Page 135 of Say I Do

“Why?” I asked. I shook my head as I remembered not going home. “No, don’t answer that. I’m pretty sure it’s because he figured out I was avoiding him.”

“I don’t know about all that,” Tex said as he rubbed the back of his neck. "He was drinking quite a bit at Blu, and then he confessed he’d found those pages.”

“What pages?” I asked, an uneasy feeling having settled over me. Still, I told myself there was no way in hell it could bethosepages.

“The ones that he wrote,” Tex said quietly before his gaze darted from Enzo back to me once more. “Brycen.”

My heart felt like it would hop right out of my chest.No fucking way.I never would have imagined that was what Harlow had found in a million years. How did he get to them? I’d always kept them stashed away, far from the light of day. I tried to remember where they were last. I hadn’t taken them to bed with me in months or laid them out on the coffee table in ages. No, Harlow had to have dug them up from my floor safe. It was the one place I stashed all the shit I never wanted to look at, but might one day be important.

“Shit,” I swore. “Why didn’t he say anything?”

Tex shrugged. “I don’t know. At first, he didn’t even say anything to me. I had to pry it out of him,” he admitted. “Afterward, he was weird. Your mother told him to pack a bag, and he went with her by the time the night was over.”

“How did he react?” I asked, a bit too much bass in my voice. I sucked in a breath and calmed myself. “I mean, was he okay? Was he pissed off? What did he say?”

“Not much,” Tex said. “He looked... hurt. Sad. Upset.”

Harlow? I stared off into space as I tried to imagine a world where Harlow would be upset with me because of Brycen’s journal pages and not absolutely enraged and plotting my death.I think I prefer the murderous side of him.That would be a hell of a lot better than him sitting somewhere sad because of what he’d found out. Sad because ofme.

“Where is he?”

“No idea,” Enzo cut in. “Your mother took him, remember? Why would we know?”

I sighed. “Sorry,” I said again. “I know I sound pissed off, but I don’t mean that at all,” I said to both of them. “You know I would never hurt your boyfriend. I would never do that to you, Tex.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I know. You’re just upset.” He shrugged. “We all get a little crazy when we’re like that.”

“It’s more than that,” I muttered.

“What is it?” Enzo pushed. When our eyes locked, realization dawned on his face. “You love him.”

I couldn’t deny it. Every time I tried to think about Harlow and what I wanted from him, I was plagued with the same odd feeling. My heart raced, my face flushed, and my stomach tightened. The truth socked me in the chest.

I was in love with Harlow Hayashi. Yes, he was everything I hated, everything I wanted to strangle on a good day, but he was mine. I’d fallen for the small bits of him, the ones other people had never and would never get to see.

“I love him.” As the words slipped from my lips I felt as if something broke, something changed. “Fuck, I love him.”

I sank onto a nearby chair and stared at my hands. Harlow. Out of all the people in the world, I’d fallen for my husband. The man was a walking, talking trainwreck, and I didn’t want anyone else. I stared up at my brother.

“What do I do with this?”

“You tell him,” Tex cut in as he laughed.

I frowned. “When? We’re getting married tomorrow.”

“What better time to tell your husband you love him than at your second wedding?”

Enzo nodded. “I agree. Seems like as good a time as any.”

My stomach tied into knots. Tomorrow. I would have to face Harlow, talk to him, and utter the words that terrified the fuck out of me.

What could possibly go wrong?

Today should be a celebration,but it wasn’t. I wanted nothing more than to get it over with. I didn’t want to see or speak to half the people there.

As I took in a deep breath, I had to hand it to Gabriela; the corset was a nice touch. It brought in my already slender waist. I pinned my hair up and pushed in black cross earrings. The corset went with the tux but I could pull it off for when I had to change into the dress later. Not that it mattered. I took in a shallow breath and finished putting on light makeup. In a few minutes, I would get married for the second time to a man I was in love with but didn’t love me back.

I glanced over at my bag. The diary pages taunting me. A dead man held Benito’s heart. The eyeliner pencil broke in my hand leaving black smudges behind. I let the pencil drop to the ground and leaned against the wall to breathe.This isn’t important right now.I repeated it over and over again until I could almost believe it.

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