Page 7 of A Different Husband

“You hadn’t done anything, but you talked about it, made a plan, and then followed through the minute you passed me off to be someone else’s problem.”

“It’s not like that,” Beckett argued.

“It was exactly like that,” Ashley taunted.

“Okay, that’s enough!” I growled at her as I pulled Courtney back away from them.

“What the fuck were you thinking telling her to come here?” Beckett asked me.

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t have wanted her to see that shit, even if I had known you were going to publicly start dating other people instead of waiting.”

“What did you think would happen? You marry my fiancee and I sit around waiting until the day you can divorce her?” He scoffed. “I have needs.”

“Funny thing about needs, Beckett,” Courtney taunted him. “I have them too.”

“What?” He asked, and for the second time that night, I watched as the color drained from his face.

“You heard me. I have needs, and I’ll be married, so I guess it will be okay for me to see to those needs with my husband.” Courtney grabbed my arm and pulled me back further as I watched my cousin’s face transform with rage.

“He won’t fucking touch you!” Beckett demanded.

“Fuck you, Beckett Robeson! You’re going to stand there and pretend that you have a right to say anything to me? YOU CHEATED!” Courtney called out as we turned to leave the bar.

“No, I didn’t.”

“We never broke up, so if you slept with her, that means you cheated on me.” Beckett opened his mouth to argue the point and then closed it. This happened several times in a row, and made him look like a fish trying to breathe out of water. “I have loved you literally my whole life and you couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

“No, that’s not true!” He tried to deny it, but the truth was staring us all in the face. He had pushed Courtney off on me to marry, but they had never officially broken up. “I didn’t realize you thought we were still together,” the asshole had the nerve to say.

“Why the hell would I think we were broken up when you were telling me we would still get married and that you’d have the cabin and the money to help pay for our three children’s college funds?”

“Shit,” Beckett huffed out as Courtney continued out the door without another word.

Chapter 5

COURTNEY

“I’m so sorry.I don’t know what I was thinking. Beckett is your cousin. He’ll hate you for the way I just taunted him.”

Bea scoffed out a half laugh at my pseudo apology.

“No offense, Courtney, but Beckett only has himself to blame for this whole situation. Seems to me, after what we just heard, that he was looking for any excuse. He might not have cheated physically, but he was already planning to before he pushed you off on Flynn. If you had refused and gone through with the wedding to him, he would have cheated or called it off.”

“Why? I don’t understand. I have dedicated my whole life to loving that man, and he behaved like he couldn’t wait to get rid of me.” Flynn pulled me into his arms and held me there as I cried in the parking lot.

“Let’s get you out of here,” He murmured in my ear. “You don’t need all the busybodies to see you break down over my asshole cousin.”

“We’ll follow you,” Bea stated as she handed her car keys to Flynn. “I assume the asshat brought you here.” When Flynn nodded and took her keys, she told him, “I’ll ride with Ky.”

Flynn helped me into Bea’s passenger seat and then moved around the car to get in on the other side. I stared at the door of the bar. He didn’t even bother to come out and check on me, to follow us, to deny anything, to try to make things right. Beckett didn’t bother to fight for me. He was too busy with the two - TWO - women he had fighting over him in the bar. My heart hammered in my chest as I thought about the fact that he had started talking to at least one of them before he offered me up to marry another man. Even when he did that, I didn’t think it meant we were broken up. I thought it meant that our marriage was on hold, not our relationship. That’s what I got for thinking instead of questioning everything, I supposed.

“I know this is a dumb question, but I feel like I have to ask anyway, are you okay?”

I turned to see Flynn’s concerned eyes on me. I offered him a hint of smile before I dropped my eyes to where my hands rested on my lap. “No. I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay after this. I thought it was just about the money and that stupid cabin. Turns out, it was about him seeing other people all along.”

“I’m guessing by what you said back there that he never even bothered to actually break it off with you.”

“No, he didn’t. I honestly thought this,” I waved my hand back and forth between us, “was all for show and that he and I were still a couple.” I swiped a hand down my face, as if I could wipe everything I saw from my mind. That was impossible. “I don’t know why I thought that.”

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