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  “You were saying?”

  Peter knew he was going to pay dearly for sharing this piece of information, but he had few options. It was either tell L.J. what he knew or prepare for an old-school beat down. “Autumn is one of those second virginity sisters.” He inspected L.J.’s face for a reaction. When he saw none, he continued on. “She recommitted to waiting until she got married to have sex. It’s been two or three years since she…well, you know. But if anybody asks you, you didn’t hear that from me.”

  “Melissa told you this?”

  “No, Autumn did. My ex-friend, Grant, hounded me for weeks to arrange a double date, so I had Melissa invite Autumn to come along. It ended up being the worst two hours of my life. Grant couldn’t keep his hands to himself long enough for her to eat her food and when she finally told him to bug off, things got real nasty.” Peter stopped. L.J.’s eyes had hardened like burnt coal.

  “You okay?”

  Subdued by what he had just learned, L.J. could only nod. He didn’t think it was possible to feel any worse than he already did, but what Peter just told him brought guilt. He was a quivering puddle of regret. Autumn had shared more than her heart with him and in return he’d betrayed her. L.J. felt like the lowest of the low. He had had the love, support and respect of a phenomenal woman, and he had essentially thrown it away.

  Autumn had been the first woman to hold his attention for more than thirty seconds. She had made the time they shared exciting, whether they were strolling through a park or at her apartment watching a movie. She had given him the freedom to be himself and didn’t object when he showed up for a dinner in blue jeans and sneakers. When he was a few minutes late to pick her up, she didn’t bawl him out or carry on as if it was the end of the world. She respected him and treated him as though he was special to her.

  “Where do you think Tyrell took Autumn?” he asked.

  “Even if she’s with him, which I highly doubt, you have nothing to worry about. Autumn’s too level-headed to fall for Tyrell’s games. Besides, she loves you.”

  L.J. slumped back on the couch. He stretched his legs out in front of him, and rolled his head back and forth. “I’m not so sure anymore, Pete. Autumn went ballistic when she learned the truth and that jerk was only too happy to wrap her in his arms.”

  “Don’t talk like that, man. You’re starting to sound like a character on one of those whack soap operas.” His attempt to make L.J. laugh, or at the very least crack a smile, failed. “This is not the end of the world. Autumn will forgive you once you tell her the truth.” He quickly added, “I’m sure of it.” Peter wasn’t sure of anything, but it sounded like the right thing to say.

  “I’ll do anything to get her back, even if it means quitting my job and moving up here. I could always call the Knicks back and tell them I’ve had a change of heart.”

  Peter’s mouth cracked open. Had he heard right? Did L.J. just say he’d move to Washington? “Move here? But you hate Washington!”

  “Yeah, but I love Autumn.” L.J. knew he was pushing the bounds of their friendship, but that didn’t stop him from asked Peter to call Melissa again. “If anyone will know where she is, it’ll be Melissa. I’d call Yvette, but I don’t have her number and she has small children. I can’t risk waking up her family.”

  “So, let me get this straight. You want me to risk a trip to the doghouse by waking up my quick-tempered fiancée on the eve of our wedding because you messed up.”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  Peter massaged the knot forming on the back of his neck. He wanted to help his friend out, but not at the prospect of upsetting his fiancée. “Melissa’s not going to pick up, but in the off chance that she does, how do you expect me to ask her about Autumn’s whereabouts without raising suspicion?”

  When L.J. answered, the anguish in his voice shocked them both. “I don’t know, you’re a smart guy, you’ll think of something.” He added, “Do I need to get on my hands and knees? ’Cause I will if you want me to.”

  Peter had seen L.J. down before, but not like this. Not even when he’d learned of Rachelle’s deception and betrayal. He had been in L.J.’s shoes a time or two before he’d met his princess and with each failed relationship, his best friend had been his rock. Deciding an ass-kicking from Melissa was worth helping out his brother, he flipped open his cell phone, punched in his fiancée’s number and prayed for mercy.

  Yvette yawned as though sleep had eluded her for weeks. She pulled her terry-cloth robe closed and crossed her arms high above her chest. “What are you doing here?”

