Consequences of Deception (32 page)

I didn’t make much money at the café so Pepper was our breadwinner. Well, if you call having a monthly trust fund “breadwinning” then she was definitely it. Her dad was a high-powered attorney there in the city and didn’t want his little girl to hurt for anything. We lived in a sweet little apartment and didn’t hurt for much either thanks to Pepper being “Daddy’s Little Girl.” Oh, and she played the part so well. The girl could be downright bitchy, but when—Daddy—was around, her voice was as sweet as sugar.

Thankfully, I was going to start my new job on Monday and would be able to help Pepper out more than just buying the groceries. Even though her dad took care of a lot for us, I still felt guilty about being a total freeloader. Today was my last day at the café and now we were going to celebrate. It took several months after college of applying all over the city to finally land a job at Compton Enterprises. The job I really wanted was to be an architect, but working as an assistant at an architectural firm was a good foot in the door. Everyone has to start somewhere.

“One day I’ll go with you guys. But it’s just too soon. Please have fun for me. I have a date with American Idol,” she smiled at me.

“Okay, fine. But I’m holding you to it. Now, how do I look?” I asked her, flipping my hair over my shoulder.

Ever since the day I found Brayden cheating on me, something in me snapped. Gone was the blond-haired innocent. Gone was my optimism. My outlook on life and love had been ruined the moment I saw that girl’s big tits bouncing as she rode my man. He had stolen it all away from me when he decided to sleep with some bimbo after almost four years of dating.

Now, I was this hard, jaded woman. Away had gone my conservative ways and I had welcomed my inner skank. I glanced at my reflection in the full-length mirror on the wall. My platinum-blond hair was flat-ironed perfectly straight halfway down my back. I had carefully made up my face, complete with smoky eyes and plump red lips. The dress I chose to wear was black, tight, and short. Just the way I liked it. The plunging neckline revealed my adequate cleavage. My red pumps put me up three inches higher than my five foot seven frame.

“You look beautiful as always, Andi,” Olive genuinely assured, making me smile at her.

I was in “Man-Killer Mode” as Pepper called it. I’d have them falling at my feet tonight. One of them would get lucky too. I was on the prowl, and even Pepper wouldn’t be able to tame me. This Friday night was about to get crazy.

“Thanks, babe. See you in the morning,” I waved to her as I grabbed my clutch and walked out my bedroom door. Pepper was curled up in the recliner reading a book. “Let’s go, bitch,” I told her as I shrugged into my coat.

“About time, bitch,” she shot at me, picking up hers from the back of the chair as she stood up.
Man-Killer Mode: Activated.

An Excerpt from Aly Martinez’ new book CHANGING COURSE

Prologue

“Sarah, don't do this. Damn it! Stay with me." I reach over and gently brush the blood-soaked hair off her forehead.

Even in this horrific moment, I'm in absolute awe of how beautiful she looks. Bleeding and broken, unmoving in my arms, she is still the most mesmerizing woman I have ever laid eyes on. Deep down, I know this is just the husk of my wife. My Sarah would never have done this to herself. More importantly, she would have never done this to me. Maybe it takes this level of madness, but I finally realize that I have lost her completely.

Whether she lives or dies, Sarah is gone. This is not the woman who made me laugh more in seven years than the rest of my life combined. She definitely isn't the woman who I spent years planning a future with, a future that now no longer exists. I feel a heavy weight in my chest at my silent confession, but oddly enough I also feel a weight lifted off my shoulders. I have watched this woman disintegrate in front of my eyes for almost seven months. Every day losing her a little more. The light in her eyes fading, while piece by piece and bit by bit, she lost grip of reality. Mentally, emotionally, and now physically, she's left me.

