“Are you f**king around on Amanda?” Dewayne asked with a snarl.
What the f**k? “No! Fuck NO! Why would you even think that? Is that why he’s lost his mind? He thinks I f**ked around on Manda? My Manda, who I adore more than my own life? Are you shitting me?”
“I told you he didn’t do it. There’s an explanation, Marcus. Calm down, dammit, and let him talk,” Rock said, jerking Marcus’s arms back as Marcus glared at me. Some of his rage had cooled as he studied me.
“Let me go. I’ll let him talk first. But he better have f**king proof! Do you understand me? FUCKING PROOF!”
Dewayne eased up on him. But Rock didn’t let go.
“Promise you’ll let him talk. Amanda is gonna want him alive if he didn’t do anything wrong,” Rock said.
“I swear. Let go,” Marcus snapped, jerking free of Rock’s loosened hold on him.
Then he started toward me, and Rock was back on him.
“I just want to ask him!” Marcus roared.
“Then do it with several feet between you,” Rock replied calmly.
“Fine,” he yelled, jerking free again, his eyes so full of pain and fury that it wasn’t even Marcus. I’d never seen him like this. Not even the time he had found out I was seeing Amanda.
“You left your phone in Amanda’s car today. You got a text from Greg,” Marcus said in disgust. “But Greg doesn’t have a pu**y that you can get wet. So Amanda was confused about that and found out that the Greg you used to work with is in your phone but with another number.”
“Wait . . . what?” He was talking about wet pussies and Greg from work. None of this made sense.
“Do you have a woman’s number that you’re disguising as Greg’s in your phone because you’re f**king her behind Amanda’s back?” Dewayne asked.
“HELL NO!” I yelled, furious that they would even think this.
“I knew he wasn’t cheating on her,” Dewayne said, throwing up his hands like he was always right. This time he was. Very f**king right.
“You’ve got some serious explaining to do, then, because I just got a text from Willow. She called that number on your phone, and a girl named Jill Vick answered. She was at Live Bay. Willow could hear Jackdown playing in the background. When she asked her how she knew Preston Drake, the girl hung up on her,” Marcus said, not sounding as angry, but more like he needed proof.
“Does Manda think I’ve cheated on her?” I asked, looking at the three of them.
“Of course she does! She’s a f**king mess!” Marcus replied, raising his voice again like he was about to go off. This all made sense now. Amanda . . . I had to get to her. Holy f**k. She’d be crushed.
“I gotta go talk to Manda. Now,” I said, stalking past them.
“NO! You’re going to Live Bay with us first. We’re finding this Jill Vick and figuring out why the hell her name is in your phone under ‘Greg,’” Marcus said, reaching out and grabbing my arm.
I loved the guy, but he was not going to make me let Amanda think for one more goddamn minute that I had cheated on her. Fuck that! “I. AM. GOING. TO. AMANDA.”
“Okay, look. I’ll go to Live Bay with you,” Dewayne told Marcus. “I know you’re angry because Amanda is so torn up, but he needs to get to her to fix this. She needs him to fix this. We will go figure out who the hell Jill Vick is.”
I pulled free of Marcus and ran to my Jeep. When I jerked open my door, I remembered where I had heard that name before. “Jill Vick is that brunette at Live Bay with the big fake tits and the pink tips in her hair. She’s been coming on to me for months. I just ignore her and she goes away.”
“I know her! You asked for another server last week because of her,” Dewayne said, snapping his fingers.
I nodded. “Yeah. That’s how I know her name. Rick told it to me when I went and asked him to keep her away from my table for the rest of my life.”
Amanda
“Hey,” Willow said, standing up when her phone rang and putting it to her ear. “He didn’t. I knew he didn’t. . . . Stop it, Marcus. . . . You’re too emotional about this. Calm down. Do Dewayne and Rock believe him?” She was pacing back and forth, and I was hanging on her every word. “See! They believe him. . . . I’m only staying until she tells me to leave. I won’t stay here until I hear from you if she wants me to go.” Willow looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Go figure this out and leave us alone. She’s going to be fine. He’s telling the truth. You know in your gut he is. . . . Love you, too,” she said, then hung up.
“Preston is on his way here. Marcus said he’s desperate to get to you. He swears he’s never touched anyone. And Jill Vick is the waitress at Live Bay with the pink tips in her hair, who Preston asked Rick to move from his table last week. Apparently, she was flirting with him.”
I remembered her. She had really big boobs. I was jealous, and Preston got pissed when she wouldn’t take a hint. I didn’t know he’d had Rick move her, though. “She kept showing Preston her cle**age, or trying to. He wouldn’t look at her, and he kept pulling me closer to him until he was behind me, wrapping his arms around me. But I have big-boob envy, and hers made me feel self-conscious.”
Willow sat down beside me and patted my knee. “I think we have a case of someone setting Preston up. He’s on his way right now. When he gets here, do you want me to stay or go?”
I didn’t want to talk about all this in front of my sister-in-law. “You can go,” I told her. “Thank you for coming, though.”