  L.J. stood to his full height. He was here to speak with Autumn, not exchange pleasantries with Yvette. Impervious to her chilling greeting, he said, “I need to see her, Yvette, it’s an emergency.”

  “What kind of emergency?” Yvette’s hazel eyes took in L.J.’s disheveled appearance. He looked like a bum who’d been sleeping on a park bench. When he didn’t reply fast enough for her, she told him to go home. “Autumn’s sleeping, but even if she wasn’t, you’d be the last person she’d want to see. She hates you.”

  Her words momentarily cracked his resolve. For a nanosecond, L.J. thought of turning around and heading back in the direction he had come, but then he remembered all the good times he had shared with Autumn. The days they had stayed holed up in her apartment doing nothing but lazing around in bed or watching old movies or making love. His memories were enough to keep his feet firmly planted. “I want to see her, Yvette.”

  Yvette didn’t have the energy for this right now. And since L.J. wasn’t in the mood for listening and understanding, she decided to speak to him in a universal language. She slammed the door in his face, but before she could lock it, he had it open again. When Yvette tried a second time, he stuck his foot in the doorway and used his forearm to push it back open. The man had sharp reflexes and a hell of a resolve. “I’m not leaving without seeing her. I’ll run up and down the hall screaming her name at the top of my lungs if I have to,” he warned.

  Despite his poor timing and complete disregard for a woman’s beauty sleep, Yvette liked L.J. After seeing how happy he’d made her best friend in a paltry six weeks, she’d determined he was a good man. She sighed inwardly, wishing her battered and bruised marriage could be enthused with just a dash of the passion Autumn and L.J. shared. If Randall eyed her the way L.J. did Autumn, she’d be floating around the house singing “Endless Love.”

  Pity coaxed Yvette to reopen the door. “Can’t this wait?”

  What Yvette didn’t know was that L.J. had been waiting all night. He had arrived at the opulent Omni Hotel, vowing to let nothing stop him from seeing Autumn. But his doggedness had crumbled when he’d stepped off the elevator on the second floor. He couldn’t go charging into her suite at a two-thirty in the morning. He’d be begging for a beat-down from the bride and her eight henchmen if he woke Autumn up at this time of night.

  L.J. had returned to the main floor. The plump-cheeked, top-heavy concierge was too busy making kissy-face with her lanky, wide-nosed boyfriend to notice him sprawled out on one of the soft, lush sofas. And by the time the sun rose over the hotel, he was fast asleep. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours, but with the woman he loved just a few feet away and adrenaline coursing through his veins, sleep was the furthest thing on his mind.

  “This is a matter of life and death, Yvette” he said. “I’ll owe you big if you can persuade Autumn to come out and talk to me. You name it and it’s yours. Please?” L.J. had done more coaxing and pleading in the last five hours than he had done in his entire life. But Autumn was worth it. He’d scale the walls of the Lincoln Memorial singing her favorite love song if she asked him to. He sounded more like Kermit the Frog than Brian McKnight, but he’d belt out the lyrics to “Crazy Love” if it meant she would be a part of his life again.

  “Why are you wasting her time, L.J.?” She pretended not to notice that his eyebrows had bridged above his dark, narrowed eyes. “You’re a married man, with a child on the�
�”

  He cut in, “There’s a lot more to the story than what she knows, Yvette.”

  Yvette couldn’t bear to see a grown man cry and it looked like L.J. was about to shed some big, fat, sloppy tears right there in the middle of the hall. Her heart softened. She already knew what Autumn was going to say about L.J. wanting to see her, but she had to at least give it a try. Her gut feeling was that this whole situation had been a terrible misunderstanding anyway.

  Yvette told L.J. to wait, and returned to the suite. Careful not to step on the mound of shiny wrapping paper, she crept stealthily through the living room and into the bedroom. She inched around to the bed closest to the window. The sound of Autumn’s soft snores, and the peaceful expression on her face, made Yvette reconsider what she was about to do. The moment passed as quickly as it came. She crouched down at the head of the bed and gave her friend a gentle shove. “Autumn, wake up.” Yvette tried a few more times, but when her voice didn’t pull Autumn out of her sleep, she gripped her shoulders and gave her a good hard shake.

