Three Rings and a Rose (15 page)

“You wouldn’t have to do it by your-fucking-self,” he snarled.

“You have Micah for that. Don’t you?”

“Yeah, I have Micah, and you have Addy. Except I didn’t get caught slipping out of Micah’s room this morning, like your precious friend.”

Yet again, she was correct. Addy had technically spent the night with him. After he’d rowed viciously with Gabriella over her relationship with Micah, he’d done what he did best. He’d partied with Addy and gotten shit-faced drunk. But unfortunately, this time he’d imbibed enough liquor to make a complete ass in a local pub.

When he’d gotten kicked out, Ted and Addy had gotten his lame ass back to the inn they were staying at. Then they’d hauled him to his room. Only things hadn’t ended there for him and Addy. Ted had suggested that Addy stay with Caedon for a little while to talk—just talk. And she had. They’d spent hours together after Ted had left.

He’d mooned over Gabriella and his mistakes while Addy had listened. She’d supported him. She’d consoled him. The woman had done everything she could to help him.

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Then morning came, and Addy had to sneak out the door.

However, she didn’t make it halfway out of the room before the flash of a bulb blinded her. Caedon had jerked her back into the room, but it was too late. The damage had been done. By midday, the whole world had seen some story or another talking about his drunken night with the leading lady in his newest flick.

He sighed wearily. “I swear to you, Gabriella. I didn’t cheat. I wouldn’t do that. Surely, you know me better than that.” She choked up. But then, she took a shuddering breath and seemed to cool off before she spoke again. “I don’t know you, Caedon. I thought I did, but now I just don’t know. First, you’re an ass over a tape of a stupid party from when I was in college. Then you are an all-knowing, jealous prick because you saw a picture of Micah holding me. Now you have a new woman who is helping you out of a bar and into your room then not coming out until the next morning.

So, no, I don’t believe I know who the fuck you are.” She paused and sucked in a breath before continuing her rant. “Not to mention the fact that I’m the jilted lover in the press. They’ve already been eating me alive over my stupid party tape for forty-eight hours. Then today I wake up, and they are having a fucking ball with the story of how you dumped the trashy, plus-size model for Miss Fucking Perfect.”

“This bullshit will die down, and we’ll work everything out.” He said the words, but he wasn’t sure he believed them.

Gabriella scoffed. “Stop simplifying this shit. Whether you had sex or not, you were with her all night. You were partying with
her
or talking to
her
or whatever. You were mad at me, but instead of working it out, you moved on to the next better thing. You traded up from me awfully fucking fast, and you appeared to be having a hell of a lot of fun doing it.”

“Well, Gabriella. Looks can be deceiving.” She barked a short, sarcastic laugh. “Yes, they can, but not that much. I saw the way she looked at you and the way you smiled at her.

Even if it wasn’t anything serious, that doesn’t make me feel better.

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You made me feel like I’d been replaced. I felt interchangeable, like I was just another woman in a long line for you.” Surely, she didn’t believe that. There was not another woman for him. She was it. He wanted the ring, the babies, and the grandbabies.

She made him want it all. But he couldn’t say that to her—not yet. It was too soon. They’d only been together for six months, and he didn’t want to scare her off. Besides, he didn’t know where
he
stood with her. If he went on past precedent, he would be the one left standing alone in the end.

So rather than attempting to repair the rift between them, he opened the floodgates and let both his pride and jealousy flood him.

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. You’re the first woman I’ve cared enough about to commit to. I’m not going to just replace you like an old pair of socks.”

“You’re not?
Really?
”

“No, I’m not,” he replied. “But I don’t know if I can say the same for you and Micah. I think you would dump my ass in a heartbeat if Micah asked you to.”

She growled. “We are
not
going there again today. He’s my friend. You’re my lover. This jealousy is petty and pointless. Get the fuck over it.”

“So says the girl who’s pissed that I spent the evening with a friend.”

Ella ignored his smart-ass comment, and he smirked arrogantly, slightly enjoying the fact that she was jealous. He’d gotten pretty damn tired of being alone in his possessive misery.

“Caedon, you didn’t replace me.
This time.
Next time, I probably won’t be so lucky. It was just too damn easy for you to forget me.”
You have no idea how hard it was, sunshine. No clue.
It was a kind of hell he didn’t want to go through again. However, he knew he had a one-way ticket there. Lucifer was calling his name, and he couldn’t stop him. Only Gabriella could, and he had a feeling that she didn’t want to.

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Still holding the phone to his ear, Caedon ran his other hand across his face. He scrubbed his skin with the palm of his hand, and cursed silently. “Nothing about this is easy, Gabriella.” She sighed. “I know, Caedon.”

Okay. This is getting old. We’re not getting anywhere.
“We’re just going around in circles. We need to be calm and take a step back,” he told Gabriella as he banged the back of his head against the unyielding headboard gently. He groaned when he hit the wood too hard and pain scattered through his skull.

“That’s what you’ve said the last two times we talked. Maybe I don’t want to be calm and think things through. Maybe I want to fight and curse and scream. Maybe I want you to hurt as much as I’m hurting. If that makes me an evil little troll, then it makes me an evil little troll.”

Not wanting to make things worse, Caedon went silent. He forced air in through his nose then out through his mouth as he attempted to push down the fury boiling inside of him. But it didn’t help. He’d already reached his breaking point. Fuck that, he’d stepped over the angry threshold and was teetering on wrathful.

“I don’t think this relationship is working, Caedon. It’s not worth all of this.” Clearing her throat, Gabriella said, “In the past three days, you have shown me a side of you that I don’t know, a side that I don’t like. And frankly, that part of you is bringing out a part of me that I didn’t know, and I don’t like. This shit is bad for both of us. It’s not healthy.”

