Between Commitment and Betrayal (Hardy Billionaire Brothers, #1)

by Shain Rose

“Everly,” I tapped my desk and then smirked up at her. “You know in a marriage, the spouse comes first. Technically, my wife comes first. You have something you need to discuss, I’ll push a meeting.” “Declan,” she whisper-yelled my name, then glanced quickly behind her before closing the door. “That’s not a funny joke. Don’t talk like that at work, or publicly anywhere.” “I wasn’t joking. You are my wife.” She was also the person I wanted to talk to in that moment more than anyone else. I was going to give her my attention whether she wanted it or not.

Finding that I wanted to make my fake wife happy was a damn problem. Because the rest of the day, I walked around like a dumbass with a bright smile on my face.

“Everly, my wife gets what she wants, and if I don’t know what that is, I just get everything.”

“Po! You think you can just take care of my girl because I’m not around?” Wes yelled across the gym while he finished a pull-up, a smile across his face as he claimed something that was actually mine. My wife. Even if no one knew it.

“Next time you step inside my gym, you’re going to remember most everything in it belongs to me …” He stood behind me, so we looked at each other in the reflection of the mirror again. “Including you.”

My whole body careened over the edge, spiraling down into my first orgasm as I screamed his name, all my self-control completely lost. I was losing everything when it came to him. Losing my mind, for sure. And then his praise came next. That’s when I knew I was about to lose my heart to him too.

“Look in that mirror. My wife looks beautiful after I play with her pussy, doesn’t she?”

Everly wanted to be ten steps ahead since she was meticulous and a creature of habit, but she wasn’t going to be that here. She was going to give up control, feel the spontaneity of the moment, and trust me to give her the best fuck of her life.

Her hanging there, tits out and ass available to grab as I devoured her sex in my gym: it was a new type of sanctuary. I’d found a new religion, a new mantra. Everly Belafonte, my raindrop, restrained in gym equipment. I’d kneel and praise her any way I knew how.

The coiling of a woman’s body, the way their muscles writhed to seek every second of their orgasm was always ravishing. Yet, Everly was the beauty of a gathering storm over the ocean, so quiet and composed until the lightning struck and you saw the clouds and the rain and the waves of emotion creating brilliance. Seeing what I caused in her, the lightning over what I thought was a calm sea, it made me feel godlike.

“I’m going to fuck you here while you stare at all these weights, baby. I’m going to help spot you through a workout of our own so you know how it feels to have me spot you instead of another man.”

“It’s not convenient to watch men stare at your ass when all I want to do is redden it, Drop. It’s not convenient to picture fucking you on the bench press all day either. Yet, here we are.” I pushed her chest further onto the bench, then grabbed her hair to pull her close as I leaned in. “Is this convenient for you?” I wanted her composure gone again, her reasoning out the window.

I needed her to want me just as much as I wanted her. I hadn’t wanted anything so bad in a long damn time. It made her dangerous and a challenge, but that made her mine all the same. I’d never backed away from that. Even if I wasn’t sure how to keep her yet. Two months were already gone from us committing. I realized I wasn’t counting down until the end anymore.

we needed to stick to the original plan. Make this marriage a clean one of convenience. Instead, we’d gone between our commitments, outside of them, way overshot them. And even still, my heart wanted more of it. I wanted him commanding me around, I wanted the change in my life more than I’d wanted anything in a long time. But to want was to hope and to hope was to fear, and I’d seen how hope could be ripped away.

Declan didn’t turn around. Instead, he sat on the soft comforter of my bed and leaned back to watch. “Not going to turn around?” “Why would I? People pay millions to have masterpieces in their homes, to stare at them displayed for their eyes only. You naked in front of me is a masterpiece, and I don’t intend to ever miss an opportunity to stare, babe.”

My body reacted to him so quickly I knew I was already wet. He’d gotten ahold of something I wanted no man to have. My lust for him. My desire. And my trust in him grew. Exponentially. Dangerously.

“Just let me take care of you today. Let me handle the anxiety, Drop. Let me praise or punish you for listening or not today, huh?” My throat moved under his grip. “I think maybe someone broke your trust. I’m earning it back now, though. I get my chance. So, today, I’m taking control, and you’re not going to think about it at all. You’re going to listen. Got it?”