  Autumn flipped on her stomach and curled her arms around her pillow. “Just let me sleep…ten more minutes.”

  “You need to get up now.”

  She waved her away. “Get lost, Yvette. I’m sleepy… I’ll get up when I’m ready…leave me alone!”

  Yvette resisted the urge to drag Autumn out of the bed. Instead, she dropped her mouth to her ear, and whispered loudly, “L.J.’s here. Did you hear me? L.J. is here.”

  Autumn sprang up so fast, she almost tumbled headfirst onto the floor. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the light streaming in from the extra-large windows before she spoke. “Did I hear you right?”

  “Yeah. Your man’s here and he won’t go away. I tried to get him out of here, but the obstinate hunk won’t budge,” she explained. She pointed towards the bedroom door. “He’s waiting in the hall.”

  Autumn chewed on her lower lip. This didn’t make any sense. L.J. should be at home sleeping at his uncle’s house, not standing outside her hotel-room door. “Why is he here? What does he want?”

  Yvette didn’t have any answers. “Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is you better go out there and talk to him before Bridezilla wakes up. If Mel hears you two going at it, she’ll raise all hell.”

  Autumn looked over at the queen-size bed Melissa and Shante were sharing. The other bridesmaids were in the adjoining suite, enjoying their last few hours of sleep. It wouldn’t be long before everyone woke up and started scrambling to get showered and dressed. The bridal party had nine o’clock hair appointments down at the hotel salon and it was minutes to seven.

  Autumn stared down at her hands. She didn’t want to see L.J. He’d played her like a fiddle, broken her heart and now had the audacity to show up at her door making demands. Is he out of his damn mind? Who the hell does he think he is? Autumn knew exactly who he was. He was a lying, cheating snake and she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. She didn’t care what her heart was saying.

  Shaking her head in disgust, she reviewed all the facts. The man she loved had lied to her. Led her to believe he loved her. Convinced her they had a future. And then the biggest shock of all, L.J. was a married man. She’d had ten hours to process what she’d learned last night, but still couldn’t believe he belonged to another woman. Things just didn’t add up; he was open and trustworthy and loving, and aside from her father and brother, there was no man she trusted more.

  One side of her brain thought, this is all a misunderstanding and you went off and hopped, skipped and jumped to conclusions. And the other side of her brain thought, Of course he’s married. This isn’t some joke. You were so busy falling in love, that you missed the signs. And as previous conversations floated back, she could see the latter side of her brain was right. She had been so caught up in their romance—the steamy kisses, the light touches and the intimate conversations—that she’d missed all the times L.J. had changed the subject when she had mentioned marriage or where he saw their relationship going. Each time the topic came up, he’d skilfully maneuvered the conversation elsewhere and Autumn had never been the wiser.

  Autumn didn’t care if L.J. was in the hallway tap-dancing with gusto, she wasn’t going out into the living room to talk to him. And not just because she was angry. She looked like a science experiment. She had cold cream smeared all over her face, her newly relaxed hair was in ugly, thick plaits and her breath was kicking stronger than Jackie Chan. Her eyes ached because she’d fallen asleep with her contacts in and the three lime margaritas she’d sucked back during the lingerie shower were still having an effect on her.

  Curling up under the warmth of her blanket, she closed her eyes. “Tell him to get lost,” she said apathetically. “Tell him I’ve moved on and he should, too. Better yet, tell him I said to go back to his wife and child.”

  “You don’t mean that, Autumn.”

  She opened her eyes and held Yvette’s gaze. “I do.”

  “You wouldn’t be this upset if you didn’t love him.”

  “Can you just get rid of him Yvette and spare me the talk?”

  “Marriage is hard work, Autumn. You’ve seen firsthand all the problems I’ve had with that husband of mine,” she said, half-seriously. “How do you know that L.J. and his wife aren’t separated or in the middle of a nasty divorce or—?”

  “I don’t,” Autumn snapped, “but what I do know is that he should have been up-front and told me he was married from day one. Do you know how ashamed I felt when Tyrell branded me a home wrecker?” Water filled her eyes, but she pushed past her tears. “I bet all my friends and family know what happened by now!”

