Between Now and Always: Forever Trilogy Book 3 Read online

  He stops so suddenly that I stumble.

  “Who’s with someone?” His eyes are narrowed with confusion.

  I blow out an exasperated breath.“Duke, you’re taking me to bust in on his little hook up, right?”

  His eyes narrow, the glint in them gone and replaced by a cold anger. “He’s with someone right now? On your fucking wedding day?” He asks, his voice has dropped to a growl.

  “It’s fine. I don’t care. I just want to get this over with and go home,” I say between gritted teeth.

  He puts his hands on my shoulders and bends a little so we’re eye to eye.

  “That devil has made hell feel like home. But, it’s not. This is not home. Not for either of us.”

  “Then why are you still here, Phil? Why aren’t you swimming with turtles or whatever,” I say with deliberate disdain.

  He doesn’t even blink.

  “I’m here for you and for Cam. I want to help. Let me, please.” He makes it sound so simple.

  I want to believe him. My heart is desperate for the relief he’s promising. But his words, as nice as they sound, are just that - words. I’ve built my hopes on those before and paid dearly for it. And now, I have even more to lose.

  His eyes just get warmer, softer, more imploring. “I love you. I know you’re scared, but you can do this.” His last sentence is an oath.

  “You can’t help,” I hiss, striking out, desperate to stop him from peeling back walls I’ve built around my vulnerability.

  “There is someone waiting to talk to you. Give him five minutes. And if you walk out of there still sure that you want to marry Duke, I won’t say another word.”

  “Phil--” I want to say no. Instead, my heart quivers, my will quakes and the walls around it are crumbling with each tender word he speaks.

  “Five minutes,” he asks, his face solemn.

  I nod and follow him down the hall.

  “I’ll wait out here,” Phil says when we get to the room that doubles as a library and a study.

  “You’re not coming in?” Trepidation sends tingles down my spine.

  “No, I’ll make sure you’re not interrupted.”

  I swallow audibly and look between him and the door.

  “I don’t like surprises. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “You’ll see. Everything is going to be fine.” There’s a certainty in his expression and conviction in his voice and even though I have no reason to, I trust him.

  I open the door and step inside.

  Always

  CARTER

  This is possibly the worst day of my life.

  I took a Xanax as soon as I woke up and then ate the lint-pocked bite of an edible I found in the bottom of my shaving kit.

  Even after all of that, I’m teetering on a knife’s edge of calm. It’s taking all of my focus to maintain it.

  In a few minutes, the love of my life is going to marry someone else. And because I’m a glutton for heartbreak and misery, I decided that I would watch it all go down.

  I’ve ensconced myself in the darkened corner at the far end of the very last pew in the church’s sanctuary. It’s the only place the sun streaming through the stained-glass windows doesn’t reach. For anyone looking back from the front of the church, I should be completely hidden from sight.

  When I sat down, it was empty. My hopes that it would stay that way were wishful thinking and evaporated a few minutes after I took my seat.

  My father used to joke that the back row of any communal venue was where gatecrashers and asshole latecomers sit. I’m probably the only gate crasher, but the rest of these asshole are latecomers who dashed in right before the doors closed and the music started to play.

  I glance to my left and scan my pew mates. Most of them are chattering with nervous excitement, as if it’s their wedding day. But a few of them have their faces trained in rapt concentration on their phones.

  Something lands on the floor at my feet with a loud clacking noise. I look down, noting the bright pink lipstick smeared on the inner leg of my light gray slacks, and see the gold cylinder of the culprit rolling between my feet.

  “Oh no, I’m so clumsy,” the cloud of perfume and blond hair sitting next to me purrs. She swivels until she’s got her back to her oblivious husband.

  The black low-cut dress she’s wearing deserves a medal for holding up more flesh than it was designed to. A smile, suggestive and as subtle as the rest of her, spreads across her bright pink lips and reveals two perfectly aligned rows of perfectly straight teeth. I don’t know who she is, but I know exactly what she is. And it’s the last thing I’m in the mood for.

  “Let me get that for you,” I say hoping that my distinctly unfriendly smile tells her that I’m not playing nice today.

  “No, please, let me,” she says, her eyes are full of mischief and as she leans in I can smell the vodka on her breath. She drapes her fingers across my forearm and starts tracing circles on it. I glance down at her hand. The thin band of yellow gold on her left ring finger winks up at me.

  I look past her and sure enough there’s a man next to her. He’s focused on his phone, and he’s got a small wireless black earbud stuck in his ear and doesn’t appear to hear anything going on.

  His wife leans down between my legs and rests her head on my thigh as she pretends to try and pick up her lipstick. What she’s really doing is stroking my leg. I marvel at her audacity before I jerk my leg up under her chin. I don’t feel an ounce of regret at her sharp yelp of pain. When she lurches up, I lean down, pick up the lipstick, and hand it to her. “I’m not interested.”

  Her face flushes before her eyes narrow. “That’s all you had to say,” she whispers out of the side of her mouth before she snatches the lipstick from me and faces front.

  Irritation tightens my throat. God, I hate this town.