“We are nothing to each other but a signature, Mr. Hardy. We made a legal commitment, that’s it. Let’s stick to it and get through this.” “Just a signature?” I’d contained my frustration in worse circumstances, but Everly pressed all the right buttons, and it was the exact wrong time to push me over the edge. “Drop, I can’t fucking sleep without thinking about you down in the guesthouse, can’t go to work without my eyes drifting to where you’re helping a client, and let’s be clear, I still taste your pussy when I think about it, still feel your tongue on my cock when I imagine it. You may think you can go backwards and forget my first name, but remember you knew it when you moaned right before I made you come.”

“You realize that for the past couple days, I haven’t had a thought without you in it. My mind doesn’t work without you in it. My dreams, my nightmares, my subconscious, my conscious … none of them operate lately without you.”

I’d let the alcohol flow through my veins and drown out the heartache of not just one loss, but that of an entire family. The hope of them accepting me died when his heart stopped beating, and I needed to let go of what wasn’t meant to be.

Would I let her go if whatever was coming our way at that meeting was catastrophic? Or would giving her up destroy me anyway?

“Declan,” She whined and I saw her jaw set, felt the anger behind her words as she said, “Are you kidding me? Fucking move.” I chuckled and shook my head no as I leaned in to tell her, “No. You want it? Then, shut the fuck up and take my cock like the good girl you are, baby. Take it exactly how you want it.”

“I’m starting to understand why people get married. I should get to go to bed fucking you and wake up with you riding my cock every damn day, Drop.”

Every time I was with him, I felt more and more bold, like he’d keep me safe even while I put myself at his mercy.

We didn’t know what was to come, but I knew I wanted to leave this memory and mark on him now.

“Carl wanted us married but it isn’t real.” Even saying those words now felt wrong because I couldn’t see what was real or fake anymore between Declan and me.

“I’m still me, Declan,” I whispered, not sure he understood that I wasn’t ruined, that I wasn’t tainted by all this, that I’d survived in the best way I knew how. “But, baby, you’re so much more. Don’t you get it? You’re the drive to keep going when someone took everything from you. You’re the will to survive when most of us would have given up by now. You’re all the raindrops in a tsunami of courage and strength.”

Here was where I needed to make her understand one thing, here was where I needed Everly to see only me and no one else. Away from them. Away from the bullshit. Away from a life I’d created but didn’t enjoy without her anymore.

I shouldn’t have spoiled myself with a dance while the smell of her swirled around me, with her breath on my chest as she folded into me as our souls mingled together and clung to one another. It may have been wrong, but her with me felt so fucking right.

“That bid wasn’t about charity. It was about this. About knowing no one belongs here with you but me. I’ve had you twice outside in the night, I’ve looked into your eyes and seen a darkness you harbor that only I want to witness and soothe and bring light to. Why do you think I’d ever give another man that privilege?”

I thrust deep in her over and over, trying to make it clear she was mine, trying to make her understand she belonged to no one else. Trying. But as I stared into her shining eyes filled with a brewing desire again, I lost myself to her. I realized she didn’t belong to me, I belonged to her. I fucked her hard, wanting to own her but realizing I couldn’t. She held my sanity, my control, my power, my heart in her hands. She owned me.

I didn’t want to leave the garden, didn’t want to leave this night and go back to reality. Here, we could be under a spell, lost in the magic of one another, not worrying about outside factors.

“I don’t love you, Drop.” I cut her off fast. I needed to say it out loud anyway. Maybe if I could convince her of it, I’d believe it myself. I didn’t want her love this way. I wouldn’t have it be like this. Not with the weight of a will bearing down on us. She needed to love me and I needed to love her without conditions. To do it under a commitment we made to one another for a damn will would be to betray the one thing she deserved to get. She deserved a beautiful life with no stipulations, with only love, with everything she’d ever dreamed of.

her posture deflated, like I’d taken all the wind from her sails and snuffed out the tiny bit of sun she had started to see on a rainy day. I knew it had to be this way though.

do you think you ever could?” she whispered and, fuck, my heart broke. Everly didn’t push or need to ask for anything from me. She barely let the world in to see her mask slip and witness her real emotions. She was strong, but in that moment, I saw the vulnerable, soft part she hid from the world. And that part would be broken and ruine...

We couldn’t have this inheritance hanging over our head anymore. I had to take care of it for both of us. Then, we’d have a chance at the dream of a family that she deserved. I hoped one day she would understand that I’d fallen so beyond in love with her that I was willing to do the one thing that would make her hate me. Betray her.

that’s what you don’t get. I’m alone here. I’m alone everywhere except when I’m with my mother. I have no one else, but I thought I had you. I thought this stupid commitment we made was real, that we’d get through it and wouldn’t hurt each other. But I was wrong. So devastatingly wrong.”

