Divine (8 page)

The server placed Trina’s drink on the table
and turned to Matt. Alarm etched in the woman’s face, and she shot
her a judgmental squint before asking, “May I get you
something?

“I’m good. Thanks. I don’t expect we’ll be
staying long,” he said to her, and the server stepped away.

What to say? He needed to leave five minutes
ago. “Um, I’m not sure what Bradley said, but I have—”

“He mentioned an appointment. Can you cancel?
I don’t have much leave.”

“I can’t.”

He lifted her right hand from the table and
placed it in his. With feather-like strokes, he brushed his fingers
across her skin. “I want to get naked with you.”

She squeaked out a noise, sounding like a
whimpering puppy. “Me too, but I have to—”

“What’s this?” a deep voice boomed.

She covered her mouth to stop the rising bile
from escaping.

“Why do you have your hands on my fiancé?”
Cal, wearing dress pants and a designer shirt, glared at Matt.

Her stomach lurched. The contents from her
belly splattered on Cal’s handcrafted, Italian dress shoes.

“What the hell?”

“Don’t yell at her,” Matt ordered.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Cal barked.

Sweat pebbled on her forehead, and her head
swam. Cal leaned toward Matt with his hands fisted as if he’d
pounce at any moment. “Stop with the pecking order!”

Tiffany rushed to her with a wet towel.
Judgement—
What have you done?
—written in her expression as
she handed her the moist cloth.

A second later, a man wearing an apron and
carrying a wet mop arrived. After receiving his permission, he
swiped the ropes along Cal’s shoes and cleaned the spot on the
brick.

She smiled her thanks, and Tiffany and the
mop man walked away.

“Your fiancé?” Matt rose from his chair and
stepped backwards as if she’d contracted a contagious disease.

His questionable voice, the stressful tone in
his words, stabbed her to the bone.

“Yes!” Cal tugged her left hand to show Matt.
Her phone clattered on the brick.

Matt wore an expression she’d never seen. Not
even her father executed such a grim face. Tight-lipped, fast
breathing, the reddening in his face ripped at her soul. “Now I
know why you never answered my texts or my emails. My damn letters.
Why didn’t you tell me?” His tone grew rough, the force of his
words emphasized by the anger in his eyes.

Cadence’s prediction came to life. She felt
her and Matt’s closeness slipping. Ideally, she wanted to talk to
Cal before Matt, clear the air, resolve their relationship. Yet if
she didn’t do something fast, she would lose him. She yanked her
hand from Cal’s grasp. “Matt—”

“Consider me dead.” His voice was lethal.
Worse, his rigid body language reflected the end of something
wonderful. He spun on his heels and stormed off.

“No! Matt!” A weight clamped her lungs. She
couldn’t catch her breath. “Ple-a-se! Let’s talk!”

He stopped at the edge of the patio. His
features turned more sullen than the day she met him after his
mother passed. “This is because of your parents. All these years,
they tried to stop us from being together. It finally worked.”

“No, no it’s not like that.”

“Tell it to your fiancé!”

Chapter
Four

The sound of tires peeling out of the parking
lot rippled her body in waves of convulsions. “No,” she sobbed.
“Matt!”

The truck’s turn signaled flash then
disappeared around the bend in the road.

She blew it.

“Katrina!” At Cal’s clipped tone, she
directed her attention to him. He sat in the chair Matt had
vacated. “All this time we’ve been together, you had a thing with
him?”

She expected Cal’s response to be pushy,
aggressive, even belittling, not pain-laced questions.

Her feelings toward Matt she couldn’t deny,
never could, regardless of how much she tried. Still, they never
had a date, let alone a fling. Until today, her thoughts stayed
wishful and not something she thought she would ever have. From her
stupid, stupid actions, she wouldn’t get a chance. “No. I
haven’t.”

“But you wanted to?” Cal’s pupils darkened.
His neck corded, and he rubbed his wrist, a combination of anguish
and anger radiating from him. “He’s the reason you haven’t wanted
to seal our commitment. The reason you didn’t want sex.” He dropped
his elbows to his knees and shoved his hands through his hair. “Why
didn’t you come clean?” His voice filled with the put-upon,
suffering breakup tone. “Why accept my ring?”

“I didn’t accept it. You forced it on me, and
I planned to return it.”

Cal rattled with emotions, his eyes darkened
and jaw muscles flexed as if steam would come out of his ears.
“When? Next year? After you’ve showed the world what I chump I
am?”

Going into the reasons of how they reached
their current predicament, specifically why she allowed herself to
live a lie, would prolong the conversation and anger Cal more.
Besides, she didn’t understand her own decisions. The last time she
felt sure of herself was by the river, throwing rocks and sharing
stories with Matt. “You have a right to your anger,” she said,
going for understanding. “I treated you unfairly. For that, I
apologize. I shouldn’t have let this last as long as I did.” Saying
the breakup was her fault and not his would sound lame and only add
to his misery. “You’re not a chump.”

“You did a damn good job of making me feel
like one. Why didn’t you call and tell me to go to hell instead of
set me up? Why have my dignity brought into question?”

For him to worry about what outsiders
thought, rather than be concerned she didn’t want to marry him,
proved he wasn’t invested in their relationship either. The guilt
that she treated him unfairly vanished. He’d used her too, probably
for her parents’ connection. She was the chump.

“Damn, he does mean something to you,” Cal
fumed. “Your parents assured me he vanished from your life.”

Matt’s comment about not receiving her
messages rushed back. She snatched her phone off the brick and
checked for cracks. Finding none, she pressed the message icon.

“They assured me that you and I would have
something special,” Cal said, his tone dropping to a low roar.

“My parents?” She asked on automatic pilot to
appease him while she searched her incoming messages.

