Pretty Broken Hearts: A Pretty Broken Standalone Read online

  He’d removed his jacket and looked sexy in a black sweater and black slacks, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His broad shoulders turned away from me when our eyes met. My stomach flip-flopped. The warmth had left his eyes. They were steely gray and turbulent. Had Walt ruined yet another thing in my life? He turned to Christie’s husband, continuing a debate on the status of major league baseball.

  “Not long.” I rested a hand on Rhett’s leg. The muscles of his thigh tensed under my touch. I removed my hand, fighting back a sense of panic.

  “He seems smitten by you. I remember when Jake looked at me that way,” Christie said, wistfully. “But that was six years ago. Things change after babies and mortgages.”

  We exchanged phone numbers and promised to meet for lunch sometime. The four of us walked together to the parking lot. Christie and her husband took a cab. Rhett had borrowed a Cadillac Escalade and chauffeur from the Seaforths for the occasion. The driver opened the door for us. I slid across the cool leather seat. Rhett took his place next to me. Not beside me. His gaze turned to the window.

  “Are you mad at me?” I tried to decipher his expression. The right angle of his jaw seemed sharper, the hue of his eyes darker. City lights twinkled outside the car window. He moved back in the seat, stretching his legs in front of him. Shadows masked his face. I bit my lower lip and waited for his answer.

  “No.” His voice husked across the distance between us. I shifted toward him, a knot of panic in my stomach. I hadn’t told him I loved him yet. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. And now it was too late. He was going to break up with me. “I’m not angry with you, angel.” He turned the full force of his gray gaze on me. His eyes dipped to my mouth and held there. “But I can’t stop thinking about your lips on Walt’s dick.”

  Mortification scalded my cheeks. I drew in a shaky breath and fought to control my emotions. His words wounded me in a way I’d never expected. “I was a kid, Rhett, and desperate for attention. You can’t blame me for my past, any more than I can blame you for Amy’s death.”

  His eyelids lowered, shielding his thoughts. He turned his attention back to the window. A long silence stretched between us. When he spoke again, his tone was flat. “I don’t blame you.”

  “Then why are you acting this way? I don’t understand.”

  “Because I fucking love you, Bronte. The thought of you with anyone but me rips my guts out.” In half of a heartbeat, he closed the gap between us. “And the thought of loving you terrifies me. I’ve already lost one wife. If I lose you, I’ll never recover.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” I’d never been able to adequately express or process my feelings, but this was different. Rhett meant more to me than anyone. He’d given me the confidence to grow, stood at my side while I floundered, never judged or ridiculed my strange behavior. I reached inside, drawing up the courage to claim him, because I deserved to be happy. I deserved him. “I love you, too.”

  His big hands cupped my face. He rested his forehead against mine. The car filled with the sounds of our breathing. I placed my hands over his and stroked his knuckles with my thumbs. Slowly, like he was afraid of scaring me away, he inched his mouth toward mine. We kissed. He took his time, the meeting of our lips chaste and sweet and overflowing with emotion.

  A few minutes later, he pulled back, catching my gaze. “I don’t care how many guys you’ve been with. I only care that I’m the last one.”

  If I lived a thousand years, there would never be anyone else for me. I’d struggled my entire life to be accepted, to be normal, when all I’d ever really needed was the confidence to become myself. He accepted my flaws, adored my eccentricities, and made me a better person. I’d never stop fighting for us, because he’d offered me the one thing I never knew I’d wanted. He’d given me his heart.

  Epilogue

  Rhett

  Six months later…

  I stood in front of Amy’s grave and stared at the words carved into the marble headstone. Beloved daughter, sister, and wife. It was the first time I’d been to the cemetery since her funeral. I laid a bouquet of daisies, her favorite flowers, on the green grass at the foot of the headstone. Bronte stood a few feet away, shivering in the cold afternoon breeze. We’d come to Ohio so she could meet my parents. It was her idea to stop at the cemetery before we left.

  “I’m sorry about the way things turned out,” I said to Amy, my throat thickening. Our marriage had been fraught with unpleasantness and, in the end, became unbearable. No matter what had transpired between us, she hadn’t deserved to die so young. She’d only been twenty-four. “I hope you’ve found peace. I forgive you.” I touched her name. The simple act of forgiveness lightened my heart in a way I never expected. The anger, the guilt, the resentment—they floated away into the clear blue sky.