My Sarah died seven months ago on her way home from dinner, and I will never see her walk back into my life. Suddenly, I can't breathe. I'm terrified, and not only because Sarah might finally succeed in taking her own life. I'm paralyzed by the realization that my life is spiraling down in a free fall headed straight for misery, and the only thing I can think to do is anchor myself to this dying woman. I love Sarah with all my heart, but I am not clinging to the woman in my arms, but rather to the life I thought we were going to have together. I have to accept that she isn't there anymore. Her heart might still be beating but the bloody, confused, emotionally lost woman I am holding now, is only the shell of my first and only love.

"Where the fuck is that ambulance!" I yell as loud as my cracking voice will allow. Stroking the little bit of her unmarred skin that I'm able to reach, I whisper in her ear, "Hang on baby." Then I repeat the one sentence I have said almost daily since the tragic event that stole her from me. Maybe I say it for her, maybe just for me, but I know it is the biggest lie I have ever uttered. "Just hang on baby, it's all going to be okay."

An excerpt from Tessa Teevan’s book, IGNITE

Prologue

I fucking hate you sometimes…

The words replay in my head as if on loop. Like I’ve died and gone to Hell, where I’m tortured with those five cruel words over and over again. The words that came from the same lips that used to whisper “I love you” as he held me in the middle of the night. The lips that, at one point, couldn’t wait to say “I do.” Those beautiful lips I thought I’d spend the rest of my life kissing. “I fucking hate you…” Yep, definitely Hell.

Hell on Earth, that is. I’m still here. He’s the one who’s gone. The love of what I thought would be my life, the man I married, the one I was so sure I’d wake up to every single morning until the good Lord decided to bring me home. The same man, who, on what was unknowingly his last day, spoke those five heartless, torturous words he will never, ever get the chance to take back. That man’s gone, and I’m still here, broken and alone.

I’m not a complete idiot. Just an overly dramatic one at times. I know my husband loved me. He’d loved me for more than seven years, and that didn’t change. We just spent the morning lying in bed for a few extra minutes so we could be close. He fingered my hair as he told me he loved me and was looking forward to the weekend getaway we had planned. He wasn’t going through the motions; he meant every word as he gave me a preview of what he had planned for our downtown Chicago hotel—if we ever decided to get out of bed and hit the road. It’s just that I can be a raging psycho when I’m PMSing. Then throw in a wine hangover and I turn into Satan’s worst nightmare. Every month it’s either intense cramping for four days or my husband wonders where this crazy bitch stashed the sweet woman he married. Suffice it to say, I was not cramping this month.

I understood his frustrations with me when I was like that, and any other time I would’ve just ignored those words because I usually deserved them. I knew he’d end up doing something to make me laugh in the moments that followed because neither of us could stay mad for long. This was different. He’d never used the word hate before. It caught me by surprise, and at the time, I was extremely thankful for the sunglasses on my face as I looked out the window at the fields of towering windmills on the Indiana countryside.

Hate. I
hate
onions. I
hate
Ohio drivers in the winter. I
hate
anything sparkly-vampire related.

I hate a lot of things, I really do, but it’s a strong emotion I only use when thinking about trivial things. My husband, though? Never, not once, have I ever felt hatred towards him, and it tore me in two to hear him say those words. And what’s worse is that I’ll never hear him say anything again.

We never did make it to Chicago. I don’t remember much about that accident. Actually, I don’t remember the accident at all. A car accident. I used to think that was so cliché. Couldn’t life be a little more creative? And now, here I am, widowed at twenty-six because of a damn car accident I have no memory of, only splotchy nightmares that just give me snippets of what happened.

The eye witness and police reports say that a young college student was running late to get onto the Purdue campus for his early afternoon classes. He cut us off, clipping the front end of our car. We ended up spinning into oncoming traffic where we were hit by an SUV on the driver’s side. He was killed instantly. I was knocked unconscious. When I woke up the next day in an Indianapolis hospital, I knew.

“Mrs. Tate, I wish we could have done something, but he was killed on impact. Take solace in knowing that he felt no pain…”
The doctor continued, but his words were drowned out in my mind, replaced by others.

I fucking hate you sometimes.