Chapter 1
Standing at the threshold of his fiancé Danny’s home office, Beau Singer suddenly understood why Danny always berated him for not knocking before entering. To be fair to himself, Beau usually did knock. It was just that sometimes he’d get so caught up in what he was doing or thinking or saying that he just acted without thinking.
Plus, Danny was his fiancé. Why did he need to knock on his office door before entering?
They’d be married soon, so they shouldn’t have secrets from each other, right?
Wrong.
As Beau stared at his half-naked fiancé buried balls-deep in his assistant, the flyer for the new restaurant down the street fluttered to the ground from his lax fingers. He couldn’t look away. Neither one had noticed him yet, too caught up in the throes of their sexual exploits to look up and see frumpy ol’ Beau standing there staring.
Danny had never made love to him like that.
A hard ball of shame and anger and jealousy swirled in the pit of his stomach. What the fuck did Danny think he was doing?
They were planning to get married in May! Why the hell was he fucking his assistant over the desk Beau’s dad had bought him as an engagement gift?
Danny’s assistant, Alexander, moaned what Beau felt was excessively loud and begged Danny to fuck him harder. That was it. He knew for a fact sex with Danny was not that good. A fact he’d been trying to ignore ever since Danny had proposed and Beau had accepted two months ago.
He’d told himself over and over again that it was okay if you never saw stars. He convinced himself that whole body shivers and being so satisfied and depleted that you passed out after you orgasmed was the stuff of movies and books.
He’d told himself that Danny was the best he could expect to do.
Well, that was bullshit. Being a little overweight and a tad boring did not mean he deserved this.
“Beau!” Danny screamed and stumbled backward. He’d apparently noticed him standing there while Beau had been busy realizing he deserved better than Danny’s dumb ass. Beau stared dispassionately at Danny’s slowly shriveling cock and then looked back at his assistant.
The skinny little twink was smirking at him upside down, not even bothering to let go of his erection.
“I’m going to stay somewhere else for the weekend,” Beau said, voice weirdly calm. He figured this must be what people meant when they said they were having out-of-body experiences. His body and mind were numb and kind of… wavy along the edges? Like everything was and wasn’t real at the same time. “Get all of your things out of my place by the time I get back Monday after work.”
Eyes wide with shock—and probably a little fear—Danny scrambled to pull up his pants as he came around the desk, face transforming into one Beau was achingly familiar with: placation. “Sweetheart, don’t do anything rash. I made a mistake and—”
He didn’t bother to wait and hear any more. Turning on his heel, he strode across the large apartment to their bedroom, immediately going to the closet to pull down a small suitcase. His brain was tripping over itself, trying to process what he’d just seen, the implications for his life, and to not forget anything important while he threw some clothes, toiletries, and electronics together.
“Babe, this is silly. Let’s be grown-ups and talk about this.” Danny’s patronizing voice sounded far away, Beau’s heartbeat thundering in his ears so loudly it nearly drowned out the words.
Slowing, he squeezed the sweatshirt in his hands into a wrinkled mess as fury ripped through him. How many times had Danny said something like that to him? Made him feel immature or like he was overreacting because he was younger than Danny and his asshole friends?
He should have listened when his dad warned him about Danny the day he’d asked Beau out for their first date. But he’d been so swept off his feet by his charming smile and blatant flirting that Beau hadn’t wanted to hear anything negative about the man. His dad had even come to grudgingly accept their relationship, gifting Danny with the desk he’d just been desecrating with Alexander’s bare ass when Danny and he had moved in together after getting engaged.
“Are you even listening to me?” The stinging grip on his arm jolted Beau out of his thoughts, and he whipped around, shoving at Danny so hard he let go and fell to the ground, staring at Beau like he’d never seen him before.
“Don’t touch me.” Beau threw the sweatshirt into the suitcase and zipped it shut, figuring he’d buy anything he’d forgotten if he couldn’t go without for a few days. “Get your shit out of here. I don’t want to see you again.”
Danny’s artificially tanned skin flushed with anger as he stormed to his feet. “You’re seriously going to break off our engagement because of one misstep?”
Dropping his suitcase by the door, Beau whirled around and stomped up to Danny. “Look me in the eye and tell me that this was the first time, that you were so drunk you had no idea what you were doing, that you tripped and fell into his ass. If you can tell me any of those things and mean it, I’ll forgive you right now.”
Danny studied his face closely, and Beau watched as he realized he couldn’t just smooth things over this time. That he’d have to either come clean or lie to Beau’s face. Shaking his head in disgust, Beau raked his eyes over Danny’s rumpled form.
“You can’t though, can you? If I hadn’t come home early and caught you, you’d have kept sleeping with him and married me.” He started to turn away, feeling gross just thinking about sharing a bed with Danny, when a thought occurred to him, and he looked back. “How long have you been sleeping with him?”
“Beau—”
“How. Long.”
“Three months,” a smug voice said behind him.
So since before Danny had hired Alexander and just after proposing to Beau.
He shut his eyes and wondered how he could have forgotten about the homewrecking assistant still in the apartment. Nodding like knowing how long they’d been sneaking around behind his back made any kind of sense and didn’t make Beau want to cry for the first time since catching them, he opened his eyes and pegged Danny with the hardest look he could come up with.
Though that wasn’t saying much considering he was generally seen as a marshmallow and pushover.
Not anymore.
“You’re also going to want to look for another job,” he said, voice harder than he was feeling. His bones felt brittle, like the slightest touch would crumble him into a million pieces, but he needed to get away from there before he could have a breakdown.
Danny snorted. “I’m the best project manager in the company. Your dad won’t fire me.”
They both knew that wasn’t true, and the fear in Danny’s eyes confirmed it. Smiling, Beau didn’t bother arguing. He strode across the room as confidently as he could, grabbed his suitcase, and pushed past a gaping Alexander in the doorway.
“Does that mean I’m losing my job too? What the fuck, Danny?” Alexander screeched behind him just as Beau opened the door.
Rolling his eyes, he decided they might just deserve each other.
As he slammed the door shut, he began to wonder where the hell he was going to go. How could he look any of his friends in the face and tell them he’d caught Danny fucking someone else?