  Yvette raised a perfectly coiffed eyebrow. “I didn’t want to say anything last night, but this needs to be said. Did you ever pause to consider why Tyrell showed up? Do you really think he came to warn you?” She waited for her words to take root. Autumn’s eyes narrowed as new lines of tension embraced her face. “You and I both know Tyrell only thinks about himself, so he wasn’t playing the role of a white knight when he showed up last night. He came to the restaurant for one reason and one reason only—to break you and L.J. up.”

  Last night, Autumn had been too upset to weigh Tyrell’s motives, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t care why he had shown up. The issue was L.J.’s deceit, not Tyrell’s underlying motives. She valued Yvette’s opinion, but this was one issue they would never see eye-to-eye on. Autumn didn’t care if his wife was a possessive, out-of-control, cross-eyed heifer with buck teeth, he had no right to cheat on her. “Are you condoning what he did, Yvette?”

  “Hell no! I just think you should hear him out.”

  “Whatever.” Autumn smoothed her hands over the rumpled blanket. She wasn’t going anywhere. She was staying right here in the bedroom. L.J.’s words meant nothing to her anymore and there was nothing he could say to justify starting a relationship with her. L.J. Saunders was a first-class jerk and just the thought of seeing him again made her stomach flip back and forth. Autumn wasn’t even upset with him anymore. Disappointment had set in hours ago, then regret, and now she wanted to forget him altogether. Forget that they had ever met. Forget what she was feeling inside. Forget that she loved him. It was over and there was nothing he could say or do to make amends. Autumn’s voice was but a whisper when she said, “I trusted him, Yvette and he hurt me.”

  “Then wash that gunk off your face, march out there and tell him that,” she ordered, yanking off the covers.

  “No.” The fear of seeing L.J. again was crippling. “Some dreams just weren’t meant to be and I accept that.”

  “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love him and I’ll go out there and tell him to hit the road.”

  Autumn loved L.J. with all her heart, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see him again. “I don’t—”

  “You’re lying,” Yvette said, cutting in. “You love him bad, girlfriend, and I know deep down you want to know the truth. You owe it to yourself to find ou
t why he lied, Autumn. Don’t let him off the hook! Go out there and find out why he did what he did.”

  Silence settled in and when Autumn finally spoke again, her tone was so quiet, Yvette had to strain forward to hear her. “I can’t, Yvette. This… It’s too painful.”

  Yvette looked at the digital clock perched on the edge of the nightstand. It was time for some tough love. Melissa and the rest of the girls would be up waking up during the next hour, which didn’t give the couple much time to talk. “You can and you will, Autumn, because if you don’t go out there, I’m letting him in here.”

  Yvette was up and walking towards the door before Autumn had a chance to digest her words.

  “Wait!” she hissed, leaping off the mattress as if it was on fire. Glancing over her shoulder to ensure the bride hadn’t been revived by her outburst, she sighed deeply.

  “So, what’s it going to be?” Yvette prompted, slowly twisting the gold doorknob.

  Autumn’s shoulders sagged. She dropped her chin, like a child being scolded by her mother, and then touched her cream-laced face. “Okay, okay, I’ll go out there. Just give me a few minutes to get myself together.”

  “I thought you’d change your mind.” Yvette put a comforting hand on Autumn’s shoulder. “One day you’ll thank me for this.” With that, she slipped back out of the bedroom.

  Chapter 21

  L.J. wanted to toss Yvette high in the air when she waved him inside the luxurious hotel suite. Feeling jubilant but remaining stoic on the surface, he walked through the door with a renewed sense of confidence. The mouth-watering scent of freshly sliced pineapple set his stomach off into a series of cannon-loud rumbles. Ignoring his hunger pains, he followed Yvette into the sun-drenched living room. The sunrise shone through pulled curtains, giving light to the tastefully decorated but stuffy room. Pale-green walls bore several rustic paintings, overstuffed armchairs were positioned in front of the decorative fireplace and a gleaming mahogany desk rounded off the suite.