Tainted Forever Read online

  “…she sent a cake, Caleb.”

  I lifted my brows in confusion, unable to make sense of that sentence. What about a cake?

  The brick wall that was actually a man beside me blew out a harsh breath. “That was probably Angie’s idea. Or Lucy. That totally sounds like one of them. Trust me, bro, if she finally decided she’s had enough and is ending things, she would have been too upset to do much of anything but cry. And that’s all she’s been doing for the last twenty-four hours.”

  I didn’t hear the rest of their conversation, still too caught up in the whole cake thing. By the time Caleb hung up moments later, I was still unable to understand.

  “What was that about a cake?”

  He scrubbed a hand over his chin. “Don’t know if you let Jace know you were ending things with him or not, but he knows now. Apparently, Ang sent a breakup cake.”

  “What is a breakup cake?” I asked stupidly, my brain too cloudy from crying for over a full day.

  “I guess she sent a cake with a message telling him it was over between you guys, from you.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Jace shows up here tonight. Pretty sure I slipped up and let Cash know you’re here.”

  My heart shuddered in my chest, and I had to touch a hand to it, begging it to calm the fuck down. The idea of seeing Jace so soon after finding out the truth wasn’t appealing. The thought of seeing him at all, in fact, was just too much. I smelled, my face was swollen from all the crying, my throat was raw, and I was fairly sure there was food in my hair.

  “Fuck!” Jumping to my feet, I nearly face-planted because my knees were weak from having sat in one place for too long. Cursing, I rushed up to my room and jumped in the shower.

  There was no way in hell I was going to face Jace looking and smelling disgusting. He already broke my heart; he wasn’t going to find me so vulnerable on top of that.

  The heat of the shower eased some of the tension in my shoulders, and I groaned as I let the powerful jets wash over my neck and back. I took my time, debating how I was going to handle seeing him. Screaming at him wasn’t something I favored. I was hurt and pissed, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how emotional I really was—or so I kept telling myself.

  I would be calm, ask him why he’d cheated, got some chick pregnant, and then tell him I never wanted to see him again. It was over—no matter what he had to say. Three years was long enough for him to decide if I was his future, and if nothing else, this showed me that our futures were going in completely opposite directions.

  As I got out of the shower, I heard my phone ringing from my bedroom. Ignoring it, I dried and walked into my closet. I pulled on a pair of sweats and a matching top, forgoing a bra. I didn’t have the energy to do anything with my hair, so I brushed out the wet tangles and left it to air-dry.

  The shower hadn’t washed away my problems, but at least I no longer smelled like week-old trash and my hair was washed. A look in the full-length mirror hanging on the back of my closet door showed me that my eyes were still swollen from all the crying. There was no use in trying to hide that. Not when I could already feel the sting of fresh tears.

  Blinking them back, I grabbed my phone, looking through the long list of texts that had blown it up while I was showering.

  Jace had tried to call me no fewer than fifty times in the last thirty minutes, and there were just as many texts. Pleas for me to answer the phone, to tell him what was going on, why was I ending things.

  That he seemed clueless only pissed me off more, and I welcomed the anger, gladly letting the emotion overtake me so my pain could take a back seat.

  Mixed in with the long list of stupid messages from my ex were a few from Aunt Emmie, all of which asked me to call her as soon as possible. I loved my honorary aunt, had been thankful for her when she appeared in my life after I first became friends with Lucy. I was still thankful, and it wasn’t just because she had been responsible for so much of my success so far. She always let me know she had my back.

  And while I would have loved to hear her voice in that moment—or better yet, have her hug me—I didn’t think I could make it through a phone call with her without breaking down all over again.

  A tap on my door had me lifting my head to find Caleb standing in the doorway. “If they show up, you don’t have to face him. I won’t let him in the house if that’s what you want.”

  I thought it over for a moment, but I shook my head. I might not want to face what Jace did, but it was better to just get it over with so I could move on with my life.

