Never Say Never, Part Four (Second Chance Contemporary Romance, Book 4)
Read Never Say Never, Part Four (Second Chance Contemporary Romance, Book 4) Online
Authors: Melissa Shaw
Never Say Never
Part Four of
The Never Say Never Series
Melissa Shaw
Table of Contents
To my loved ones. Thanks for believing in me.
CHAPTER ONE
“What did you just say?”
Emily gripped her shirt under her chin and glared at Janet.
Janet pranced around the room, checking out Emily’s decorations, her TV, Joseph cowering slightly on the couch.
“Yeah, Brian killed Chase’s parents.”
The redhead repeated it with a derisive half-snort, half-giggle.
No matter how many times she heard it, it wouldn’t click into place in her mind. This was impossible. She’d been in the driver’s seat, she’d been drunk, and she’d done the time for god’s sake.
“I –
I. How?”
“Oh come on, I knew you were stupid, but this is just ridiculous.”
Janet charged up to her and met her nose-to-nose. Her breath was distinctly rancid –
fish tacos and tequila –
and Emily grimaced. “Think about it, bitch. Who was the only witness to the murders?”
“Brian,”
she breathed through her mouth and didn’t back down.
“And who testified against you?”
“Brian.”
“And who had your kids taken away from you?”
“Brian,”
she finished with a low grumble. Amanda straightened in the corner and glared at Janet through narrowed eyes.
“That’s right, sweetheart. Brian Ross is the sum total of your problems.”
The dance instructor finally backed off with a choked guffaw.
It made sense. But how? And how did Janet know it was true? This had to be some ploy to disarm her and keep her away from Chase.
“How do you know?”
Emily paced to the kitchen counter and swept up a wine bottle, then ripped the cork out with her teeth and spat it over her shoulder.
“Because she’s fucking him,”
Amanda piped up. She wasn’t in tears, but glared directly at Janet, the hatred was so intense that Emily was distracted from the unadulterated need for revenge against her ex-husband.
“How do you know?”
Janet and Emily said it in unison, then gave each other quizzical looks.
“You think I’m stupid?”
Amanda slung her arms over her knees and rested her head back against the doorjamb. “Do you really think I don’t know what’s going on in my own house?”
“Maybe if you knew how to satisfy your man, this wouldn’t be a problem.”
Janet smiled and spread her arms. “Everybody thinks they’ve got what it takes, until they realize they’re not me.”
“Oh God, please stop, you’re embarrassing yourself,”
Emily put in. The dance instructor clearly had severe self-esteem issues if she had to chase down every married or taken man in a 5 mile radius. “I should get tested,”
she remarked to herself.
“I’ve done nothing but satisfy my husband.”
Amanda whispered it, but in a fierce hiss which smacked of a cat preparing to pounce. It was true. Amanda had aborted her baby for Brian, she’d gone to a place Emily wouldn’t have if he’d put a gun to her head.
“Then why’s he want me?”
“You’ve got me. I don’t see a single reason why he’d want you, regardless of his commitment to me or anyone else.”
Amanda rose from her position on the floor, grappling with the wall to get herself upright.
“Both of you need to leave,”
Emily said. Joseph sat up straighter and she encompassed him in her glance. “Make that the three of you.”
“Not before I’ve had my piece,”
Janet snapped and stormed towards Amanda, but the fake blonde had strengthened. Perhaps it was the instructor’s presence, or the revelation that Brian was a damn monster.
But how could it be true? Janet had handed her a piece of information which could ensure she got her kids back…
but she had no proof.
“What are you going to do? Dance me to death?”
Amanda laughed hard, and the red head slowed to a halt in front of her. “There’s nothing you can do to me, which would hurt me more than what I’ve done to myself.”
Janet’s mouth flapped open and closed for a bit. She was a goldfish - a crimson one –
without water for air. “Brian is –”
“What? Brian’s yours? Don’t lie to yourself, kid. He doesn’t care about you and you don’t care about him either. Get away from me.”
Amanda sighed and pointed to the open door. “Take your drunk ass home. Sleep it off, and be ready for a call from my lawyer’s.”
“For what?”
Janet’s eyes widened.
“Defamation of character. Trespassing.”
The instructor trembled from head-to-toe, then bent and threw up on Amanda’s shoes.
“Oh my god,”
Joseph groaned and clapped a hand to his mouth.
“Get out of my apartment. Now.”
Emily yelled it at them to garner their attention, when really she wasn’t angry anymore. Not with them. Not with anyone but herself, for believing Brian’s lies when she should’ve known better from the start.
