Page 84 of Made For You
“It’s the truth though, and the studentsweredistracted.”
“We can sue them.”
Aurora nodded but didn’t respond. She was already overwhelmed and upset. I hated having to add more to her plate, but I didn’t want to hide the tsunami headed our way.
Draco jumped onto her lap, and I was thankful for his comforting presence while I pulled up the messages from Dean. He’d added two more article links. Thank goodness for my friend. I owed that man my life right now.
“Oh,” she said, with a bit more pep. “Iamhappy you’rehere.” She smiled at me, and my entire world stopped its too-fast spinning. The way she looked at me left me feeling like everything would be all right. We could figure it all out.
I halted my scrolling and returned her smile.
“I’m happy to be here too.” I leaned forward and softly pressed my lips against hers. They were sweet, like the cherry ChapStick she wore, and a little salty from her tears. “Unfortunately, it’s not under the best circumstances. My trip here started out as this great, happy surprise. But… something happened midflight, and we need to talk.”
Chapter Twenty-Two - Aurora
I knew from experience that it was never good when someone said you needed to talk. In the past, it usually involved a breakup, or more recently, my brother. More specifically, the background check he ran on Talon that he decided to present me with while Talon was gone. I wasn’t sure what Andrew hoped would be his end game, but I hated that he went behind my back. Talon and I may not have started as a real couple, but we felt like one now.
I’d kicked Andrew out of my house and ignored his phone calls once again. I didn’t want to know what dirt he dug up on Talon. None of it mattered. I knew enough about him. And though he wasn’t the most open person, the people he let in and kept close showed the kind of man he was. And both Dean and Gigi were the best.
“What… What do you want to talk about?”
Was it that our contract was going to expire early, now that he’d been named the official CEO of Wilder Hotels? Was it something to do with the mess of his grandfather’s death and the arrest of his uncle?
Maybe he didn’t need the added stress of a wife, on top of all the chaos and changes happening in his life.
Or maybe he just didn’t want me anymore, now that he’d gotten everything he set out to get.
He leaned forward on the couch, running his hands through his short locks, then rested them on his cheeks before turning to look at me. “Someone, I think Olive, told the press about us. She gave them everything. A copy of the contract. The marriage certificate. The bank transfer statements. All of it.”
Shock hit me like a tidal wave. I knew there was always the possibility we could get caught, but the longer the marriage went on, the less likely I thought it would happen.
“How?” I whispered. “Why?”
“She was in cahoots with my uncle, and it appears her cousin was a woman I fu— had sex with occasionally. Apparently, the two women were already trying to find a way to destroy me when I met you. Then, when I started gunning for the official CEO role, my uncle got involved. They were in some weird love triangle, and he was helping them gather information on me. At least, that’s what Dean thinks. It was the only explanation we could come up with.”
I stared at him, dumbstruck. Talon continued talking about blackmail and exploitation, but I was stuck thinking about the woman he had been screwing. I’d never felt this level of jealousy before. It was so strong and severe that I wanted to hunt her down and show her how scrappy us small Southern girls could be.
“Aurora?”
“Oh, sorry. What… What did you say?”
“I just asked if you were okay. Right now, Dean has found information running on three news sites. There will probably be more soon.”
“Oh. Okay. What do you want to do?”
“Honestly?” he asked, and I nodded. Talon’s features dropped like he just fought a battle and lost. “I just want to make love to you and go to sleep.”
My stomach did a crazy flip, like I was out on a boat rocking in the waves, when he said he wanted to “make love.”
“That sounds like the perfect way to end the day.”
Talon brought me to orgasm three times before he finished inside me. We’d made a mess in my bed with some chocolate syrup he found in the refrigerator. After changing thesheets and taking a shower, where he fucked me against the shower wall, we laid in bed silently. I rested my head on his chest, listening to the strong thumping of his heart. On his left hand, he wore his wedding band, and I ran my finger across the metal. Once news of our contract spread, things were going to change. And as I laid there with my husband, I was too afraid to fall asleep. I wasn’t ready for our bubble to burst yet.
I woke before Talon, something that never happened. I was sure with the stress of the last two weeks that he had to be exhausted. He had wrapped his arm around my waist and held me close, as if he was scared I’d run off during the night. As I slowly slipped out of his hold, Draco lifted his head from the foot of the bed.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “You stay there.” The menace never listened to me, and so he stretched, then jumped down from the bed to follow me out to the kitchen.
I didn’t suspect Talon would sleep much longer, so I raided the fridge and pulled out some fixings for omelets. I added some peppers and sausage to the egg mixture—peppers that were grown in my family garden and left over from the farm stand.
