Consolation Prize (Forbidden Men #9)(22)

“Oh, did he?” I murmured, arching a censorious eyebrow. “Let me smell your hair.”

Beau eagerly tilted his head down for me to bring my nose close, and when I actually got a whiff of clean soap, I shrugged. “All right then, bud. But we still gotta brush your teeth.”

He groaned and complained, but I set him on the floor and swatted him lightly on the back to urge him along. “Get going, Captain Underpants.”

He laughed, loving the title, and raced from the room. I followed a little more leisurely and paused just outside the bathroom to let him do his thing on his own. Every wall of the hallway was plastered with hundreds—maybe thousands—of little slips of paper with a quote either handwritten or printed on each one.

When my gaze caught on one near the bathroom entrance, I snorted derisively. It said something about regrets only coming from things you never tried.

“Bull…shit,” I muttered, thinking immediately of bright pink cotton panties and the prettiest * I’d ever seen. I definitely regretted trying that, regretted learning more about her and kissing her and watching her come apart in my arms. And most of all, I regretted getting close enough to her that she could hurt me.

Down the hall, in the opposite direction as the nursery, I heard hushed, muffled voices. Needing to know how Aspen was doing, I inched that way and barely peered around the corner into Noel’s bedroom, hoping they didn’t spot me eavesdropping.

The two lay on the bed together, curled around each other, with both of them still wearing the clothes they’d gone to the wedding in.

Aspen sniffed and burrowed her face against Noel. “I didn’t do too bad today, did I? Do you think anyone knew?”

“No, not at all. You did great.” He smoothed her hair behind her ear before kissing her brow. “You did amazing.”

“No,” Aspen murmured, closing her eyes. “I didn’t.” A single tear trailed down her cheek.

Noel quickly wiped it away. “No one suspected a thing. You did just fine.”

She sighed and closed her eyes, and he hugged her close. “I’m tired of being this way, Noel. I’m so tired.”

“I know, sweetheart.” He rested his cheek on the top of her head and smoothed her hair. “It’ll be over soon, and you’ll feel better again. I swear.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

I turned away from the doorway and headed toward the bathroom to check on Beau, believing my brother. His sheer force of will would heal Aspen if nothing else did. I swear, he wanted it to happen so bad, it almost had to. She would get better, eventually. There was no maybe about it.

Noel loved his wife with an intensity I saw in few couples, three of those few being all of my siblings.

It was strange. Noel, Brandt, and Caroline had each found someone to fit them perfectly. In this day and age, that was unheard of, and yet…it left me with this hope, this determination that someday I’d find the same thing too. So I was always on the lookout, testing the waters to find that perfect fit for myself.

I mean, I didn’t turn down casual hookups along the way. Hello, I was an eighteen-year-old dude. But in the back of my mind, the ultimate goal had always been to find her, that girl who filled the gaps in me the same way all my siblings’ spouses had filled the gaps in them.

As my thoughts wandered back to Julianna, I decided something. Maybe I didn’t regret what had happened between us after all. I had tried something, tested the waters, and it hadn’t worked, but at least I’d tried, and now I knew without a doubt, the two of us were definitely not meant to be.





JULIANNA’S CHAPTER | 7





My eyes felt crusted over and dried up when I tried to open them. The sunlight was obnoxious and way too damn cheerful as it streamed through the blinds of my window and prodded me out of my sleep.

Grumbling, I slapped my pillow over my face to muffle the stupid light, only to wince when all that soft cloth jostled my tender, aching temples. Fuck, I’d drank way too much last night, and ended up being way too stupid.

I wasn’t sure what I regretted more: starting something with Colton, or stopping it—more aptly, stopping it the way I had.

I wanted to say starting anything with him at all had to be worse, but no…no. Those asinine words that had tumbled out of my mouth had to take that prize. All I could remember was that lost, devastated expression on his face as he’d jerked his cock from my hand and backed away from me. So, yeah, that had to be the very worst moment of all.

The kicker of it, though, was I had no idea why I’d even said it. I hadn’t even been thinking about Brandt. And why had I used the l-word? I’d had a crush but was pretty sure I hadn’t ever felt love for him because no way could my attention have been so utterly captivated by Colton that quickly if I’d been in love with someone else.

Which had to mean I was the stupidest girl ever for saying the most untrue thing at the worst moment possible.

But the weird thing was, I wasn’t that girl. I wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t say that, wouldn’t drink that. Some idiot must’ve taken control of my body, messed up my entire evening, and then returned me back to myself this morning. That’s all there was to it. Because I certainly had never gone to a wedding I didn’t even want to attend before, gotten drunk there, or made out with the best man who just so happened to be the brother of the very guy I’d kind of wanted to have a chance with.