Two Truths and a Marriage (The Rory Brothers, #1)
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Read between April 11 - April 11, 2024
4%
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There’s a name scrawled across the bottom in a garish slash. Dexter Rory. “All right,” I say, rubbing my face. “Let’s find out how crappy a tipper you are, Dexter Rory.” I skim down to the tip line and my eyes nearly exit my face. My jaw drops. Well, crap.
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You need tact when you’re flirting with a man who’s one degree removed from the devil.
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If a hill of pastries really can win him over, I could kiss that hot little baker.
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“It just so happens we’re finalizing plans to have a full complement of Sugar Bowl desserts—plus an on-demand menu—added to all our Kansas City properties.” Fuck. My mouth is moving, but it can’t comprehend what I’m sentencing myself to.
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It’s easy when my lovely fiancée runs the Sugar Bowl these days.” Fuck, fuck. What are you doing? Digging my own grave in grand style, I guess.
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Now, I just have to figure out how much I’ll need to spend on these damn sugar licks masquerading as desserts, on top of whatever it costs to un-fuck my life.
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It’s like every single thing about him is designed to shock and awe the primitive part of my brain, reminding me the customer from hell looks like a scary-hot man’s man.
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It’s weird that he looks more like a guardian angel than a swinging dick. That’s how I know my mind is going to very weird places.
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“Oh, right. You’re hoping the next president starts a war on cookies.” I can’t resist the wisecrack, so I don’t snort.
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“Miss Winkley, it was an accident. A catastrophic slip of the tongue. A fucking brain fart, if you will.” The exasperated way he says it makes me laugh. Then he sighs again. “Frankly, my business prospect loved your desserts more than my ideas. He practically made it a condition of moving forward with a very large real estate deal. I told him I could make it happen, I had connections, one thing led to another and—and then I blurted out a white lie like a complete jackass.”
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This is a real-life nightmare wrapped up in a dark joke. A perfect deal and some serious money gone poof!
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“You need to sort this fuckery out. We’re this close to the biggest deal this company has ever had. We can’t lose it now over you getting fucking tongue-tied, Dex.”
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Amazingly, having an unexpected brain disease almost feels easier than admitting how hard I fucked up.
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This lady, however, is something else entirely. Not in a flattering way. Not in a she’s-the-one-I’d-take-home-to-mom kind of way. Not even in an I-want-to-fuck-her-brains-out way. If she was stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire, I’d have to think long and hard about whether I stopped to help.
13%
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There it is. Proof positive that the universe means to pay me back horribly for my foot-in-mouth disease and nothing—absolutely nothing—is going to go as planned.
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If Sweet Stuff has time for a casual visitor or some Jenny-come-lately picking up a cake, then she absolutely has time for a giant idiot who’s busting his balls to pay for her products just to jack up his employees’ A1C scores and pray for an audience with her highness.
15%
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This man—this total dickhead-fried turd—is using my own grandmother against me.
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If justified murder was legal in this state, I’d have pushed his face into a fresh batch of dough and smothered him by now.
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This is it. This is how I die. Complete and utter humiliation at the hands of my loving grandmother who doesn’t have a clue she’s pinning her hopes on a human rattlesnake.
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Boom. Just like that, she smacks my heart down like a kitten with yarn.
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Yep. Still planning his murder in my head. I wonder if anyone will notice if I bake a rich real estate guy into a pie one little piece at a time. Hey, it almost worked for Sweeney Todd.
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“Miss Winkley, I’m warning you. I don’t need this tonight.” “Oh, yeah? That’s a shame.” Her voice is hard. “I kinda know the feeling. It’s such a drag when you’re ambushed after a long day, isn’t it?”
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“Woman, I told you I fucked up. I don’t need this shit.” “And I do not need any sarcasm from you, Big Fish.” I’m fucking speechless. Again.
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“Now that you’ve see what I can do, don’t piss me off again, Dexter. Next time I find my way in here, I’m leaving with your balls.” I snort loudly. “You’d need the upper body strength to carry them first.”
