CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“If It Makes You Happy”

Evan

I was furious. Furious and so turned on I couldn’t see straight. Good thing I was in the lead, or Bobby and Tut would see my cock straining against my shorts. Painfully straining, no thanks to Tut. Is that what Quinn wanted? Flashes of her standing there with her hand between her legs traipsed through my brain. Jaw clenching jealousy ripped through me. That she was turned on enough to take care of herself in broad daylight, where anyone could see, made me see red. I wanted to beat Tut’s ass. He may be bigger, but I had anger on my side.

From behind me, Bobby asked, “Where did you and Chaz run off to?” Ignoring his question, I ripped open the door and stormed inside the house. “What the fuck is his problem?” I heard him say. My problem? Try problems. Tut wasn’t the only one screwing around on the job. When Chaz and I entered the house, we heard Alex-Ann—and it was clearly Alex-Ann—shouting Bobby’s name. It definitely wasn’t in anger, either. At the time, we thought it was funny. Now, not so much.

I steered them into the living room, and in an attempt to keep it professional—when what I really wanted to do was lay into them—I asked, “Did you talk to the clerk?”

“What’s your problem?” Tut growled. There was that damn question again.

“My problem is that I’m paying you two to do a job, not to fuck Quinn’s friends.” Bobby’s face blanked of all expression.

Tut’s brows shot up. “You got a thing for Gretchen?”

“No.”

“Alex-Ann?”

“No.”

“Then why do you care who we fuck? If you’d been here, we wouldn’t have been fucking anyone. We would’ve been offloading information, but since you weren’t...” he leaned forward, and in a menacing tone said, “we were having a little fun. So, I’ll ask again, why do you care?” He was right. I was being a dick. He didn’t know Quinn was watching. He didn’t know anything. Fuck!

Unclenching my jaw, I took two short steps back, dropped to the chair, and lowered my head to my hands. “You’re right. I’m sorry. This shit with Mandy is messing with me.”

“You’re not the only one. Why do you think we needed to blow off steam?” Tut questioned.

“You’re right,” Bobby cut in. “We’re here to do a job and took it too far.”

“Speak for yourself. If anything, I didn’t take it far enough,” Tut grumbled. I lifted my head in time to see Bobby mouth for Tut to shut the fuck up.

Before they started beating the hell out of each other, I asked, “Did you learn anything?”

“Boy, did we. It’s a damn good thing you’re sitting or this would knock you back a few feet,” Tut responded. And like that, the unease I’d been feeling shot to the oh-shit zone.

Bobby tossed him a look of warning, before answering, “The clerk—Serena is her name—didn’t file the marriage certificate because Mandy paid her not to.”

I waited for them both to take a seat before asking, “Why would she do that?”

“Start at the beginning,” Tut told him.

“You remember when I called the County Clerk’s office and asked about the certificate, only to discover one hadn’t been filed?” I nodded, and he continued, “That was Serena. I knew it the second I stepped inside the office and heard her voice. Just so you know, it’s a felony for a government official to tamper with public records.”

“The bitch could go to jail for not filing that document,” Tut clarified.

At my confused expression, Bobby said, “I told her who we were and what we wanted. When she started to lie, I simply reminded her that she’d already broken a few laws.”

Chuckling, Tut murmured, “Talk about diarrhea.” Bobby scowled and the chuckle morphed into a laugh. I was about to ask if they’d scared her into shitting her pants, when Tut shared, “You should have seen it. The second Bobby threatened her, those lips loosened right on up.” Bobby let out an exasperated sigh.

Dragging his gaze from Tut back to me, he explained, “According to Serena, Amanda called her roughly twelve weeks before the wedding. She told her she’d moved back, was excited they were living in the same town, and wanted to do lunch sometime. Serena was surprised, because she and Amanda didn’t exactly get along in high school. Regardless of the past, she took her up on her offer. Over lunch, they talked mostly about Serena’s job. She said Amanda didn’t talk about herself at all, which she found strange. When Serena let it slip that she was still trying to pay off her student loans, Amanda pounced.” Something about Bobby’s story bothered me.

“Did you say twelve weeks before the wedding?”

Bobby nodded. “That’s what she said, why?” The gears in my head shifted and then ground to a complete standstill.

“That would put it right around the first night we slept together...before she even knew she was pregnant. Are you sure you have the right date?”

“She was pretty clear about the timing,” Tut answered.

I sat in stunned silence, while trying to make the pieces of the puzzle fit together. If Mandy had lunch with Serena before we were even together, then... Understanding hit, and I closed my eyes.

“She planned it,” I rasped, my throat thick with emotion.

Slowly, I opened them back up to find everyone staring at me— both with understanding and sympathy mired in their expressions.

Lowering my head back to my hands, I whispered, “Mother fucker, she planned the whole thing.” A minute passed before I gained enough composure to ask, “Why?”

