Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I tried to hide my shock. “Pete. That was Pete.”
“Well, seeing you all grown up and fucking beautiful on the arm of another guy set me off. I left the dinner and flew home. Hit up a party that next night and Lindsay was there. She came on to me, told me she and Lane had broken up, and we hooked up. Or at least she told me we had because I didn’t remember anything the next morning. It was meaningless. I told her all I wanted was sex, and she said that was all she wanted too.”
My heart started to hammer in my chest. I had a feeling I knew where his story was going.
“I woke up the next morning in a bed with her next to me. I honestly didn’t even remember anything that had happened. I got up, got dressed, and left. Three months later, she was at my door telling me she was pregnant. My entire world turned upside down. Ironically, that day I had decided I was going on the Unleash the Beast Tour. I was going to give it one year before I came back to the ranch. And then here was this woman I honestly didn’t like very much telling me she was pregnant and positive that it was my kid. I talked to my parents, and we talked to Lindsay and her parents about getting a paternity test while she was pregnant. But there were some risks involved in that. She swore up and down I had been the only guy she’d slept with during that time period. Something always felt off, though. Especially since I’d blacked out that night.”
“What happened next?” I asked.
“Her parents were devastated and ready to disown her. She begged me to marry her right away so that she could save her relationship with them. So, I agreed. Her mother pretty much took over the wedding plans, which was fine by me. My mom, I think, was in a state of shock and knew I didn’t love Lindsay—or even like her. My father was devastated, because he didn’t want me to end up in a relationship like he’d had with my biological mother. It was all fucked up. The disappointment in my dad’s eyes every time he looked at me nearly killed me. A week before the wedding, I got a phone call from someone I used to ride with on the circuit in college. He asked to meet up with me and said it was important. I drove to Billings where he was riding that weekend. We met up, and he dropped a bomb on me.”
I held my breath and waited.
“Lane had gotten drunk the weekend before, right after he won an event. He told this friend of mine that he’d managed to make sure I wasn’t going to be on the pro circuit. This mutual friend had informed him that I wasn’t planning on doing the tour—I had never told him that I’d actually decided to do it for that year. He told me Lane started laughing his ass off. Then said something about how I was about to be played like the fool I was. I dug around, started asking some people close to Lindsay, and ended up connecting with this girl named Wanda. She was a buckle bunny and followed the Unleash the Beast Tour around. She said that Lindsay and Lane asked her to join them one night. It wasn’t something she was into, but she had the hots for Lane so she agreed. That night, Lindsay confessed to her that she and Lane had come up with a plan to get me off the upcoming tour so that Lane didn’t have to compete against me.”
I felt my heart start to pound. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
He shook his head. “No, I wish I was. They came up with this plan, and then I just so happened to open the door for them at that party. They saw I was drunk, Lane pretended to leave, and Lindsay slipped something into my beer. Wanda said that Lindsay told her I passed out the moment I hit the bed. She got me undressed, got herself undressed, and then crawled into the bed and waited for me to wake up. She was always planning on lying and telling me that she was pregnant. She knew her parents would be furious and that she could talk me into marrying her because I wouldn’t want to disappoint my mother and father. Once we got married, she was planning on faking a miscarriage, then divorcing me and trying to get money from my father to keep quiet about it all.”
I gasped and sat up, pulling the cover up to shield my naked upper half. “Holy shit, she lied about it all? But why would your dad pay her to keep quiet?”