  The minute I arrived last night, I knew

  For some reason, I booked a room at the B&B where we’d spent our last nights together.

  What a fucking disaster that had been. I didn’t sleep a wink.

  Every breath I drew was flecked with the flavor of her. I woke up clutching the warm soft thing in my bed and in that space of shrouded consciousness, I could smell her. But it wasn’t her. I was clutching my pillow and on the brink of a relapse.

  Phil walks in, a menacing scowl darkens his expression as he strides up the aisle to sit in the front row.

  I wonder what he’d say if he knew I was here. Maybe, once this is over, I’ll go and say hello.

  We haven’t stayed in touch. Not from a lack of effort on his part, though.

  I’ve used this whirlwind year of writing and recording as an excuse. But after our first phone call, I knew I wasn’t ready to move on to this next phase of my life. I wasn’t ready to accept that Beth and I were a lost cause.

  I haven’t talked to him since. He calls, I ignore it. He leaves voicemails, I delete them.

  It’s small of me, but the thing about that first phone that bothered me the most, was how nearly cheerful he sounded.

  I guess, he had no reason not to be.

  He’s not the one who fell in love with Liz.

  The one who was still in love with Liz.

  Not for long, though. I’ve come to slay this dragon.

  When I leave here, I’m going to LA to start the promo for our album’s release in three months. It’s going to be exhausting, overwhelming and I want to leave all of this shit behind me.

  I need to see this.

  Music has become even more of a sanctuary for me. When I’m writing, playing, singing, my mind is clear, my heart isn’t constricted by indecision. My music is I’ve stayed sane and relatively sober since the world fell out from beneath me.

  It was rough at first.

  Jack convinced me that fucking someone would cure me.

  So, I tried. I found a girl who looked like Beth, at least from the back. I took her home, fucked her face down and tried to pretend she was my baby. But from the
feel of her pussy to the way she smelled, there was no pretending she was anything more than a replacement. I hustled her out of there. And then I fucking cried in the shower.

  No, Beth wasn’t just a woman I loved fucking. She owned a piece of my heart, and always would.

  So, once I came to terms with that, I decided to focus on the other thing I loved, music.

  My band, Blue Clover, was put together by the label. They wanted undiscovered talent and they found it using open call auditions. I thought it was like trying to shoot fish in a barrel, but the talent they put together couldn’t have been a better fit.

  I’m the main song writer, lead singer and pianist. Dane is our drummer. Heath is our guitarist and Lucas is on bass.

  In the process of writing this album, we laughed, we cried, and went a little crazy, but the end result was some of the most beautiful and heartbreaking music we’d ever heard. I laid my burden down and left everything on the pages of composition sheets I filled with my love story.

  Best of all, the label loved it.

  Things were starting to feel normal. I had entire days where Beth only came to me in my dreams.

  Until last month when Phil changed his tactics. Instead of calling, he sent a text from a number I didn’t recognize. It was a picture of her wedding invitation with three words, “FYI”

  Whoever or whatever is in charge of this mysterious world is a fucking sadist. Because that’s all it took to send me back into the hell I’d finally started to escape.

  The one where everyone and everything reminded me of her.

  The one where I make myself come in the shower to the memories of fucking her and eating her and then spend the day choking on my self-loathing.

  The one where I still remember how she tastes and what an addict I am for it.

  Then one where I would find myself wishing I’d never met her and then snatching the thought back, feverishly. Just the thought of a world where she doesn’t exist makes it hard to breathe.

  I miss the way she winked every time our eyes met across the room.

  I miss the way she pressed her nose to my throat and inhaled every time we hugged. I miss the way she licked my lip at the start of our kisses.

  I miss our arguments, her laugh, her stubbornness, her magic.

  Our magic that we used to spin ourselves a cocoon of inspiration, lust, and love.

  I’m consumed by thoughts of her and it’s ruining my life.

  I haven’t been able to write, or play.

  I need to end this.

  So, here I am.

  It’ll hurt. But it won’t kill me. When this is over, I’ll be stronger.

  So, I’m going to sit here and watch Elisabeth Mortimer Wolfe becomes someone else’s wife.

  The sick part of me that doesn’t give a fuck what DNA or the law says will be permanently deprived of its main source of sustenance — hope.

  And then I will, finally, move on.

  After avoiding it since I walked in, I force myself to face forward and look at Duke Tremaine.

  At the sight of him, my throat tightens, and my eyes start to burn.

  He’s surveying the crowd of people gathered to watch his triumph.

  He looks so fucking smug. When his eyes sweep the corner where I’m sitting, his smile tightens and something like fear flashes in his eyes. But, when I blink in surprise, his gaze has moved on and his smile is restored

  I must have imagined it. Even if he could see me, why would be afraid?

  He won. I wonder if he made good on his promise to make her crawl.

  No, Beth wouldn’t. If this is happening, it’s her choice. I know from my own experience, that when your heart is broken, sometimes you end with the very last person you’d ever chose.

  Except, he’s actually the very first person she chose. For good reason. She’ll get her inheritance and her way out.

  I should be happy for her.