Ella’s words hit him hard. They seeped into his pores, crawling beneath his skin, and then settled in his chest. Each word sucked the life out of his heart and, for a split second, he lost his breath and couldn’t seem to get it back. He concentrated carefully, dragging in one breath after another. Only, it was a waste of his time and energy.

Breathing calmly didn’t help.

With each inhale and exhale, his temper rose—and rose—until his control snapped. “You’re right,” he snarled. “You’re not worth it. I’m
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not worth it. And our fucking relationship is certainly not worth it.

This is just too damn much work.”

She gasped, the hitch in her breath so profound that he cringed.

“I–I–I don’t know what to say.”

“Why not? I’m agreeing with you. I’m merely saying what you want me to say.” Sliding to the edge of the bed, he lurched to his feet and started pacing back and forth. “Hell, I’m making this easy for you. It’s over. You can have Micah. Maybe he’ll keep you warm at night. And I can have Addy. We all get what we fucking want.

Right?”

“I can’t believe this. I thought you would fight a little harder for us. I figured I meant more than—”

Cutting her off with a disgusted growl, he put the final nails in the coffin of their relationship. “Well, you thought wrong. Good-bye, Gabriella.”

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Present day…

“Do you think we haven’t shared women before our wives?” The question from the seemingly quietest man, Landon, garnered Caedon’s attention and jerked him out of the memory of the single worst night of his life. He allowed his mind to return to the dim alleyway where he stood with Micah and seven other men. The June heat rose around him, and a bead of sweat formed on the side of his forehead before trickling down his temple.

In all honesty, Caedon wasn’t sure if the Kansas summer night had truly provoked the droplet of moisture or if it came from the painful memories that had bombarded him only seconds before.

Unable to dwell on such a trivial matter, he looked over at Landon who gently smiled at him.

“Of course we shared women,” Landon answered himself. “Some we truly cared for while others were passing flings. But our hearts always belonged to the women we married. Don’t judge yourself so harshly. We all have regrets.”

Caedon’s jaw dropped. Landon had pegged him perfectly, as though they’d known each other all their lives, and his words comforted him. Relief rushed through him, and he released a deep breath he’d been holding. For the first time in his recollection, he deeply cared what someone other than Ella, Micah, and Addy thought of him—the real Caedon Matthew Asher. Not the famous actor or the sex symbol. Not the cocky Casanova people mistakenly saw him as or
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the man with an ungodly amount of money in his bank account. This was Caedon—the human being.

“Thank you,” Caedon murmured, feeling embarrassed by the warmth he felt from the friendship these seven men offered freely to him. He coughed nervously in an overt attempt to divert their attention from him. Sucking in a heavy breath, he smiled with a conceit he only partially felt.

Next to Caedon, Cade chuckled. “Now let’s not get too girlie. We have badass reputations to uphold.”

Randy shoved Cade’s shoulder playfully. “
My
reputation wasn’t in question, Cade,” he retorted with a cocky grin. “Maybe yours or the rest of these jackasses were but not me. I have my bad-boy rep down pat.”

The oldest triplet, Jared, shot his hand around his middle brother and smacked Randy on the back of his head. “Shut up, Randy. We’re getting off track, and we only have another ten minutes left,” he reminded them.

Fuck.
They needed to get on with this conversation. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who thought so. Gray frowned. “Since you two haven’t really shared a woman with each other
or
anyone else, there are some important things you need to know beforehand.” Caedon nodded when Gray paused. At the same time, Micah muttered sarcastically, “Like how the hell to get over the jealousy between us.”

Caedon considered smacking Micah upside his head. But he didn’t. He grumbled, “Just listen to them,” instead.

Of course, Micah didn’t like his sullen response. He glowered at Caedon, who chose to ignore him. He didn’t feel the urge to fan the flames with Micah—at least, not those kinds of flames.
Now other
ones…maybe.

“Shit,” Caedon cursed. All of the men peered at him but didn’t say a word. Predictably, the two funny men in the group smirked,
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evidently amused by his outburst. Yet they followed the other men’s lead and disregarded Caedon’s words.

Going on as though nothing had happened, Shane turned to face Micah and informed him pointedly, “There is no room for jealousy.

She loves you. She loves Caedon. You know that. So why would you be jealous of Caedon being with Ella?”

Micah paled, his handsome face turning a shade of white that unnerved Caedon. However, he held back, giving his friend a chance to respond. “I don’t know,” he said. His vulnerable honesty shocked Caedon. He’d expected Micah to spout off a million reasons why he was jealous. But never once did he consider the fact that Micah didn’t know.
Interesting.

The only triplet who hadn’t spoken, Drew, seemed frustrated with Micah’s answer. He ran a hand through his dirty-blond hair and said,

“You need to figure it out.”

“Yeah,” Randy piped up. “You need to use your heart, not your mind, to figure out why you’re jealous.” His face colored. “Fuck me. I sound like my wife talking about her emotions.” He shuddered. “That is pretty goddamn scary.”

“I’m fucking terrified for you,” Cade joked.

Randy flipped off his brother-in-law. “Fuck you.”

“Cade. Randy,” Gray barked. “Shut up. Now.” And the two men did—immediately–without question or comment. When they quieted down and no one else spoke, Gray resumed their conversation. “We are to assume that the two of you have either slept together already or are going to soon? Correct?”

“No,” Caedon and Micah replied quickly and simultaneously.

Their mutual agreement sounded off, though. Caedon’s tone had a note of regret, a touch of wistfulness, and an oddly hopeful twist to it—all at the same time. However, Caedon heard a disappointment and sadness in Micah’s voice. He didn’t sound like a man who wasn’t interested in a relationship with Caedon. For just a second, Caedon felt as though he wasn’t alone, as though Micah was suffering through
Three Rings and a Rose