  Right then, I wasn’t sure how that was possible, or even where my life was going now. For three years, my life coincided with Jace’s. We loved each other; we would always be together. The music world was ours for the taking. I would write him a number one hit song, and we would both get a Grammy for it one day. Or so I’d dreamed.

  Now, I didn’t know where I stood in the world without him beside me. The idea of writing another song made me sick to my stomach. And I hated him for making me feel that way about the one thing I’d always had a passion for.

  “No,” I told Caleb. “I need to talk to him. I want answers, and only he can give them to me.”

  The doorbell rang an hour later, and my heart started pounding painfully. I stood, my chin lifted proudly, and went to answer the door myself.

  Chapter 3

  Jace

  The drive from Charlotte to Wytheville felt like it took forever, but Gray got us there quicker than expected.

  After getting that fucking cake, I would have taken off then and there if Kassa hadn’t stopped me. My little sister refused to let me go alone and threatened to turn Gray loose on me if I even tried to drive myself.

  I let her take charge, using the drive to text and attempt to call Kin the entire way. She didn’t answer, not once. And the texts were viewed but never replied to. That she wasn’t answering, wasn’t screaming at me, told me more than she probably wanted me to know. She was pissed, sure, but she was hurting more.

  I didn’t know what happened between the time I kissed her goodbye at the airport on Thursday and now, but that cake scared the ever-loving fuck out of me.

  You lied. Again. I’m done.

  I didn’t know which lie she’d found out about, but I would confess them all to her tonight. There was no way I was going to lose her. Not now, damn it. Not when I’d finally gotten everything sorted out and I could finally come clean to everyone.

  A familiar golf course came into view, and I realized we were already in Kin’s neighborhood. My knees began to bounce, and I tried to breathe deeply, hoping to calm my racing pulse. I needed to keep my cool, tell her the truth, no matter how much it hurt the people I cared about the most.

  Gray pulled the rental into the long driveway. A few lights were on inside the huge house, letting me know Kin was still awake. I jumped out of the back seat of the car and jogged up the walkway. Pushing down on the doorbell, I waited, my palms sweating with how nervous I was.

  I expected Caleb or Carter to answer the door, so when it opened and Kin stood on the other side, I nearly dropped to my knees then and there. Her beautiful blue eyes were swollen, her nose pink from crying. She had on a pair of shapeless sweats and a matching top that swallowed her.

  She’d never looked so beautiful to my aching eyes.

  I reached for her, needing to hold her, to make everything better. Fix what I’d unintentionally broken. But she took two steps back, the pain in her eyes replaced with a glare that damned me straight to hell, and my knees grew weak.

  “Baby, please, just talk to me,” I begged.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and my eyes lingered, noting she wasn’t wearing a bra. Fuck, now wasn’t the time to get a hard-on. That fast, no matter the situation, she could make me want her. I craved her night and day, couldn’t get enough of her, but I couldn’t allow my dick to get in the way now. This was too important. She was too important.
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  “I asked you, point-blank, if there was someone else.” Her voice cracked. “You said no. You promised me, Jace!” She turned away from the door, marching toward the living room.

  I hurried after her. “There is no one else, Kin! I don’t even know what you’re talking about right now, but if you would give me a minute, I’ll—”

  “Eden Smith!” she screamed the name at me, and I felt the color drain from my face. Her eyes lit up knowingly. “More to the point, her son.”

  My gut twisted, because I could hear Gray and Kassa coming in behind me. Caleb appeared on the other side of the living room, coming from the direction of the kitchen. His normally good-natured smile was gone, and in its place, an intense hate directed straight at me for having made one of his favorite people cry.

  “Wait…” Kassa said hesitantly from right behind me, and I wanted to hit pause on everything around me except for Kin so I could explain everything to her without my baby sister finding out anything. “Did…Did you just say Eden?”

  The pitch of that name coming from her sounded strained, but I balled my hands into fists and focused on Kin. I would deal with my sister’s pain later. Right now, I needed to fix this with the woman I loved.