He’d never loved her and she’d known on a deep level, but she’d let him get away with murder. Literally.
“I’ll be back,”
Janet pronounced, waggling her finger in the air, but it was an empty threat. She was nothing if not a coward. She’d needed alcohol for the confrontation and even then it’d been half-baked at best. She was a spider, operating in the shadows but without the finesse of an elaborate web.
“Out.”
Joseph rose, Janet marched out the front door, but Amanda stayed put.
“I’m sorry, Emily.”
“What? Why?”
She grasped at her chest and sighed. There was nothing for it but to find a way to prove Brian was guilty and she was innocent.
“I knew all along.”
“I found out about Janet a while ago. I should have told you but I didn’t think it would do anything but anger you and make you stay with him anyway.”
Amanda gritted her teeth, then placed her hands over her abdomen. A haunted expression of pain appeared. “I’m not talking about Janet.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“Brian. I knew he killed Chase’s parents and not you.”
Emily staggered back a few paces and Joseph appeared at her side to hold her upright. She waved him off.
“How?”
“I taped it. I have proof.”
CHAPTER TWO
“What are you talking about?”
Emily was frozen in place, staring at her old high school friend. “Amanda, what did you tape?”
The blonde woman sighed and her shoulders drooped. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be his woman and do what I shouldn’t. I’ve given up too much already.”
“What’s going on?”
Joseph was still at her side, trying to grasp her arm or hand or some part of her damn body every two minutes. She batted him off for the third time.
“Amanda?”
Emily balled her hands into fists. The tension which had entered her at Janet’s revelation wouldn’t go anywhere.
There was a reckoning on the way.
“I had my doubts about Brian since the beginning, you know.”
Amanda raised her hands into the air in surrender, then swung them up behind her head to brace it. There were dark rings under her eyes.
“I’m glad to hear it,”
Emily replied. But what had she taped?
“Yeah, I figured he might be cheating. He was always out late, there were strange texts on his phone, calls at all hours. I mean, congressmen don’t have midnight meetings unless they’re dirty or something.”
Joseph shifted beside her but she didn’t give him the attention he sought.
Amanda strolled to the coffee table and picked up Joseph’s wine glass. She took a small sip, pulled a face, then placed down again. “I decided I’d rather know. Maybe I could confront him about his ways and he’d changed.”
“You know that would never work,”
Emily replied, gently. A nudge in the right direction, hopefully. Brian Ross was a poison, and no woman deserved that septicemia. Not even Janet and that said a lot.
“I know, I know. But I had to know,”
Amanda shook with the intensity of the sentiment. “So I told Brian I had a dinner date with some girlfriends and I’d probably be out late. I had the camera ready and everything, I wanted to do it firsthand, so it would be real to me when I saw it happen.”
She paused for a second, then nodded.
“Actually, I kinda hoped I’d stand there waiting for him to come home and he’d be innocent. Just have his evening whisky and mosey on up to bed.”
She made a walking motion with two fingers.
Joseph tried to touch Emily again. She grunted at him.
“But he didn’t come home alone.”
Amanda choked up. “He was with that redhead bitch and he was drunk as hell. They started kissing, but he stopped and pushed her away. She got angry with him and asked him what his problem was, and that’s when it happened.”
“What happened?”
Emily cast a wary glance at Joseph. He didn’t need to hear any of this, but if he’d be her lawyer, perhaps it was a good thing.
“He told her that he’d killed Chase’s parents. God, it was awful, I wanted to throw up a little. I could scarcely believe the words coming out of his mouth.”
“Why would he tell her?”
She’d said it more to herself than anything.
“He was distraught. It was the first time I’ve seen emotion like that in him. I mean, you know how he is.”
Cold, clinical, unable to love. Everything with Brian Ross was a shadow of the truth, a mimicry to keep others satisfied. Inside, he was bare, a void which trapped others and forced them to give and give and give, and get nothing back. Except for pain.
“He sobbed to her, he told her that he’d ruined your life on purpose and sometimes he doubted whether it was the right thing to do.”
“Poor guy,”
Emily hissed softly, with so much venom that Amanda blinked.
”Then Janet held him, kissed his cheek and told him he’d done the right thing. He’d done what he had to do to survive.”
Emily turned beet red from head to toe. How dare she?!
“Brian cheered up a bit then. He agreed with her, said he wouldn’t let anything jeopardize his career. That he was the man who’d be president one day, and anything he’d done was for the good of the country.”
“That’s comforting,”
Emily replied.