“Yeah, your parents.”

Damnit. No messages.

“He’s not the type of man you need.”

She dropped her hand to her lap and gaped.
“And you are? You wanted to marry me without love. That’s not the
kind of man I want. How can you desire a loveless marriage?” Her
stomach tightened and the threat of bile rose again, but she’d
already thrown up her breakfast and had nothing left. Damn, the
spasms didn’t care. They sent wave after wave of cramps across her
abdomen.

“You’re perfect for me,” Cal snapped. “I
worked it out on paper, listed the pros and cons. We’ll make it for
the long haul.”

He appeared normal, sounded ordinary, but
talked like an alien. How sad he reduced the value of marriage to a
business deal. Not her. She needed love, wanted it, and would do
everything in her power to get it, to find the big bang. In Matt’s
eyes, she saw possibilities.

“You led me to believe you reciprocated my
feelings,” Cal said, drawing her attention.

“I’ll take full responsibility for making a
mess of things. There’s nothing more I can say.” She removed the
ring and placed it on the table in front of him. “You deserve
someone who loves you.”

Her phone beeped. The screen asked if she
wanted to block Bradley’s number. Strange, she must have hit
something when she checked her messages. She pressed no. The screen
changed to a list. A few numbers appeared. All numbers she’d
blocked when a solicitor called. Thumbing to the end, she arrowed
to the next page. One number showed, no name, just the digits,
numbers she knew too well—the date she and Matt had met.

“It may be the date of my mom’s funeral, but
I met my best friend that day. I want to remember it,” he had said
when she accompanied him and Travis to buy his first cell
phone.

She clasped her hand to her neck and pinched
the sides. Had she blocked him by accident? How could she have?

The day and time the number had been blocked
was over a year ago.
A year!

Heat bloomed from her stomach to her face.
Your parents assured me he vanished from your life.
She eyed
Cal with distaste and distrust. Her expression must have been grim
since he pulled his hand back. “What have you done?”

He rested in his chair and drummed his
fingers on the table.

The nerve!

“I did what I needed to do,” he said
matter-of-factly, without questioning what she referred to.

“You blocked Matt’s number?” She grounded out
each syllable. “How dare you!”

“You think I’d let a man overseas get in the
way of what I want? A man who doesn’t even have a financial
portfolio?”

“You pompous ass!”

“He’s no good for you,” Cal said. “You know
it. He doesn’t have the bloodline. He couldn’t honor the Lovett
name.”

For the first time in her life, her heritage
disappointed her. “I can’t even live up to the Lovett name. And, I
don’t want to!”

“You can’t be serious.” He chuckled. “Your
own mother doesn’t think Mr. Carson is good enough. Your parents
would toss you out if you married beneath your class. You’d depart
with the money and status for him?”

Every muscle in her body went slack. She
stared, mouth open. “My mother put you up to this?”

“Katrina—”

“It’s Trina!”

“Keep your voice down,” he barked. “I’m still
willing to make this work. Give us a chance. Think about it,
Trina
,” he said the nickname Matt had given her as if he bit
into a sour piece of candy. “We’re right together. We have good
connections. Good bloodline.”

“Bloodline? Oh great!” She stood. “You’re
comparing me to a canine.”

“If you walk away from me, I won’t give you a
second chance.”

She regretted several decisions she’d made.
Dating Cal topped the list. “You’re mistaken. I won’t be giving YOU
the second chance.” Then she added, “Asswipe” just to see Cal
cringe, before marching toward the parking lot.

Matt stormed into a bar in Georgetown, not
far from where he left Trina with her fiancé. Loud music blasted
his ears; the lights were low. He swept the filled bar, searching
for any available woman. It didn’t matter if her hair was short,
long, blonde or brunette, but definitely not a redhead. No Trina
look-a-likes.

Two women wearing low cut tops and short
skirts, a brunette and a blonde, beamed and waved him to the bar.
Exactly what he needed—horny women to boost his spirits.

“May I buy you ladies a beer?” He moved
between them to rest his forearms on the bar.

The blonde to his right slid her bare toe
along his shin. “Yes.”

He chuckled and gazed at the brunette, who
sipped a pink frozen substance through a straw. “I’m good.
Thanks.”

A blonde it was.

“When you get a chance, two beers, whatever
you have on tap,” he said to the bartender, who wore a nametag
reading JIM, and tossed a twenty on the counter.

In two shakes, Jim deposited the drinks in
front of them and snatched the money.

“So,” the blonde said and sidled against him,
pressing her breasts into his arm, “you’re rather spiffy. Hot
date?”

The band in the far corner changed the beat
to a slow melody.

He shifted and let her press those delectable
morsels square in his chest. “You’re it.”

“Oh.” She grinned, drank half her beer, and
stood. “Let’s go dance. Foreplay, if you know what I mean.”

He did. For the last decade, foreplay and him
had been friends. For what? To learn the woman he craved accepted
another man’s ring? To discover she didn’t wait for him to
return.

Nothing had come from him staying celibate,
not a damn thing.

It fucking sucks.
He was an idiot. His
gunny called it right when he said he sat on his balls.

No more. She chose to lose her virginity to
another. He wouldn’t wait any longer. To him, having sex meant
love, not tonight. Tonight he’d get his rocks off.

He guzzled the beer, enjoying the hell out of
the bite. “I’m in.”

“My name is Sally.”

She didn’t seem like a person named Sally,
but he wouldn’t question her. He tried to think of an alias.
“Matt,” he said, cause he couldn’t make himself lie
.
Damn.

“Matt,” she hummed, pressing her curves
against him. “You’re tense. How about another beer or something
stronger to help you relax?”

“Good idea.” He rolled his neck. He could do
this. Sex without love. Without Trina.