I could see the slow boil of anger simmering in the depths of Bobby’s eyes. For some reason this made me feel better, like I wasn’t completely alone in this fucked up nightmare.

“We’ll get to that in a minute, but first let me finish with Serena. She claims that Amanda paid her a thousand dollars to sign, but not to file, the marriage certificate, and at the last minute, she decided not to stamp it.”

“Did she say why?”

“Because somewhere in that stupid little brain of hers, she thought that if she didn’t stamp it, she would still be able to lie her way out,” Tut answered. “Serena isn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. It was hard not to feel sorry for the girl.”

“Did she tell you why Amanda wanted her not to file it in the first place?”

Bobby let out a harsh breath. “Get this, Amanda told Serena your parents didn’t approve of the marriage and that if your dad found out, he would disown you. She said she loved you too much to let that happen.” I shook my head in disgust and he continued, “She told us she let Amanda take the certificate home with her. They stayed friends after that but rarely saw each other. My call apparently caught her off-guard. That, and her boss being in the office that day, made her nervous, which led her to mess up the plan.”

“What? The fuck over Evan plan?” I asked, my words dripping with sarcasm. “I mean, seriously? If this was all for revenge, then Mandy definitely wins the award.”

Bobby’s brow furrowed. “Revenge?” he asked.

“What revenge?” Tut responded simultaneously. Shit. I forgot they didn’t know about high school.

“Mandy and I dated in high school.” Clearly neither of them was pleased by this little newsflash.

“You’ve been holding out on us,” Tut growled. I bristled at his accusatory tone. Fuck him. We held each other’s gaze, neither of us flinching, until Bobby cut in.

“Are you gonna tell us?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, still staring at Tut. He finally looked away and I began to tell the story. “We started dating when Mandy was a senior and I was a junior. Out of bed, we were a horrible match, but in bed, we lit up the sheets. For me, that was all there was to it. She was great in bed. I wasn’t stupid. I knew she wanted words of love and shit, but that wasn’t me. She did stuff to try and make me jealous, but then caught on that I didn’t care and stopped.”

“What happened?” Bobby asked.

“I wanted out. I was going to college and wanted to be free.”

“You dumped her,” Tut accused. Bobby glared at Tut, but Tut was too busy misinterpreting my words to pay attention. No wonder Bobby always looked pissed off. The guy was a real dick.

“No, I waited for her to get home for summer break and I let her down easy.”

“I bet she didn’t think it was easy,” he mumbled. What was with this guy?

Speaking over Tut, Bobby asked, “How did she take it?”

“She pretended to be cool with it, and the reason I say pretend is because once we were married, she harped on it.”

“As in how?” he asked.

“As in anytime we had a fight, she threw it in my face.”

“Is there more to the story or is that it?”

“That’s it. I saw her a few times over the next four years, but only in passing.” Bobby nodded his head as if it all made sense. However, I was still waiting for him to enlighten me.

“Okay, well, that was off subject but good to know. As far as the plan went, Mandy told Serena that if anyone was to call looking for the marriage certificate, Serena was to stall them and then call her immediately. Mandy would bring the certificate, Serena would stamp it and file it, and no one would know the difference.” A tiny ray of hope flared deep in my belly.

“She messed up.”

A small smile appeared on Bobby’s face. “She did. She called Mandy and when she told her what she’d done, Mandy went ape-shit on her. Get this, that was the same day as the break-in.” And another puzzle piece clicked into place.

“Mandy didn’t know I moved the boxes to the garage. She uses it for storage, not for parking. She thought I took them with me.”

“Which explains her motive,” he surmised.

“Tell him about Virginia,” Tut urged. Bobby and I both stared at him and he scowled. “What?”

Bobby eventually complied, but I could tell he was getting fed up. “On the drive back this afternoon, I put in a call to the County Clerk’s office in Richmond.” His words scored through me and I sucked in a deep breath. “They confirmed they have a wedding certificate for Amanda James and Ned Colliard on file in their office.” The breath whooshed from my lungs. I didn’t want to hope, but there it was.

“Mandy was married...”

“She still is,” Tut confirmed, before adding, “and it’s not to you, my brother.”

“So...I’m free?” I asked, thinking there had to be a catch.

A commotion in the entry hall caught our attention and the room went silent.

“Where’s Tut?” we heard Gretchen ask.

“In here,” Tut called out. Gretchen, Alex-Ann, and Quinn suddenly appeared in the doorway.

“You left me,” Gretchen whined, her bottom lip jutting about three inches over her top. Alex-Ann snorted and Quinn rolled her eyes. What she wouldn’t do, was look at me. She wasn’t looking at Tut either, I noted.

“Come on or we’re going to be late for work,” Alex-Ann griped.

Tut leaned forward and whispered something in Gretchen’s ear, making her respond with a breathy giggle. This time it was Alex-Ann with the eye roll, while Quinn turned a pretty shade of pink.

