Irrefutable (The Apprehensive Duet Book 2) Read online

  Irrefutable

  Copyright © 2016 Kimberly Bracco

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, or transmitted in any medium, whether electronic, internet, or otherwise, without the expressed of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, locations, and names occurring in this book are the product of the author’s imagination, or are the property of their respective owners and are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, or persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All trademarks and trade names are used in a fictitious manner and are in no way endorsed by or an endorsement of their respective owners.

  Contains sexual and mature content, as well as offensive language.

  Recommended for ages 18 and up.

  Cover Design:

  Cover Luxe

  Editing:

  Lisa Christman, Adept Edits

  ISBN ebook: 978-0-9861738-0-6

  ISBN print: 978-0-9861738-4-4

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Thee

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  Chapter Forty Four

  Chapter Forty Five

  Chapter Forty Six

  Chapter Forty Seven

  Chapter Forty Eight

  Chapter Forty Nine

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  This is for everyone who feels like things are never going to get better.

  Hang on and keep your head up. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel and asking for help doesn’t make you weak. Be the strongest you, you can be!

  THE INTENSITY OF Alex’s stare burns through me as he waits for me to say something—anything. But I have no idea what to do or say. All I want is to spill my guts and tell him the entire truth. Tell him that not only will my father ruin my reputation, but he’s framed me for doing something illegal and I have no clue what he’s done or how to stop it.

  I want nothing more than for Alex to wrap me in his safe, muscular arms and tell me everything will be okay. His voice has this way of calming me like nothing else. As close as Jordan and I are, he’s never been able to soothe me the way Alex does. Alex has always had the ability to make my world okay.

  His words dance around inside my frazzled brain. If you don’t love him like that, then don’t marry him.

  I don’t love Jordan that way. Not at all. I don’t see us sitting together on some porch swing at sixty years old reminiscing about the wonderful life we’ve had together. Instead, I picture us divorced in less than five years, working together but having our own separate lives. Lives we’ve always wanted. Not the one my father is forcing us into. There’s no fairy tale here.

  But how can I not marry Jordan today? The fallout of not doing this could be catastrophic. My father has effectively terrorized me into going through with this. Love has nothing to do with this wedding.

  “Regardless of love or not, if I back out, I have nothing. How am I supposed to just let him destroy me? My father is huge in this world. You don’t want him as an enemy, and I’d be his biggest target. He won’t stop until I’m ruined, and what about Jordan? His father has terminal cancer, Alex. He’s dying and Jordan wants to do this for him while he can. All Jordan wants to do is make his father proud. What kind of person would I be if I took that away from him at this point?”

  “You’d be a person who is doing the best she can. Do you want to do something just because it will make everyone else happy? Or do you want to be the person who does something because it makes you happy? And you won’t have nothing if you don’t do this; you’ll have yourself, and the people who care about you. I know how much your career means to you. I understand that you’re stuck between two shitty endings, but why do I have the feeling that something else is going on here?” His eyes search my face, roaming over every inch of it as if he’s hoping to find the answers he’s looking for painted across it.

  Can I trust him? That’s the biggest question I need to answer before I can say a word about the driving force of this wedding. A wedding that’s supposed to take place in less than eight hours. For two years I thought of Alex as this amazing man, the man who was going to change my world. I let him in—I gave him parts of me I never gave anyone else, and I’m not just talking about sex. Alex got further in than anyone else since my time as an immature teenager, and it ended in a lot of confusion and hurt. My walls are my safety net; I put them there for a reason. No one had ever gotten past them, and I thought that’s how it was always going to be—until Alex.

  But Jordan made it in too. I tried to hate him, but it didn’t work. Jordan isn’t my enemy. How can I hurt him? He’s stood by me through everything my dad has done to me. He may not know the full weight of my father’s threats, but he’s still been my rock through it all. When everyone else had something negative to say about what we’re doing, Jordan had my back, to the point of being willing to marry me to save me.

  My phone rings in my bedroom breaking the silence and scaring the crap out of me. My nerves have me at the end of my rope. I scurry from the couch to grab it in desperate need of a minute’s reprieve from Alex. There’s no clear answer to give him. I don’t have the slightest clue what kind of person I’m going to end up being when today is through.

  The ringing stops as I make my way into my room then starts right back up again. It’s got to be Ashley calling to see what the hell is going on. Scooping it up off my nightstand, I see Jordan’s name as Alex’s footsteps resonate louder in the hall the closer he gets to the bedroom.

  “Hello?” I answer just as Alex reaches the threshold of my bedroom door.

