“This is your wedding?” I asked, my eyes going wide.

My head throbbed from the night before. My body throbbed from the night before. My head was angry that I drank too much. My body was angry that I didn’t let Zayne finish what we’d started.

I grabbed the wedding invitation. “This is yours?”

“Yeah,” Zayne said. “I’m invited to a wedding.”

He smirked.

I looked at the invitation and shrugged my shoulders. It was cliché enough to be in a catalog. A pretty light color with a vibrant cursive text spelling out the names, the date, the location, and the RSVP date.

“You missed this one, huh?” I asked.

“Fuck the RSVP,” I said. “It came with a little side-note. I’m assumed to be there.”

“Okay. So why does it matter? I don’t recognize these names. Unless your name is really Scott and you’ve been lying to me this entire time.”

Zayne looked away for a second.

Was he lying to me about something?

“No, my name isn’t Scott,” he said. “My name is Zayne. I can prove that if you don’t believe me.”

“Of course I believe you,” she said. “So, what’s with this?” I waved the invitation.

“That’s the one who broke my heart, darlin’.”

My face dropped. “Oh.”

I swallowed hard.

“Yeah. Oh.”

I looked at the invitation differently now. I raised an eyebrow and then my gaze to Zayne. “She sent you an invite to her wedding?”

“She saved a spot for me,” Zayne said. “And a ‘plus one’ spot. Because that’s what she does.”

“What do you mean?”

Zayne curled his lip. “We were engaged. It was a terrible decision but it was the next logical step in the relationship. It got to a point where things were just on a conveyor belt or some shit. You know? Just going with the motions of the days, nights, weeks, months. Steph was a drain. That was her thing. A few people warned me but I wanted what I wanted. She was the impossible to obtain and I got her. As long as I gave her everything she wanted.”

“Which was?” I asked.

“Everything but me,” Zayne said.

“Oh, Zayne…”

“We started to wear each other out, though,” he said. “Finally, we sat down and just called it all off. I couldn’t take anymore. She said she couldn’t take anymore either. Which was bullshit. The thing… she was quick to take the ring off. She gave that back to me. Like she respected me or something. I actually let my guard down when she gave me the ring back. There was something about the way she did it. Her eyes filling with tears. Handing me the ring. Hugging me. Clutching at my fucking shirt. Then she looked up at me and touched my face. She whispered that she wanted to start over. She wanted me to fuck her right then and there. No ring. No commitment. Just the two of us.”

I felt a wave of jealousy roll through me. It made me sting with anger from head to toe.

“What happened?” I asked.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“You did.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Right there on the spot. Like she wanted. It’s hard to explain love, real or fake. It just gets to you sometimes, you know?”

“I know,” I said. “Why do you think I took off when I did? I couldn’t be near Parker or Abby. I couldn’t hear their excuses or else I’d start to believe them.”

“That’s why you’re amazing, Bella,” he said.

“Sorry. Go back to you now.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t even have my jeans zipped up before Steph smirked at me and grabbed her bag and left. She took off right then and there, leaving me hanging high and dry.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. She called me to ask for money. Said she needed to clear her head. I was dumb enough to give it to her. I thought maybe if she cleared her head things would turn out for the best. At that time, I was bouncing between two tattoo shops. It wasn’t very fun, to be honest. Too many rules. Too much of a schedule. My heart wasn’t enjoying it. Maybe it went beyond that, though. Dealing with Steph and her bullshit all the time. She called me to tell me she was pregnant.”

My eyes went wide. “What?”

“Yeah,” Zayne said. “She said our little fun on the table after breaking up got her pregnant. I told her she needed to come back home so we could figure out what to do. She told me she needed more money to get back. So, I sent more money to her.”

“She didn’t come back, did she?” I asked.

“Oh, she came back. Don’t worry about that. She came back. She came back with a long list of demands for me. Threatened to take me to court over the pregnancy if I didn’t do what she wanted. She knew how to hit hard and hit home to get what she wanted.”

“So this means…you have a kid with her?”

Zayne shook his head. “No.”

“Oh, no. What happened?”

“She was never pregnant,” Zayne said.

“Holy shit.”