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I won’t have her turning up at my house again, sitting on my sofa, sipping champagne and sassing me like we skipped straight past the fake wedding to being an old married couple.
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Of the three of us, Patton got the best people skills. This glorified brat could charm the wheels off a car and sell them back to the owner at a horrifying markup. Archer got the dick-with-me-and-you’re-dead energy, and I got—stubbornness, I suppose. A certain pigheaded tenacity that serves me in business as much as it hinders me with people.
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“Woman, it wasn’t nearly enough if I liked fucking you. And it would’ve happened over two weeks before I decided I liked being inside you so much we decided to go exclusive.”
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My nickname sounds strange when he says it. But it’s a good weird, and it reaches down inside me and strokes me like a kitten.
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“Stop apologizing, Junie. Death cake aside, she’s honest and likable. That’s a hell of a lot more than I can say for most people.”
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Juniper Winkley tastes fucking divine. She might be the first sweet thing I’ve ever had that I don’t instantly hate.
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Calm the fuck down, you demented monkey, a voice warns.
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“Your Nana seems lovely, her sugar pact with Satan aside.”
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“Who?” she asks breathlessly. “Which one of my boys is getting married?” Archer and Patton both look at me. If I die tonight, I’m going out as a murderer.
37%
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Great. The man who screws me up the most just has to have a magic kinship with cats.
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“As I was saying, you’ve been the best fake girlfriend a man could hope for. You haven’t gone back on our deal, you haven’t backed down, and you haven’t even found a hitman to haul my carcass down to the Ozarks and be done with my shit—though I know you’ve thought about it plenty.” I bite my bottom lip, trying not to laugh. “So, Sweet Stuff, fake lover and real partner, will you accept this ring? Will you save my balls from getting crushed like grapes one more time?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabs my hand and slides the ring on.
42%
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I leave Junie alone for one day and my overexcited mom has to come along and ruin everything.
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I’m almost certain he’s sporting the world’s largest hard-on and it kills me. Which is only fair, considering my lady bits are one more kiss away from starting the place on fire.
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I’m behaving like some horndog who just found out he can do a lot more with his dick than piss out of it.
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A long, slow smile spreads across his face as he drops his trousers, revealing a pair of dark boxers—and a dick print so large I wonder if he holds a world record. Holy cock.
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“Your ex is a brainless fucking worm for not realizing it.”
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“I love her,” I say. “Being with Junie—it’s not like anything I’ve ever experienced. Before her, I never dreamed I’d be willing to do the unthinkable. I never thought I’d be glad to risk everything.”
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When Haute was trying his damnedest to kill me, it got me thinking. Maybe life isn’t worth living without sugar.”
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“No, Junie, I’m not mad. I’m just fucking dying without you.”
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“I love you, Juniper Winkley,” he says, and his face has lost its smile. He’s deadly serious as he looks at me. “I’ve known it for a while, but I pretended I didn’t because we told ourselves it was make-believe. Now, I’m not afraid. It was always real to me, and if you’ll have me, I want to find out how sweet life can be. Together.”
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for someone who thinks dessert is pure evil, you’re pretty good at this. What did Lucifer offer you?” I snort. “Only you, woman. Somehow, that’ll always be enough.”
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“It’s real now, Junie. Realer than the colors on these trees. Realer than my own pulse. That’s why I’m here, down on one knee, getting my pants soaked and asking for forever.” I shift my leg—that part wasn’t just me being funny, the grass really is wet. “Needless to say, I’ll always be here for you, woman, even when you interrupt me. I’ve loved you almost as long as I’ve known you, and I knew settling for a fake ring and playing house wouldn’t do. I figured out fast I needed to spend my life with you.” “I never—” “Let me finish, dammit,” I growl. She mimes locking her lips and throwing away ...more
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It wouldn’t be our wedding day if we didn’t toss a little crap back and forth.
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It’s not a dream, I decide as I rest my head against his shoulder. Dreams always end, but this is just the first night. This is the deepest truth. As long as I’m with him—as long as I’m a Rory—I’ll never ask for anything more from a man who’s delivered the entire world.