Page 7 of Chasing Mr. December

“Hey. You seen Corinne?”

“Nope. Maybe now’s your chance to make a break for it,” he says with complete seriousness.

“Have you been hanging out with Lacey?”

Ian tilts his head to the side. “No. Why?”

“She’s been singing the same song all night.”Okay, since the day she met her.But that’s beside the point.“Is there something you guys aren’t telling me?”

Ian’s face turns an odd shade of gray momentarily, but then again, it’s almost eight o’clock and we haven’t eaten. I’m feeling a bit lightheaded myself. Think I’ll skip the vino until I have some food in my belly.

“How much longer are they passing hors d’oeuvres fit for a squirrel? I’m starvingggg,” Lacey groans.

“Okay, okay. I’ll go ask how much longer until dinner is served. Ian, can you track down Corinne? I don’t want them to start without her.”

“Yeah, sure. Be right back.”

After a quick conversation with our head waiter, he advises the salads will be served momentarily, so I go in search of Ian and my bride to be. Turning toward the restrooms, I stop in my tracks as I note familiar voices emanating from what looks like a supply closet.

“Corinne, you’re being ridiculous.” Ian’s hushed scolding of my fiancée causes me to scowl.

“Come on, it’s perfect. It’s bad luck to see him the night before the wedding.” She sounds almost jovial, but my hair is suddenly standing on end.

What’s happening here?

“This has to stop. If you don’t love him anymore, you need to tell him tonight. We can’t keep doing this.”

What. The. Fuck?

“I have way too much invested to call this off now. There’s no way I want to deal with the public scrutiny of a wedding I canceled in the eleventh hour.”

“You’d rather put him through the agony of a phony ceremony and marriage just to leave him? When? In a few weeks, months? You’ll never last a year.”

“I can last a year if I’ve got a distraction,” she practically purrs.

My body is suddenly fueled with enough rage to burn down this entire restaurant.Take a deep breath and decide how you want to handle this, Jase.Don’t fly in there and make this situation even worse.Is this what her cronies were whispering about when we arrived? Am I already the laughingstock of the town?

“I’m done unless you tell him it’s over tonight. I can barely live with myself now. It’s bad enough I was fucking his girlfriend. I’m certainly not going to sleep with his wife.”

Okay, I was wrong. There’s enough rage to fuel the entire town! How I haven’t busted in on them is mystifying. But I can’t think clearly, the conversation anchoring me to this very spot.

“So, we were just fucking, huh? You told me you loved me.” The gall of this woman. To sound as ifshe’sthe one affronted.

I move closer to the door to hear more clearly as Ian drops his volume, praying my shaky exhales and the pounding heartbeatagainst my sternum won’t give me away before I’m ready to confront them.

“I do love you. I’d never have crossed the line the first time if I didn’t. But we should’ve handled things differently. Now you have to make a choice. You tell him you’re not ready for marriage or give him your all. Nothing in between.”

Hell with that noise!

“Let me make it easier on both of you,” I interrupt. Their startled faces do nothing to help the outrage bubbling in my veins. I lean in and speak each word slowly and succinctly.

“I’m. Done. With. Both. Of. You.”

Chapter 5

Quinn

“Hey, Quinn. Over here!” A small hand waves between the many patrons of The Diddled Fiddle, the sweet voice floating in my direction matching that of my best friend, Callie.

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