so used to a roller coaster of emotion with her, this felt almost normal to me. “I was going to tell you myself.”

“Your mother explained everything.”

“My mother?” Well this was rich.

“I’m not mad you didn’t tell me about your previous engagement.”

“You’re not.”

“Of course not,” she said, walking to the front door. “You are a very wealthy man, Troy. The fact you were dumb enough to fall for a girl like her is a little bit of a surprise. I do think you’ve traded up with me,” she laughed.

“What do you mean a girl like her? What did my mother tell you?”

“She told me all about the pregnancy scare and how you felt you had to marry her.”

“So, that’s how she explained it. My mother lied to you. Shea wasn’t pregnant. I loved her.”

“Troy, I get you are embarrassed about what happened to you and I honestly don’t want to talk about it. Shea is your past. I’m your present. Now let’s go.” She held open the door.

I was numb with disappointment and regret. Stunned by her casual cruelty and horrified at the web of lies my mother had spun and Abigail’s willingness to believe her. This was my fault. If I had told Abigail about my past from the start, I wouldn’t have ended up with this shit show of misinformation.

“Troy, come on. One. Two. Three. We gotta go.”

One. Two. Three.

It was our secret signal.

Three words.

I love you.

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