Cheater

  PRAISE FOR RACHEL VAN DYKEN

  “The Consequence of Loving Colton is a must-read friends-to-lovers story that’s as passionate and sexy as it is hilarious!”

  —Melissa Foster, New York Times bestselling author

  “Just when you think Van Dyken can’t possibly get any better, she goes and delivers The Consequence of Loving Colton. Full of longing and breathless moments, this is what romance is about.”

  —Lauren Layne, USA Today bestselling author

  “The tension between Milo and Colton made this story impossible to put down. Quick, sexy, witty—easily one of my favorite books from Rachel Van Dyken.”

  —R. S. Grey, USA Today bestselling author, on The Consequence of Loving Colton

  “Hot, funny, and will leave you wishing you could get marked by one of the immortals!”

  —Molly McAdams, New York Times bestselling author, on The Dark Ones

  “Laugh-out-loud fun! Rachel Van Dyken is on my auto-buy list.”

  —Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author, on The Wager

  “The Dare is a laugh-out-loud read that I could not put down. Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

  —Cathryn Fox, New York Times bestselling author

  ALSO BY #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR RACHEL VAN DYKEN:

  The Consequence Series

  The Consequence of Loving Colton

  The Consequence of Revenge

  The Consequence of Seduction

  The Consequence of Rejection

  The Wingmen Inc. Series

  The Matchmaker’s Playbook

  The Matchmaker’s Replacement

  The Bet Series

  The Bet

  The Wager

  The Dare

  The Ruin Series

  Ruin

  Toxic

  Fearless

  Shame

  The Eagle Elite Series

  Elite

  Elect

  Entice

  Elicit

  Bang Bang

  Enforce

  Ember

  Elude

  Empire

  The Seaside Series

  Tear

  Pull

  Shatter

  Forever

  Fall

  Eternal

  Strung

  Capture

  The Renwick House Series

  The Ugly Duckling Debutante

  The Seduction of Sebastian St. James

  The Redemption of Lord Rawlings

  An Unlikely Alliance

  The Devil Duke Takes a Bride

  The London Fairy Tales Series

  Upon a Midnight Dream

  Whispered Music

  The Wolf’s Pursuit

  When Ash Falls

  The Seasons of Paleo Series

  Savage Winter

  Feral Spring

  The Wallflower Series (with Leah Sanders)

  Waltzing with the Wallflower

  Beguiling Bridget

  Taming Wilde

  The Dark Ones Saga

  The Dark Ones

  Untouchable Darkness

  Dark Surrender

  Stand-Alones

  Hurt: A Collection (with Kristin Vayden and Elise Faber)

  RIP

  Compromising Kessen

  Every Girl Does It

  The Parting Gift (with Leah Sanders)

  Divine Uprising

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Rachel Van Dyken

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Skyscape, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503942097

  ISBN-10: 1503942090

  Cover design by Damonza

  Cover photography by Regina Wamba of MaeIDesign.com

  To my husband, who forced me to leave the house when I needed to write and edit this book—it’s finished because of you!

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Nobody ever tells this side of the story—but it’s important. Cheaters aren’t born, they’re made. Never forget that. You don’t wake up one day and decide to cheat, you don’t make a career out of it, and you sure as hell don’t want to end up hurting an endless number of people for your own psychotic reasons.

  Sometimes.

  Things.

  Just.

  Happen.

  And other times.

  What should happen, doesn’t, and what shouldn’t happen, does.

  Such is life.

  The life of a cheater.

  This is my story.

  You will hate it.

  You will hate me.

  You will laugh.

  You will cry.

  And in the end, you will understand.

  You will.

  I swear.

  Because I wasn’t born this way—I became a cheater.

  But there’s redemption for all of us. I have to believe that, or what the hell am I doing?

  May 2012 Rehearsal Dinner Night

  Reddish-brown hair slid through my fingers like silk. A shudder ran through me as the rightness of finally being with her hit me square in the chest. A warm thigh brushed across my leg and then moved, straddling me, holding me captive.

  Morally trapping me.

  Imprisoning me with each squeeze.

  In a hazy distant fog, I realized something felt slightly off.

  Her hair had never been that red.

  Her thigh that warm.

  And her laugh . . .

  “I knew you wanted me,” she whispered in a coy voice that tried too hard to be innocent.

  Huh?

  Then all at once the lights came on.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit!

  I wasn’t in my bed.