Page 73 of Made For You
Nate chimed in again as I offered them a piece of pizza. “I’m sorry that we… uh… sprung the twins on you tonight.”
“Actually, I’m not,” Alex said coldly, her arms crossed over her chest. Her tone took me by surprise.
“What?” I asked in shock.
“Let me clarify something. I know we rely on you too much. I do. Autumn does. Mom does. We all do, Rory. But you let us, so it becomes a habit. But tonight, it wasn’t because we were being selfish. We did it to protect you.”
I was knocked into a catatonic state and had no idea what to say. Talon spoke up instead. “What do you mean?”
“The rehearsal dinner was tonight. None of us planned to be in attendance, but Autumn called me frantic, because Jeremy was causing a scene with his fiancée. And his mother was… something else entirely. It was a shit show. They weren’t happy with the dessert cake I delivered, even though it was what Mrs. Mitchell ordered. I had to rush and make a champagne cake instead. And then reporters showed up. They were asking Jeremy questions about you, and we wanted to shield you fromall of it. Watching the twins was the first thing we could all think of.
“But you’re right. We should have been more respectful of you. I should have considered you might’ve had plans tonightbecauseof the wedding tomorrow. I still can’t believe that asshole invited all of us.”
Like me, Alex had always been a horrible liar. She tended to twirl her hair between her fingers whenever she was being untruthful. Right now, her fingers never budged from her arms.
“Were any of you going to tell me? About tonight, I mean.”
Her shoulders rose and then dropped. They weren’t. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. It left me thinking about other things they may have kept secret.
“Don’t keep secrets from me anymore, please. I’m twenty-four. I can handle it.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry again,” she stated, dropping her arms, her hands dangling against her thighs. “Nate and I never considered an actual emergency could have happened. You’re the best with kids. If anything, we would have calledyouto ask what to do.”
I laughed and added that they were probably right.
“Um… thanks for taking one for the team, Talon.”
“It’s no sweat. Those are good little girls.”
Nate and Alex smiled as they looked across the room to watch their twins on the couch snuggle together, watching the movie. They called them over, and the family left my house as we watched them from the porch.
Talon tried to ask me how I felt about their stunt tonight, but I shook the question away. I didn’t want to talk about Jeremy, the wedding, or the twins. I reached over and tugged the locks free from the tie at the top of his head.
“Come on. Let’s see if I can fix this.”
I found it surprising that Talon didn't argue. He dutifully followed me toward my bathroom, where I kept a pair of sheers for the times when I needed a quick trim and didn’t have time to make an appointment with the local salon.
He probably could call a world-renowned hair stylist to fly in and fix the mess, but he was trusting me. And that meant far more than he would ever know.
Chapter Nineteen - Talon
Last night, I lived out a fantasy I never knew I had. When I trusted Aurora to trim my hair, she seemed shocked. She didn’t know I’d trust her with just about anything—my fortune, my hotels, my life. She held the wheel.
As I waited patiently on one of the barstools from her kitchen that she directed me to move into her bathroom, she went to change out of her school attire, opting for a pair of loose-fitting shorts that skimmed her upper thighs and a cropped oversized T-shirt that showed just the barest hint of her midriff.
With the sheers in hand, she snipped at sections as if she did this professionally. I tried to ignore the chunks of hair as they fell to the floor. When she moved to stand in front of me, I reached out and grabbed her hips. I couldn’t help but touch her. My hands moved upward to her waist, then I cupped her breasts. When her arms dropped as she reprimanded me for getting handsy while she was wielding a sharp object, I commanded her to put the scissors aside.
Within five minutes, I had Aurora balanced on her bathroom counter as I fucked her.
We didn’t get around to finishing my haircut until after midnight. Even with a pair of dull clippers she said belonged to her brother—who she hadn’t talked to her since he confronted her about our marriage—Aurora had done a decent job. Better than I ever could’ve on my own.
When we woke in the morning, I did my best to keep her distracted. She was adamant about not going to the wedding, especially after the chaos her ex’s family caused yesterday. But I sided with her parents and agreed that any waves Aurora might cause today by not showing up would affect her family.
We already learned the kind of revenge Jeremy was capable of—not that I couldn’t throw money at it and make it go away. But I knew that wasn’t what Aurora wanted. It was a tricky situation from whichever angle you looked at it. If she didn’t go, Jeremy was going to continue to spew lies about her to averyinterested press. There was also a good chance his family could use their political background to hurt the Easterlys, even though they’d been friends in the past. If I paid Jeremy and his family to leave Aurora alone, she’d be angry with me. There was always the chance she’d never know, and that was something I considered for after our contract was up, but I wasn’t willing to risk it. If we went to the wedding, it would be over and done with. We’d get cake. We’d get to dance. And then we’d get to come back to our home.
It seemed like the easiest thing to do.
But really, I never understood why someone would invite their ex to their wedding.