  “Yes,” Kin told her, wrapping her arms around her middle. “Do you know her?”

  “Kas?” Gray’s voice sounded tense, and I turned just in time for him to catch Kassa around the waist as she began to sway. “What’s wrong? Baby, talk to me!”

  “Eden…” she whispered, her voice weak. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time. I almost forgot about her.” Her gaze clashed with mine. “What does Eden have to do with you and Kin?”

  “Oh, nothing much,” Kin snapped. “Just that he’s been cheating on me with her. And they have a son together.”

  “The fuck you say!” I roared in surprise, turning on her. “Is that what you think? That I would cheat on you and have a kid with someone else? You think I would disrespect you like that, Kin?”

  “I think you’ve been disrespecting me for close to a year, and I’ve been stupid enough to put up with it.”

  “Kin.” My sister brushed past me to get to Kin. She wrapped her arms around Kin’s waist, hugging her tight. “I don’t know what’s going on, but please believe me when I tell you Jace hasn’t been cheating on you with Eden.”

  Tears spilled out of Kin’s eyes, gutting me. “I saw the Facebook messages, Kassa. Each of them saying they loved each other. Then there were those pictures.”

  “You looked at my Facebook messages? You snooped on me?” Shut the fuck up, dumbass, I mentally told myself. Who cares that she snooped? I’ve given her plenty of reasons to do just that.

  “Apparently, I should have done it a hell of a lot sooner!” she shouted, pulling out of my sister’s hug. “You forgot to log out the last time you used my laptop, and she was messaging you. It was right there. I didn’t go looking for anything until I saw the picture of your son.”

  I groaned at my own idiocy. I never even should have used Kin’s computer to look at my Facebook. I didn’t have the app on my phone because fans would drive me fucking crazy if I did, so I limited my time on there by only using actual computers to post.

  “Baby, he’s not mine, I swear to you.”

  “Bullshit,” she snarled. “She said ‘our baby boy.’ Who else would she have been talking about?”

  “Eden had a baby?” Kassa whispered.

  “Kassa, sit down before you fall over,” Gray commanded. He guided her over to the couch then turned to face me. “Whatever is going on, you better start talking. Now. Kassa is upset, and I’m about to smash your face in.”

  “Yes, Jace,” Kin sneered. “Start talking.”

  I glanced around the room, my gaze landing first on my sister who was pale and shaken, then on Kin. She was pissed, and I knew it was going to take spilling everything in front of everyone there before I would get her to believe me. Fucking hell, I hadn’t wanted this to happen. It was why I’d kept Eden a secret for so long.

  Now, I had no choice. It was either tell them all everything—or lose Kin.

  “Eden had a baby,” I confirmed. “I didn’t know she’d given birth until you just mentioned it, Kin. She’s not due for another few weeks, so he must have come early.”

  “He?” Kassa smiled sadly. “A son?”

  I nodded, hating the sight of her tears. “Yes.”

  “Who the hell is Eden?” Gray demanded.

  “She’s our sister,” Kassa told him, her first tears falling. “Our half sister.”

  Kin flinched, not expecting that answer. “Sister?” she breathed. I could see her realizing everything, probably coming up with all the right answers. But if I expected her to look relieved, I was mistaken.

  Before my eyes, she seemed to deflate, and that scared me more than anything.

  “Yes, baby. Eden is my sister, not someone I was cheating on you with.” I moved toward her, but she jerked back and I stopped, my gut twisting. Now that she knew, why wasn’t she letting me hold her, damn it? “I would never cheat on you, Kin. I fucking love you.”

  “Why would you hide her from me if she’s your sister?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “If you weren’t sneaking around behind my back, why wouldn’t you just tell me?”

  “Because of Kas,” I told her honestly. “I didn’t want to hurt Kassa.”

  “What does hurting her have to do with you keeping this from me?” She was pacing now, even angrier than she was when I’d first arrived.