Before my eyes, her letter of resignation appeared. “Here’s your written notice. One month.” When I didn’t take it right away, she shoved it into my chest and then grabbed my wrist to slam it there too. She was walking out the door before I realized I was losing her. I was losing everything I wanted.

“Working for you means nothing.” “It means everything because I can’t live without you. I’m so far in love with you that I can’t see straight. You know I go to bed touching this?” I held up my hand and pointed to the string on my ring finger. “And I wake up, still touching it like it can bring me closer to you. I’ve suffered days with seeing the hurt in your eyes and wanting to make it better, with seeing you pulling away, and wanting to pull you back. I. Love. You.” I ground out.

My grip tightened on her and I knew she’d have bruises later, but I was too scared of this being over and scared of losing her again that I couldn’t control it. “Good fucking girl. You’re mine. You’ll always be mine.”

I simply sat with tears streaming down my face as I considered how I could make this work on my own. I vowed never to tell him. I vowed to raise my child in love, and I knew forcing Declan to stay in this marriage wasn’t what either of us wanted. Plus, Andy was coming. I knew he would. And when your past catches up to you, you don’t run. You fight it off and make sure the blowback doesn’t injure the ones you love around you. I needed to handle this on my own so my baby and I could have a clean start.

Declan had been right to leave me behind. He’d been born in love, wrapped in it, secured by it. His family was the epitome of love. I was born into a home where my mother worked diligently to provide for me and teach me that I could only rely on myself in the world. I longed for love and went looking for it, not knowing I was looking in all the wrong places. I wouldn’t do that to my child. So I signed the divorce papers and went to sleep clutching them as I sobbed.

“I’m not with her.” The proclamation flew from his mouth fast. “I can’t stand her. I can’t stand any damn woman because all I can think of is you.”

I’m forever thankful to you. More than that, though, I’m forever in love with you. I told you that night I wasn’t. It was a lie. Yet, I wasn’t going to plow through a marriage with the woman I love. I hope you know I want to watch Home Alone with you, stay up late with you, make bracelets with you, and eat breakfasts with you for the rest of my life. I want the ring on my finger to be made of string forever because we love one another, not because an inheritance directive said to put it there. I want babies with you, as many as you want. Even if it’s a crazy amount like you told me before. Not because Carl said so, but because I want to see a little girl just like her momma learning yoga in HEAT Health and Fitness while her mom teaches her it. I want that baby to be mine so damn bad, Everly, it hurts. I want the happily ever after with you, but I want to get there on our terms, no one else’s.

No one fights you, and it shows they aren’t willing to. He should have fought to give you everything before, and I’m fighting to give you everything now. I need you to know that’s what families do. I’m going to do that every single day. I fought for the yoga studio, and it broke my damn heart to tell you I didn’t love you because I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything. More than the empire, more than the shares. I’m happy to give all that shit up if I get you and your happiness.

I need another chance, babe. We need another shot because I’m sick of this bullshit. I’m sick of not having my meals with you. I’m sick of not having you. I’m sick of wanting my wife and thinking she’s just out of reach. You’re truly my wife. Not out of convenience, not because of a will. But because I love you. I can’t see straight without you.”

I wanted to go on a date with him, I wanted to learn every single thing about him. I just wanted him. I wanted to hope. And hope was scary, but Declan was worth it. We should always hope when there’s a happily ever after to dream for.

He walked up to me and kissed me senseless, then picked me up and carried me to his house. He fucked me slow in his bed and told me it was where I belonged. It’s all I wanted. Except we still had a baby. And I didn’t know how to tell him just then that our happily ever after was already in motion.

“Want to go get french fries or ice cream?” “Seriously?” I glanced at all of the Hardy brothers smiling at me and knew I was finally a part of a family, one that would take care of me in a way I’d never been cared for before. Wrapped in love.

When we pulled up to the diner I’d told him about, he smiled softly. “And here’s your diner, baby.” “My diner?” “HEAT bought it an hour ago. You needed the fries and ice cream.” My heartbeat quickened as my jaw dropped, and I glanced again at the window. Inside, I saw my mother and Tonya smiling with a sign that read Let’s get married again. I turned to him with tears in my eyes. “Declan …” “You wanted ice cream and fries, right?” His brow was furrowed as he squeezed my hand. “Yes …” I whispered. “Good. Because my wife gets what my wife wants.” “No, yes to marrying you. Over and over. Forever and ever.”