  A slight sob accompanied by a sniffle greets me on the other end of the line and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Something’s wrong. The blood in my veins runs cold. There’s no way my father could’ve done something bad; he has no idea I’m even thinking about backing out today, so why is Jordan upset? “What’s going on, Jordan?”

  “He’s gone…” he whispers. His voice is low and broken, so it’s a struggle to hear him but once his words sink in my heart drops.

  “No…” The word slips out. He
can’t be gone. He was supposed to have more time, at least another month or two.

  “Yes,” Jordan says, choking on the word. His devastation is undeniable. This man sounds broken … is broken ... and needs me.

  “Oh my God,” I gasp. My body already in motion as I head toward my duffle bag near the closet. “I’m on my way.”

  Disconnecting the call, I pull out the first pair of pants my hands find and change out of my pajamas.

  As I’m stuffing my legs into my black leggings, Alex clears his throat reminding me I’m not alone. I don’t know how I could’ve forgotten, but I did. The last hour of indecision has been wiped from my brain upon hearing of Martin’s passing. Jordan needs me. I need to go.

  “What’s going on, Quinn?” The hurt and confusion in his voice blankets me in guilt. We just had a major conversation, revealing the fact I’m not entirely sure about the marriage I’m supposed to be getting ready for, and I’m bolting.

  But there’s no time for worrying about any of it at the moment. It’ll all have to wait. All the vacillation has no purpose any longer. There is no wedding happening today. The father of the groom just died. I can’t sit here and continue hashing out my feelings and fears with Alex. I have a family which I was supposed to become an official member of today who needs me right now.

  I slip my feet into my Uggs while tossing my hair into a messy bun on the top of my head. “I have to go.”

  A look of panic crosses his face as his wild, frantic eyes dart around the room looking from my wedding dress still pooled on the floor to the bags packed in the corner, finally landing on me. “Go? Go where?”

  He steps further into the room, closing in on me as if he thinks he has a shot at changing my mind, but I hold my hand up to halt him. “Stop. I can’t do this right now. I really have to go.”

  I grab my purse from my dresser and rush out the front door, sprinting to my car. There will be time to explain things later, because in love or not, I have a fiancé who needs me.

  ADMITTING THAT MY dad was gone was much more agonizing than I’d imagined. The words felt like tar stuck in my throat as I told Quinn. I had to try to force them out. I knew I’d have to speak those words soon, but I didn’t think it would be this soon, and knowing and actually having to do are two completely different things.

  The disbelief in her voice as she gasped over the line only compounded my grief. I don’t love the idea that she’s driving over here now all upset, but I need her.

  Quinn really loved my dad; I could see it in the way they interacted together. He was the father she never had and she was the daughter my dad would’ve loved to have. She may not have had him for thirty-two years like I did, but she still loved him as if she had.

  Everything about today is all wrong. It was supposed to be one of the best days of our lives. I was supposed to marry an amazing woman and see the look on my father’s face as I made him proud. When I went to bed last night, I had a shit-eating grin on my face. Quinn was going to become my wife. We were going to start a life together. A life where we both got everything we ever wanted. Instead, my father is gone. My parents have been waiting for the day I started my life with someone. They were both thrilled when I told them Quinn was the one. Now he’ll never get to see it.

  My mother’s sobs echo throughout the house, breaking me further. Her pain is palpable and there’s nothing I can do to make it any better.

  Just a few hours ago the house was filled to the brim with joy and love. Now it’s drowning in sadness.

  We had a wonderful breakfast. The three of us sat around the table enjoying a simple meal as my father reminisced about how he felt the day he married my mother.

  “When it’s right, you just know,” he said with a smile as he gazed lovingly at my mother.

  Neither of us thought it would be the last smile we saw from him. We didn’t bat an eyelash when dad said he wanted to go take a nap before things got hectic. He was sick, we knew that. I just thought he wanted to rest before the day got under way.

  I was too wrapped up in my own happiness to notice the signs that things just weren’t right. If I had taken off the blinders, I would’ve noticed that Dad looked very tired, more so than usual. He seemed thinner and frailer. He didn’t actually eat anything at breakfast either, just pushed the food around his plate. Come to think of it, I didn’t see him eat much last night at the rehearsal dinner either. His speech was slower than usual and his skin was very pale. If this was any other day, I would’ve seen it and suggested we call someone. But I was too concerned about myself.

  Dad had been napping for about two hours when Mom asked me to bring his suit up to him. “He’s going to need a little extra time to get ready, Jordan. He doesn’t move around as easily as he used to.”

