One Night To Risk It All. Katherine Garbera

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       Three

      Bianca… Jose’s ex-wife was here? She hadn’t seen the woman in more than five years, and she’d worked hard to put that horrible day out of her mind. The moment she’d discovered her lover Jose was married had been one of the worst in her life. Seeing Bianca now, all the guilt and shame came rushing back. There was something akin to hatred in the pregnant woman’s eyes, and the look on Inigo’s face made it clear he wasn’t too pleased to find out she had this connection to his family.

      To be fair, she’d had no idea who Inigo was when she’d slept with him, but now seeing him next to Bianca, she put the pieces together. They were obviously related. And she now vaguely remembered that Jose had mentioned he had a protégé he thought would do great things in Formula One. Was it Inigo?

      “I guess I should be going,” she said.

      “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea,” Bianca said. “Who even invited you?”

      “I’m Scarlet’s friend,” Marielle said.

      She knew that the woman had cause to be upset with her, but she wasn’t the only one to blame. Jose had told Marielle he was divorced, and she had been stupid enough to believe him. She soon realized it wasn’t his only lie when she’d caught him in bed with another woman—a woman he’d been seeing for years. She’d felt like a fool, falling in love with another woman’s husband. Seeing Bianca brought back all of those feelings of self-loathing that she’d hoped she’d moved beyond.

      “Scarlet’s my sister-in-law,” Bianca replied.

      Of course she was. “Honestly, I had no idea that you would be here. That part of my life was over ages ago, and I’m not proud of my role in what was going on in your marriage.”

      More people were entering the room, including Inigo’s parents, and then Scarlet and her assistant, Billi Sampson, came in. Marielle looked at her friend, who was visibly pregnant and still looked very sleepy.

      “Scarlet, thank you for inviting me last night. I’m afraid I have to run this morning, but I’ll be in touch later,” Marielle said, walking out of the room.

      Inigo didn’t try to follow her, which was probably for the best. He had been fun last night, just what she needed to distract her from her own problems. But obviously neither of them had intended for it to be the beginning of a relationship.

       Yeah, right.

      But she knew that it was over. There was no way she could have any kind of relationship—not that she was looking for one—with the brother of the woman whose husband she’d slept with.

       Ugh.

      Her mom was always going on about reaping what she sowed, and damn, this was a pretty rotten crop to reap. But this trouble was of her own making. When she thought back to the woman she’d been when she was twenty-one, she cringed. She’d been so shallow. So into her own pleasure and her own life that she had been unable to see past Jose’s lies to the family that she was hurting. It wasn’t that she was so much wiser at twenty-six, but damn, she was a little smarter when it came to men. Or at least she’d thought she was.

      No more hookups with men whose last names I don’t know, she thought. Yeah, let’s make that rule one for the new year.

      The engine of her Corvette roared to life. She put the car in Reverse and spun out on the gravel drive as she tried to get away from the house and all the people inside it. But there wasn’t a car that had rolled off the assembly line that would go fast enough to take her away from herself.

      She had that way of doing this more often than she wanted to. She knew it wasn’t her fault—how in the world had she ended up at a party with Jose’s ex-wife? That was never supposed to happen. She’d followed the teachings of a well-being guru, who had advised her to write a letter apologizing. The guru had said that would bring forgiveness from the universe.

      Marielle thought she needed a refund, because all she could see as she raced down the road was the look on Bianca’s face as she’d recognized her, and it certainly hadn’t resembled forgiveness.

      She pulled into the drive that led to her family’s mansion and slowed the car, fumbling on the visor for the garage door opener. She parked the ’Vette next to her father’s classic Porsche and sat there for a minute, realizing that she was on the edge of tears.

      She took a deep breath, fumbling in her purse for her phone and that meditation app that her brother had gifted her for Christmas. She opened it and closed her eyes, listening to the soothing voice and pretending the heat on her cheeks was the sunshine the app’s moderator was talking about and not tears.

      But in her heart the truth was strong, and she knew that she hadn’t forgiven herself for those long-ago mistakes. Thank God she hadn’t run into Jose’s son. The little boy his wife had been pregnant with while he’d been telling Marielle that she was his soul mate. If she’d been older…

      Or not as dumb, she thought.

      This wasn’t working. She dashed her hand over her cheeks and turned off the car, getting out and standing there for a minute. She smelled cigarette smoke and looked up to see her eldest brother, Darian, standing there watching her. “I wasn’t spying, just giving you space.”

      “Thanks,” she said, walking over to him and taking the cigarette from his hand, dropping it on the ground and putting it out with the toe of her shoe.

      “You’re supposed to be quitting.”

      “I know. I didn’t take a drag, I was just holding it,” he said. “What’s up with you?”

      “Ran into one of my past mistakes this morning. It’s hitting me harder than I expected,” she said.

      “Why? You know you’re not that woman anymore,” he said.

       Why?

      She shrugged, but Inigo’s face danced through her mind. She’d liked him. He’d been fun, and he’d made her feel like she was enough.