He nodded. “She drained my bank accounts and got me to sell my truck to get an SUV. I was dumb enough to put the SUV in her name, which made it hers. The only thing I got out of her was the ring back. That was it. Everything else was hers.”

“Wait. She faked a pregnancy?”

“She was with another man,” he said. “For a while, I guess. Fucking him while wearing the engagement ring I gave her. Plotting out this whole thing to fuck with me. That’s all it was. Her getting back at me for wanting to break up.”

“She sounds like a crazy bitch,” I said.

“Yeah. Well, crazy enough to start over, meet someone new, and then invite me to their wedding.”

“Is this the guy she…”

“No,” I said. “She met someone else. I took off after it all exploded. I quit my job and rode my motorcycle around. I crashed at a few places, just trying to drink away the confusion. It wasn’t so much pain as confusion. And I was pissed off at the world.”

“Rightfully so,” I said.

“I met Tate and he offered me a chance to tattoo at St. Skin. Just temporary. So, I snagged this gem of an apartment and here I am today.”

“How did she find you?”

Zayne rubbed his chin. “Yeah. That. She called me a few times. She said she wanted to apologize. I was dumb enough to believe her. She wanted to meet up. So, I invited her here. She didn’t want to apologize. She wanted to play games with me.”

“Games?”

“She wanted me to fuck her.”

“Did you?”

Zayne smirked. “No. I kicked her ass out. A couple months later, the invitation showed up. It’s her way of rubbing it in deeper. She’s telling me she’s giving something to someone else. Because she knows it matters to me.”

“Why does it matter?” I asked.

Zayne stood up and stuck his hand into his left pocket. Then he hesitated. “Never mind that. Just drink your coffee, darlin’.”

I watched him storm away and I wasn’t going to let that slide.

There was something else he was hiding.

And I wanted to know the truth.

* * *

I opened the bedroom door, and Zayne sat on the corner of his bed. There was something about a sexy guy looking sad that was my ultimate weakness. Seeing his muscles so thick, his body so strong, those sexy tattoos scaling his arms, and then seeing his eyes looking beat-up and downcast, it was killing me.

“Zayne,” I said. “You don’t have to hide anything from me. I didn’t hide anything from you.”

He licked his lips. “It’s stupid stuff, Bella.”

“Stupid stuff, huh?” I asked. I folded my arms and leaned against the open doorway. “Like forcing yourself to be with someone who doesn’t love you? Or better yet, actually sitting there, in the room where he fucked my best friend, touching the sheets that smelled like her stupid fucking hippie soap, and actually thinking it was my fault. Thinking that I had pushed him to her and her to him. That I made it happen because I was working too much at a fucking diner. That I was the problem. Or stupid like putting my head down to the pillow where I had seen her head resting as he thrust into her. Shutting my eyes. Smelling…”

“Okay, I got it,” he said. “Christ, darlin’. Why do that to yourself?”

“The only time I feel alive anymore is if I’m in pain.”

I blinked fast, breathless, not sure why I just blurted that out to him.

Zayne then rose up. He nodded. “Okay. Here’s the deal then. When I was a kid, I had nobody. No real friends. Not much family. The little family I had were all burn outs. My father came and went as he pleased, always looking for the next big scam, but always settling on drugs. My mother wasted herself away, and my only friend was the TV. I would draw a lot, but if anyone found my drawings they’d burn them.”

“Burn them?”

“Because it was a waste of fucking time,” Zayne said. “I would watch TV and dream about the families I saw. All those dumb shows where they’d have a stupid argument and then make up a few minutes later. Sappy music playing. Everyone hugging. Life was perfect for them. So that’s why it mattered to me. That’s why the invitation is such a stab to my heart. Steph knows all of this. It’s what she does best.”

I was shocked. I never took a guy like Zayne to have such soft spots.

He stepped toward me, and I didn’t move. He was then just a few inches from me.

I told myself right then and there, if he was going to kiss me, I was going to pull him to the bed and not stop him this time.

“Zayne…”

“Bella,” he said. “There’s something else I wanted to show you. Actually, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Oh?”

Zayne stepped back and reached into his left pocket. He took his hand out and opened it.

I saw the ring, then heard his question.

“Darlin’, will you marry me?”