  I’d fallen in love with Amy over a keg of beer at a frat party. She’d been my first love, but she wasn’t my last. My future stood next to a flowering dogwood, wearing a print dress and cowboy boots, counting God-knew-what while she waited for me. I didn’t have to look to know she was there, that she’d never leave me. Because that was the kind of girl she was—the kind who kept her promises and didn’t have the ability to lie.

  “Ready?” I asked, extending my hand toward her.

  “Hang on.” To my surprise, her blue eyes were brimming with tears. She faced Amy’s grave and touched the headstone, the same way I had. The thoughtfulness of her gesture caused my chest to constrict. “I’ll take good care of him,” Bronte said. “I promise.”

  “We need to get home before sundown,” I said, circling her waist with an arm as we walked back to the car. The heat of her body tingled down my side. She leaned her head on my shoulder. The scent of her shampoo wafted in front of my nose. I drew in a deep lungful of her scent, aware of the crazy things it did to my insides, the quickening of my pulse, the stir of my cock.

  “If we leave now, it should take five hours and forty-two minutes,” she said. “That’s factoring in three bathroom breaks at eight minutes apiece and one stop for lunch at a drive-thru. I made a schedule.” She held up her phone and pointed to the itinerary typed into her notepad.

  “How very precise of you, Dr. Hollander.” A smile stretched the muscles in my face, one I couldn’t control. We were heading into uncharted territory together. This was Bronte’s first real relationship. It wasn’t going to be easy for either of us, but I wouldn’t give up. I knew, in my heart of hearts, that this was it for me. Bronte was The One.

  “Well, there is an eleven-minute margin of error in either direction, depending on traffic and weather,” she said, her tone serious. “If you think I made a mistake, I could recalculate.”

  I laughed, enjoying the brightness of the sun, happier than I’d been in years. “No. You won’t. We’re going to take our time, maybe stop for a picnic along the way.” My eyes locked onto her full bottom lip, pink from my kisses earlier in the day. “Did you factor sex into your itinerary, angel?”

  Her blush caused my cock to harden. “No.”

  “If you’re going to be my girl, you’re going to have to get used to a few impromptu changes here and there. Especially where sex is involved.”

  “I can do that.” She slipped her hand into my coat pocket. I liked the way she relied on me for warmth and shelter. “But you’ve got to honor the chore schedule I outlined on the fridge in our apartment.” We’d chosen a new place together, one convenient to our work and free from any traces of Freya or Amy.

  I lifted an eyebrow in mock surprise. “Are you negotiating with me?”

  “Yes, am I not doing it right?” Her genuine concern brought another burst of laughter from me.

  “As far as I’m concerned, you can’t do anything wrong.” I opened the car door for her. She paused long enough to plant a kiss on my cheek. “What’s that for?”

  “For loving me the way I am,” she replied, giving me the biggest smile, and the greatest reward I’d ever ha
d.

  --THE END

  Before You Go

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  Also by Jeana E. Mann

  Felony Romance Series

  Intoxicated

  Unexpected

  Vindicated

  Impulsive

  Drift

  Committed

  Pretty Broken Series

  Pretty Broken Girl

  Pretty Filthy Lies

  Pretty Dirty Secrets

  Pretty Wild Thing

  Pretty Broken Promises

  Pretty Broken Dreams

  Pretty Broken Baby (2017)

  Pretty Broken Hearts (2017)

  Pretty Broken Bastard (2017)

  About the Author

  Jeana Mann is the author of sizzling hot contemporary romance. Her debut release Intoxicated was a First Place Winner of the 2013 Cleveland Rocks Romance Contest, a finalist in the Carolyn Readers’ Choice Awards, and fourth place winner in the International Digital Awards. She is a member of Romance Writers’ of America (RWA).

  Jeana was born and raised in Indiana where she lives today with her two crazy rat terriers Mildred and Mabel. She graduated from Indiana University with a degree in Speech and Hearing, something totally unrelated to writing. When she’s not busy dreaming up steamy romance novels, she loves to travel anywhere and everywhere. Over the years she climbed the ruins of Chichen Iza in Mexico, snorkeled along the shores of Hawaii, driven the track at the Indy 500, sailed around Jamaica, ate gelato on the steps of the Pantheon in Rome, and explored the ancient city of Pompeii. More important than the places she’s been are the people she has met along the way.

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  Copyright © 2017 by Jeana E. Mann

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  A Note from the Author

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected]

  All characters and events in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, alive or deceased, is purely coincidental.