  Her question gave me pause. “Kin—”

  “No.” She stopped to face me. Her voice was soft, but her eyes were blazing. “I don’t want some bullshit answer. And I don’t want to hear how you didn’t want to hurt your sister. I get that. Hurting Kassa is the last thing I would want to do, too. But you didn’t tell me. There was nothing about you talking to Eden that would have hurt me, yet you kept it from me. For almost a year now, you were sneaking around, and you slowly broke me. There were days I didn’t even know why I was still with you because you were hurting me with all the secrecy and your fucking moods. So explain to me why I, the woman you claim to love, was left in the dark.”

  I opened my mouth, but for once, I was at a loss for words. There was no answer that would appease her. I honestly didn’t know why I hadn’t told her when I’d happened to run into Eden at a party in Miami. All I’d known was that I had to keep Eden a secret from Kassa.

  Back then, I wasn’t even sure if it was safe for Eden to be around Kassa. My memories of my older sister were frayed and jumbled. She was taken away by child services before they stepped in to take Kassa and me away, and I thought it was because Eden had tried to hurt Kas. I wanted to protect my little sister, and Kin, from Eden if she was really as unstable as my memories made me think she was.

  Now I knew that wasn’t the case, but I’d still feared Eden’s existence would hurt my baby sister. Especially when Kassa went through her miscarriage, and there Eden was, pregnant.

  “Well?” Kin’s sharp voice commanded my attention. “I’m listening, Jace.”

  “Baby, I swear…” My voice trailed off, and her eyes filled with fresh tears.

  Scrubbing her fists across her cheeks, she laughed brokenly. “Yeah, I thought so. Have I really been deluding myself all these years thinking we had an actual chance at forever?”

  “Kin, no!” The distance between us disappeared, and I grabbed her arms. “You are my forever. I’m sorry I kept this from you, and I swear it won’t happen again.”

  She shrugged off my hold and stepped back. “I didn’t matter to you. All this time, you were holding on to this secret, and you didn’t even try to tell me about it. I wasn’t important enough to be in the know about what was going on in your life. Once again, I didn’t come first with you.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I tried to explain. “I just didn’t want to burden you with Eden’s shit. Her life was fucked up and I want
ed to help her, but I didn’t want to drag you into the middle of it.”

  “I’m your girlfriend. I want to help you when something is bothering you. We’re supposed to be a team, damn it. Only, you’ve shown me you obviously neither want nor need me to be a part of that team…if I ever was.” Her tears fell faster, and I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  I was losing her. I could feel her slipping further and further away, and I had no idea how to stop it.

  “All you had to do was confide in me, Jace. I never would have told another soul about Eden if that was what you wanted. At least then I wouldn’t have thought you were cheating on me. I wouldn’t have been caught off guard yesterday and thought you had gotten someone else pregnant.” She turned away from me, her shoulders shaking. “And I stupidly put up with all of your shit this entire time. I told myself you loved me and there was a perfectly good reason, and I was right. I was fucking right.”

  She jerked around, facing me with the full blast of her hurt shining out of her eyes. “Only, you’ve broken my heart even more than it was when I thought Eden was your side chick. You’ve held a part of yourself back, refused to let me be involved with what was going on in your life, and now I realize the truth. I will never have all of you.”

  “Kin, stop. You’re pissed, and you have every right to be, but don’t say things like that. It’s not true. You know I love you.” I tried to pull her into my arms again, but she shoved me back.

  “You love me, but not enough. I will never come first with you.” She closed her eyes, shaking her head so hard her hair fell into her face.

  Angrily, she pushed it back, and when she opened her eyes, they were blank. “Do you even want to marry me, Jace? Has that even crossed your mind?”

  I gulped, feeling the blood drain from my face, and another tear fell from her eyes. “Is that what you want?” I asked, avoiding answering the question, trying to hide the fact that the mention of getting married was making my palms sweat. I loved her, but it was too soon to think about marriage. We had our entire lives to get married. Our careers were just beginning to take off, for fuck’s sake. “You want to get…married…now?”