The more I stared at her, the more she resisted looking at me. Naughty, sexy country girl was playing a dangerous game. At least she was wearing a cover up. Not that it covered up much. Her legs were on full display and I could see a sliver of those damn bikini bottoms peeking out through the front opening. I’d just discovered that my wife of nine years was a bigamist and all I could think about was stripping the swimsuit from Quinn’s body and erasing all thoughts of Tut from her mind. What the fuck was wrong with me? My eyes grazed back up her body and halted on her gray-eyed stare. A stare that narrowed dangerously in on my now smiling face.

“Here, let us walk you out,” Bobby drawled.

As the crowd moved towards the front door, Alex-Ann and Gretchen both called out, “Bye Evan!”

“Later!” I replied.

“Where’s Quinn?” I asked on their return.

Bobby shrugged. “Showering, I think. Now, to answer your question from earlier, there is no legal documentation to back that you were ever married to Amanda James, but that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods just yet. You’re due in divorce mediation in two weeks. We still have to find the husband and you need to explain everything to your lawyer. Even then, this will likely have to go before a judge, where both parties will be forced to present evidence.”

“No fucking way. That could take months,” I clipped.

“Your lawyer will be able to tell you if there’s a way around it,” Bobby advised.

“Fuck that. I’m calling my dad. He knows every judge in the State of Texas.”

“Now we’re talking,” Tut growled. This earned him a scowl from Bobby and a smile from me.

“Talk to your dad, but right now, we need more time.” Bobby’s words reminded me of my talk with Chaz the other day.

“That’s easy. I’ll just cancel the mediation.”

“On what grounds?” they both asked.

“On the grounds that I want a reconciliation.” No one said a word.

Tut was the first to break the silence. “I would pay money to see the look on that bitch’s face when her attorney gives her the news.”

Bobby belted out a laugh. “I’ve got to say, that’s pretty fucking brilliant. She’s been playing the role of victim to her lawyers this entire time. You giving her what she’s been asking for will not only send her scrambling but will buy us the time we need. Which reminds me, right before the crew came in, I got an email confirming that the husband is back in Richmond. Tut and I were already heading that way this weekend, so this makes our job a hell of a lot easier.”

“You want to hear something funny? Three months ago, I would have given my left nut to see Mandy incarcerated. Now, she could be the princess of polygamy, for all I care. I just want her the fuck out of my life.” I pointed at the ceiling. “You know that woman upstairs? I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anything. That includes Meltdown, or hell, even music, for that matter. If there’s the slightest chance that I can be held to my marriage vows, I need you to tell me, because the one thing I can’t do, is hurt Quinn.”

Bobby’s face split into a smile. “Here’s how I see it. Without a properly documented marriage certificate there is no marriage. I would be worried about Mandy pulling a fast one, such as trying to get Serena to stamp and file the original certificate, or even attempt to claim a common law marriage existed, but being that Serena’s boss immediately sent her home and vowed to have the County attorney investigate right away, and the fact that Mandy is already married, neither of these would hold up in court. You still need to call your lawyer and cancel the mediation and we want you to follow through with your dad to see if he has a better solution, but as far as Quinn goes, my view is that you’re free to do as you please.”

“Someone’s coming down the stairs,” Tut warned. His words barely had time to settle when Chaz appeared in the doorway. Quinn was in his wake, but instead of stopping, she continued past the room and out the front door. Glancing down at my watch, I realized she was leaving for work. The fact that she was doing so without saying so much as a goodbye was not cool at all.

“Fill Chaz in. I’ll be right back,” I told them, and sprinted from the room.

Quinn was almost to her car when I caught up with her. As she made a move to open the door, I slapped my hand against it—at the same time pressing my front to her back, which forced her up against the side of the car. Her gasp told me she felt it, and trust me, there was a hell of a lot to feel. I’d never been this hard, never felt this way, never wanted something so damn much. Never. Fucking. Ever.

Dropping my lips to her ear, I whispered, “Do you feel it?”

“Evan—”

“Answer me,” I growled.

“Yes.” It came out as a half-whisper, half-groan.

“Is this what you wanted from Tut this afternoon?” I regretted it the minute I said it.

“No, you stupid man, it’s what I want from you,” she snarled, and I could tell that my little hell cat was getting fired up.

“What do you want, Quinn?” I needed to hear her say it.

“You,” she whispered in a barely-there voice.

“I can’t hear you.” God, I wanted to rip off those fucking short shorts and bury my cock deeper than deep. I wanted to brand her, own her...make her mine.

“You!” she all but shouted. “Now release me so I can go to work!”

I did her one better. Using both hands, I spun her around and pressed her back to the car door. Gorgeous gray eyes stared up at me as I tangled my fingers in her hair, dropped my mouth to her lips, and gave her everything I had.