Chapter 14

I like when you laugh. Your tits jiggle. Giggle Jiggle Tits.

-Janie to Kayla

Janie

“You have two seconds to get the fuck out of my hotel room before I throw you out myself,” I heard Rafe’s voice raise on the other side of the door.

Lucky for me the door hadn’t closed all the way, and as I pushed through it moments later, I realized that Rafe had done that on purpose.

I found out why when the door opened, and he pointed at me with his finger, though he wasn’t actually looking at me.

“Get out. Now,” Rafe repeated.

I saw Elspeth standing there looking upset. “But why?”

She hadn’t seen me yet, and before she could, I backed away and hurried toward my own door.

My door was actually connected to his suite, meaning if I went into my own room, I’d be able to hear everything that they were saying. Especially with the way their voices were raised.

I slid my key card into the slot and threw the door open to my room, hurrying to the door that separated my suite from Rafe’s.

How in the hell we’d gotten two rooms directly next to each other, I did not know. But I thanked God that we did.

“Out. Now,” Rafe repeated.

Moments later, I heard the door slam, and Rafe start pacing.

I bit my lip and scooched closer to the door, pressing my ear to it.

Then he started talking, I assume, to someone on the phone.

“I hope you know that you just fucked me over so spectacularly that I don’t think I can ever forgive you,” Rafe said. “If there was one thing in this world that you could have done in this whole nightmare to screw me over, not telling me about her was it. I’ve wasted months. Months, Raven. You’ve had so many chances to tell me that I can’t even begin to count, yet you kept quiet. Goodbye.”

Then I heard something hard hit the floor next to the door, and I realized he’d thrown his phone.

I hurried to the door of my room, peeked through the peephole, and grinned.

Elspeth was pulling her suitcase behind her, angrily looking over her shoulder as she did.

Her glare at the door made it clear that she was pissed.

I waited until the elevator doors closed on her before I opened my own door and headed out.

My hand was hovering over the wood of his door when I came to my senses.

This wasn’t a good idea. Not at all.

He may have remembered, but I was a freakin’ mess.

I’d left…

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

I startled and looked up, finding the door open.

When had he opened it, and how had he done it without making any noise?

“Uhhh,” I hesitated. “You shouldn’t have done what?”

“Told her to leave.”

“Why?”

And why the hell was my heart hurting?

“Because I had a job going, and I need her exactly where I had her,” he answered. “If she’s not there, she’ll stop informing on the man I have you keeping a cyber eye on, and this case will slip through my fingers. I’m so fucking close I can taste it, but I couldn’t stand her lies anymore.”

“What lies?” I breathed.

I’d get to the job part of it later.

“The lie that she told the day at the hospital when I couldn’t fucking remember anything to tell her differently,” he said, his eyes on me.

“And what was that?” I breathed, hope filling my voice. Not to mention my heart.

“Her being my fiancée,” he answered instantly. “She was never anything more to me than what she was, which was a means to get in with and watch her father.”

“Rafe…” I whispered.

“She’s not my fiancée,” he said moments later. “She never has been, and she never will be. The most we’ve ever done—at least before I lost my memories—was kiss.”

My stomach bottomed out.

“What did you do after?”

I didn’t want to know.

I really didn’t.

But I had to know. I had to know so we could put this behind us.

His eyes stayed steady on me, then a door opened down the hall behind us.

He yanked me into his hotel room and slammed the door shut, causing me to gasp in surprise at the suddenness of his movements.

Rafe’s eyes stayed steady on me as he pushed me up against the door.

“Wouldn’t want that slime bag husband of yours interrupting us,” he growled, suddenly very mad.

I opened my mouth to explain, but he stopped me.

“You should’ve told me,” he whispered. “You should’ve stayed strong. You should’ve waited. You should’ve believed in me.”

“I…”

“You didn’t,” he hissed. “You didn’t believe in me. Nobody ever does.”

I narrowed my eyes, again opening my mouth to say something, but he stopped me again before I could.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

I gritted my teeth.

“She lied about being my fiancée,” he said. “Then you lied by not telling me everything. By letting me believe that we didn’t have anything. Everybody lied. Trace. Your father. Sam. My sister. Everybody else, I would’ve been okay with. What I’m not okay with is you not telling me the truth, and then going and getting yourself hitched. I think, out of everything that’s happened to me, that hurts the worst.”

Before he could say another word, I pushed him away from me as hard as I could, anger making my blood simmer.

“I didn’t get married,” I growled. “I hoped, by me going through it all, that you’d remember. That you’d remember leaving me behind. But you didn’t. And I got desperate, okay? I got desperate, and I wanted you to remember. I wanted you back in my life. I wanted you to be there, and that was the only way I could do it under the circumstances.”

“What circumstances?” he hissed.

“You know,” I urged. “I know. You know. Everybody knows.”

“Humor me.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “What does everybody know?”

I opened my mouth to tell him, the devastation clear in my voice as well as the pain in my chest, but the pounding in the hallway temporarily halted what I was about to say.

“What…”

“Janie, open the door!”