Her Sweet Temptation by Nina Crespo

Author:Nina Crespo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-07-13T16:39:43+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Rina paused to let Scott digest that bit of news as she took in how it felt to tell him. She hadn’t planned on doing it. Tristan’s reasoning didn’t line up with hers, it made sense for a different reason.

As her friend, she had let Scott in further than most, sharing her fears about the cafe and her struggles with Zurie. Now that they’d agreed to be more than just friends, sharing the hardest moment of her life felt less like a big reveal and more of a natural progression. And besides that, when it came time for her and Scott to become intimate, he’d see her leg and wonder how it happened.

Scott glanced over at her. “You eloped?”

“Not exactly. One morning, before everyone woke up, a transport service Xavier had arranged picked up Noble Wind and a few hours later, we were on the road. I called home to let everyone know I was okay. A few days after that, when we arrived in Vegas, we were married at a 24-hour chapel.”

With this ring, I thee wed... for richer or poorer... in sickness and in health...

When she’d made those vows to Xavier, she couldn’t have imagined what was ahead for them.

Memories filtered through her mind, but they seemed distant, as if belonging to someone else. “At first, living one big party and having no responsibilities was fun, but after a few months, it grew tiresome. The cars, the condo, the furnishings inside of it, they didn’t belong to us. Everything was in his father’s name. We lived off of an allowance he gave us. We were supposed to make a life together, but we couldn’t. I needed some sort of independence so I got a job teaching horse riding at the stable where we were boarding Noble Wind. That’s also when I started baking pies. It reminded me of home.”

“How much of this did your family know?”

“None of it. I thought I could change him. And I was too proud to admit I’d made a mistake.”

“How long did you stay?” His low tone didn’t hold judgment or accusation. It was a fair question.

“Eight months. By then, his gambling had grown out of control. He’d started going to private poker games with high stakes. What I could save from the allowance his father gave us, after he paid his debts, plus teaching horse riding and selling pies barely kept the lights on and food on the table.”

Tillbridge just up ahead in the dusky sunset forced a pause.

Scott parked and turned off the engine. He unclipped his belt and turned toward her in the seat.

His silence was her cue to finish, but now that they were standing still, and she could see his face, telling him the rest, the hardest part, felt even harder.

Stalling, she unbuckled her seat belt as a memory more vivid than the others started to surface. “I decided to leave him. I’d gotten myself into the situation on my own. I thought I could get myself out of it.

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