  But, I’m not. I’m fucking angry and bitterness is digging it’s claws into my chest.

  The pipe organ’s soft background noise stops abruptly and then, in the next beat, it launches into the familiar opening strains of Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major.

  I turn with the rest of congregation and see a groomsman standing there with Dina on his arm.

  As she passes me, her gaze sweeps the section where I’m sitting. The flash of alarm in her eyes before she moves on, surprises me, but it’s also clear that I’m visible from this vantage point. I don’t want to think about what might happen if Beth and I make eye contact.

  The music stops and the doors to the church close. Everyone surges to their feet when the next song starts.

  Except me.

  The song that’s playing is the one I have tattooed on my arm, Sonata 17 in D Minor. It’s not a popular wedding song, but it’s one of Beethoven’s most popular pieces. It’s possible that this is just a coincidence.

  Then I hear the modification I made to the sixth and tenth stanzas. And I know it’s not.

  Oh my God.

  Beth is going to walk down the aisle to my song. Did she hope I’d hear it and take it as a sign? Does she want me to stand up and object?

  No, she doesn’t even know I’m here. She’s made her choice. It’s going to be fine. I just have to get through this. I’ve got my while life ahead of me.

  I start to sweat and glance around, noting the exits on the outside of the pew. My throat is raw — as if I’ve been screaming. My heart races like it’s hitched to a thousand unbroken horses, and the whooshing of my blood pumping to keep up with it all is so loud I want to cover my ears with my palms.

  The program I picked up on my way in is completely unrecognizable as the ivory cardstock bifold it once was. This attack of anxiety has turned it into something that resembles what I imagine my twisted soul looks like.

  A noose of dread tightens around my neck and I can’t breathe.

  My chest burns, as if I’ve been running.

  My throat is raw, as if I’ve been screaming.

  Too late, I realize the monumental proportion of my error.

  This pain isn’t the kind that will make me stronger.

  It’s the kind I will wish I hadn’t survived.

  I have to get out here.

  Like the devil himself is chasing me, I surge to my feet and ignore the shocked gasps of my pew mates when trip backwards and trample their toes and knees in my uncoordinated attempt to stand up straight.

  I stumble the into the outer aisle and push open a swinging door that leads to hallway. There’s a door with a huge exit sign above and I stride out of the church.

  I don’t stop until I get to my rental car. I never look back. I focus on putting distance between me and the hellhole of a town.

  The hollowed out place inside that used to be filled with all of the promises I made the woman I love is raw and aching. But in the months to come, it will be the source of all my inspiration.

  Because as I drive away, a song starts to come together in my head and I know I’ll never put it to paper. This is a song about the new chapter, the one I’m facing without her. One I’ll never finish writing because it’s an endless stretch of time.

  This is the beginning of a new us.

  This is the start of a new world.

  One where we learn to live without each other

  One where all we do is miss each other.

  Tied together, but pulled apart,

  And somehow this feels like just the start.

  It’s definitely not the end.

  ‘Cause we’re us….

  And us, is forever.

  I Do

  LIZ

  I had just walked out of the library when my father appeared in the hallway. It was time to leave for the church. I was too dumbstruck to do anything but comply.

  I was trying to wrap my head around the story Will Oh told me. My entire life changed in a matter of minutes, and I was trying to figure what to do.

  Phil’s bitter disappointment surged and cr
ested on our ride over to the church. I wanted to reassure him but I was still trying to harness my thoughts in the midst of a tempest that was blowing through my mind.

  When I slipped my hands into my father’s, he marched into the church without looking back at me.

  My wedding party has just walked down the aisle and my mind is still like a snowed out screen.

  Then my song cues up.

  I picked this song for my processional so that he’d be with me as I made the most difficult walk of my life.

  Now, I realize how silly that was.

  Carter has always been my muse. But, he’s not here.

  He’s not mine.

  And the only person who can put an end to my misery is me.

  The veil of guilt I’d spent the last two years behind obstructed this simple truth. Thanks to Will and what he told me in the library, that’s gone.

  With that certainty woven into the very lining of my heart, I slip my arm out of my father’s and stop where I am.

  Whatever else he may be, slow on the uptake isn’t one of them.

  It only takes him half a step to notice.

  His shoulders draw back and he his ribcage expands with the breath he draws before he swivels on his heel to look at me.

  His expression is calm, and unequivocally angry.

  “You will not do this.” His wolf like, ice blue eyes blaze with remonstration and narrowed in warning.

  Fear clogs my throat and I let it. I don’t pretend not to feel it. I don’t try to push it away. I make room for it, right behind my conviction. And just like that, fear is no longer in the lead.

  “The only way I’ll make it to that altar is if you drag me. And I know you don’t want your friends to see you do that.” My voice doesn’t quiver, my determination doesn’t waver.

  Instead, my courage grows.

  He strides toward me, and then halts suddenly when he realizes the photographer is with us in this vestibule.

  His cheeks puff out, and a flush sweeps across the rise of them. I’ve never seen from him rattled.

  “How much do you want?” he asks hurriedly.

  “How much what?” I feign confusion.