  I was whistling as I walked in. Fucking whistling.

  “Dad,” I called out as I hung his suit on their closet door.

  When I got no answer, I walked over to his sleeping form and called out to him again. “Dad?”

  Nothing.

  “Dad?” I shook him and still got no response. My heart jumped its way into my throat as I figured out that my father was gone. I pressed my head down on his chest and heard nothing on the other side. No heartbeat and no breaths. My father had died during his nap. On my wedding day. Before he got to see me take the biggest step of my life. The step I knew would make him so damn proud of me.

  I thought finding my father passed away in his bed was the worst thing I could ever experience in my life. God, was I wrong. The realization that I was heading through the house to tell my mother that the love of her life was gone hit me like a ton of bricks, causing me to stumble. I used the wall to hold myself up while asking myself how I was going to do this.

  How does a person tell someone something as life altering as the death of their soul mate?

  The look of grief on mom’s face will be forever etched in my brain. Her eyes filled with tears. Her head shook in denial. Her bottom lip quivered. Christ, I had to break my own mother’s heart.

  It didn’t stop there. I had to watch as my mom crawled onto their bed, laid her head on my dad’s chest, and let out the most heart-wrenching sobs. I let her have her moment with him while I placed the call to 9-1-1 to inform them my father had passed away.

  Sitting at the bottom of the stairs in my parents’ foyer, I look around and think about all the many wonderful memories I’ve had with my father here in this room. The countless times he was waiting for me after school, despite the fact he was a successful businessman who was needed at the office, the talk about respecting a lady when I went on my first date, the family photo we took in front of the large ceramic vase in the corner on the day of my high school graduation.

  Where do I go from here?

  It almost feels like my father took my sense of direction with him. I’m lost. Despite how well I thought I was preparing myself for the inevitable loss, I wasn’t at all. My father had become my compass over the last year. He was teaching me how to be the man he was. He has always been proud of me, I knew that. But the look in his eyes when he looked at me lately screamed just how proud he was. The way he smiled at me while we’d talk business. The way he encouraged me to make my own decisions and build my own business from his. The way he looked at Quinn, as if her coming into our lives completed something for him.

  Who do I turn to now? Who do I have to guide me from here on out? We didn’t get enough time. So much of it wasted on me being more concerned with living the fun life. I took him for granted. Time is up. Now I have to be the man of the family.

  WHAT THE HELL just happened?

  Less than an hour ago I walked through the door unsure of what I’d find. Finding a distraught, emotionally drained Quinn was shocking. The woman has always been a force to be reckoned with—strong, beautiful, in control of everything. That woman was nowhere to be found today.

  Anyone with working eyes could’ve seen she’d been crying all night. Her once sparkling blue eyes were dull and rimmed
with red. The bags under them just adding to her distressed look. Nothing about her today told me she wants to be a bride. Her fucking door was unlocked and we had an entire conversation without her even realizing she was wearing those boy short things and a tank top with no bra.

  I could tell the minute I stepped into her place, something was really off. There was a very ominous feel in the air, a vortex of misery and despair. The moment I caught sight of her, I had to fight the strong instinct embedded in me to comfort and fix her. What happened to my beautiful angel? My anger toward her had mounted and mounted over the last few weeks, and no matter how badly I didn’t want to forget everything she’s done to me, it all went out the window when I saw the state she was in.

  My rational side compromised with my instinctual side and I went with talking. I needed her to talk to me about what was going on inside her. Quinn always tries to be the strongest person in the room. Never wants anyone to see her weakness. From the beginning of this thing with us, I was able to see through her. Once she accepted that fact, she was always open with me. Except for the bullshit with walking in on her dad and all the shit that happened after that day.

  The trauma of seeing her dad being intimate with another woman really fucked her up. I may not agree with or like the way she chose to process it all, but it is what it is. I can’t change her entire mentality on the subject in one day, but I know I can show her that not all men are assholes. I can give her something positive to form a new opinion on. Especially on a day like today when she really needed someone to just listen to her. I do that for her. When I told her all I wanted was for her to be happy, I wasn’t lying. She may not want to be with me or give us a shot again, and that’s okay. We can still be in a better place. She doesn’t have to avoid me. I don’t begrudge her. I just want her to be happy.

  I took a chance when I poured my broken heart out to Quinn, trying to show her honesty and vulnerability. She needed to see that it was possible for people to still love her even if she’s made mistakes. Maybe then she’d trust me with a little bit more and give me the real reason behind this marriage. I thought I was making some progress. Deep down in my gut, I know she was about to tell me something huge … and then she was flying out the door.