Page 88 of Billionaire Devil

Jacob taps a spoon against his glass of champagne from the front of the tent. “Please take your seats everyone. Dinner is served. We’ve got a few speeches to make and then we’ll get back to the dancing.”

Colton’s hand is on my back. Jessie’s waving to me. My seat is next to hers at the wedding party table.

I don’t know how to feel. I’d like nothing better than to escape and be alone for a while, to try to process this avalanche of emotion, but I can’t let Jessie down. I’ll just have to cowgirl up and act like I’m fine for an hour or two.

Colton escorts me to my seat and then finds his own, which is at a nearby table, between Rafe and a beautiful woman with red hair. She’s obviously with the guy to her right, who looks so much like a slightly younger version of Rafe, with tattoos and a darker vibe, that he could only be Rafe’s brother. He and the red-haired woman are obviously very much in love.

I guess this is a relief, maybe, that Colton isn’t going to be flirted with again, but my emotions feel stone cold.

Troy is gone and the relief of being fully over him is indescribable. That chapter of my life is well and truly over and if I could rip it out of the book of my life and burn it, I would.

I somehow make it through the dinner and the speeches. I do my best to be fun for Jessie on her special night but I’m sipping 7-up instead of champagne because my stomach feels off—and that other reason—and all I can think about is how most of the women at this party are staring at him.

Olivia gazes at him from a far table with dreamy, unmasked lust. Like she’d allow him to use her all over again if she could only have one more night.

Meanwhile Jacob is giving a toast to his beautiful One and Only.

It sinks in, and I wish it wouldn’t. But it’s obvious what I have to do.

At this point, it’s not going to be easy. But I refuse to put up with a relationship that isn’t worthy of me. I spent years doing that and I can’t do it anymore.

I hope he’s better than Troy.I know he’s better than Troy. Of course he is. A trillion times better.But the doubts and the warnings and the red flags are all I can see tonight.

I want my own fairy tale. And I won’t share him.

I want something true and steady andreal. Something that isn’t going to topple over every time we run into one of his exes. Okay, yes, tonight’s drama was more about running into one ofmy“exes” than his, but still. At least I only had one of them. Not so many we can’t even go to a wedding on the opposite side of the country without running into at least one. Who even knows if there are others here.

There’s only one solution that will ensure that my heart doesn’t get smashed into smithereens like my mother’s did. Some days I wonder if she died of a lifetime’s worth of heart-brokenness. Maybe sometimes a person’s body just gives up when they’ve had enough of it.

I love him.

But I love myself too.

I have to let him go.

30

As soon asthe dancing starts up again and Jessie’s back in Jacob’s arms, I sneak away, making my way into the house and up the staircase to the guest room Jessie gave me. She begged me to move in for a while, for as long as I want to.

I swipe at my tears, hardly noticing the French-style windows that are open, offering a spectacular view of the ocean.

Damn him, that sadist.

It really did feel real.

Sloane wasn’t kidding.

It’s what he does. DO NOT GO THERE, GIRLFRIEND.

Why oh why didn’t I listen to her?

Of course I wish I could believe there was more to this…marriagethan there actually is. But I’ve also spent the last five days preparing myself for thisexact moment. This wasalwayshow it was supposed to play out. I knew that. I wasexpectingit.

He’s free to go now and do what he does as a billionaire playboy from hell.

I’ll figure out how to get the marriage annulled and I’ll get my period any minute and I’ll set up my business without him.

I find my phone and I google it through my tears.Can you get pregnant if you miss two pills?

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