She nodded. “It ain’t over yet. If Marcus doesn’t get some proof, he’s going for Preston’s throat. Dewayne and Rock are still with Marcus, though, so they should keep your fiancée alive and your brother out of prison.”
If she wasn’t being serious, I would have laughed.
The door to our apartment flew open. “Manda!” Preston called out.
“He’s here,” Willow said, then stood up. “I’ll let y’all talk.”
Willow was walking to the bedroom door when Preston called my name again, sounding panicked.
“She’s in here,” Willow replied, and just as she walked out, Preston came barreling in, looking like a man on a mission.
“Swear to God I have no idea how that number got in my phone, and I’d never, ever f**king ever touch anyone but you,” Preston swore, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me up. “I don’t f**king know that bitch. I just know that’s what Rick called her when I asked him to keep her the hell away from me. She got to my phone somehow. I’ll figure it out, but I need you to believe me. Never, baby. God, I would never do that to you.”
The desperation in his voice as he held me so tightly that it was hard to breathe was all I needed. He was telling me the truth. This was the man I knew. The one who loved me. The one I trusted with my life. My happiness.
He was mine.
“I believe you,” I said, reaching up to touch his long blond locks. “But I can’t breathe.”
His arms loosened a little, and he continued to stand there breathing hard. “Swear to God,” he said again.
“I know,” I assured him.
He was rocking me now as we stood there. I could feel his heart slamming against his chest. This had scared him. All my pain was now replaced with sympathy for him.
“Did Marcus touch you?” I asked, trying to pull back to look more closely at his face, but he wouldn’t give an inch. He buried his face in my neck.
“No. But only because Dewayne and Rock held him back while he yelled.”
“I’m sorry,” I said as I tried to calm him.
“Don’t apologize for this, Manda. This shit was because of me. Not you.” He finally eased back enough to kiss me softly. “Just you, pretty girl,” he said against my mouth.
“I know,” I assured him.
“Gonna marry you, pretty girl.”
I smiled at that reminder. “Yeah.”
“I need you now, pretty girl,” he said as he trailed kisses down my neck and started making quick work of my clothes. “Hate that you’ve been crying. I don’t want you to cry. I hate it. I want you smiling,” he said against my collarbone. “Only crying you need to do ever is my name when you come.”
“Mmmmm,” I agreed as his attention moved to my br**sts , which he was very happy with. He didn’t seem to mind their small size. He made me feel perfect and beautiful.
He was my one.
Preston
My phone had been swiped from the table last week, when I was dancing with Amanda while Rock went to get a beer. The waitress Rick had sent me was a friend of Jill’s, so she did the dirty work. Jill’s plan was to send naughty texts until either Amanda saw it or I called the number, and if I called, she was going to try to talk me into meeting up with her.
The other waitress had sung like a bird when Rick called all the waitresses into the office and asked about it. Jill was fired, and so was the waitress who had helped her.
Marcus no longer wanted to kill me, and we were now back to being happy about becoming family. Not that we weren’t family before. Dewayne, Rock, and Marcus had been my family since second grade.
I hadn’t been allowed to see Manda all day. All damn day. Willow said it was bad luck. I tried telling her that nothing about Manda was bad luck. Willow had laughed at me and gone back to guarding Manda.
The wedding pictures that could be taken without me seeing my bride had been taken, and we had one hour before the wedding started.
I wanted to see my pretty girl. I didn’t like waking up to find a note on the pillow explaining that Willow had come and taken her away in the middle of the night. I wasn’t liking my future sister-in-law very much right now.
“Where are you going?” Dewayne asked with a smirk when I turned down the hall of the chapel toward the bridal room.
“Exactly where you think I’m going,” I told him.
“Just got an hour. Can’t wait until then?” he asked, amused.
“You’re next. When you’re wanting to see Sienna and they won’t let you, you’re gonna need help. You cover for me and I’ll pay you back.”
Dewayne nodded, then chuckled. “Yeah, I got this. Go see your girl.”
That was an easy sale.
I ducked behind the corner when the door to Manda’s room opened. Willow said she needed to go check on Eli and she’d be back soon to help her. Smiling, I waited until Willow was out of sight and I made a run for it.
The knob turned and I slid inside the room, closing the door and locking it behind me.
Amanda sat with her back to me, wearing a white lacy bra and matching panties, and—God help me—she had on a frilly garter belt and thigh highs. Jesus . . .
I must have made a sound because Amanda spun around.
“Preston,” she said in a surprised whisper. Then she started giggling. “Willow will be furious.”
I could give a rat’s ass what Willow was gonna be. “Stand up,” I said as I took the three long strides that got me to my bride.
She stood up, and the shiny white heels I’d missed with all those other things—now I saw them.
“How the f**k am I gonna get through the ceremony knowing you look like that underneath?”
She shrugged playfully. “Maybe that’s why you weren’t supposed to see me.”
That was bullshit. I didn’t like that rule at all.
“Manda, you’re wearing a thong,” I said as her ass cheeks flashed me.
She nodded.
“Sit on that table,” I said, stalking her as she backed up and sat down on the table behind her.
“Now, pretty girl, spread those legs for me,” I demanded, and she did exactly as I told her.