Jed Had to Die

  JED HAD TO DIE

  TARA SIVEC

  Other books by Tara Sivec

  Romantic Comedy

  The Chocolate Lovers Series:

  Seduction and Snacks (Chocolate Lovers #1)

  Futures and Frosting (Chocolate Lovers #2)

  Troubles and Treats (Chocolate Lovers #3)

  The Chocoholics Series:

  Love and Lists (Chocoholics #1)

  Passion and Ponies (Chocoholics #2)

  Tattoos and TaTas (Chocoholics #2.5)

  Baking and Babies (Chocoholics #3)

  The Holidays:

  The Stocking Was Hung (The Holidays #1)

  Cupid Has a Heart-On (The Holidays #2)

  The Firework Exploded (The Holidays #3)

  Romantic Suspense

  The Playing With Fire Series:

  A Beautiful Lie (Playing With Fire #1)

  Because of You (Playing With Fire #2)

  Worn Me Down (Playing With Fire #3)

  Closer to the Edge (Playing With Fire #4)

  Romantic Suspense/Erotica

  The Ignite Trilogy

  Burned (Ignite Trilogy Volume 1)

  Branded (Ignite Trilogy Volume 2)

  New Adult Drama

  Watch Over Me

  Contemporary Romance

  Fisher’s Light

  Worth the Trip

  Romantic Comedy/Mystery

  The Fool Me Once Series:

  Shame on You (Fool Me Once #1)

  Shame on Me (Fool Me Once #2)

  Shame on Him (Fool Me Once #3)

  Jed Had to Die

  Psychological Thriller

  Bury Me

  Jed Had to Die

  Copyright © 2016 Tara Sivec

  EPUB Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notice

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of adult fiction. The author does not endorse or condone any of the behavior enclosed within. The subject matter may not be appropriate for minors. All trademarks and copyrighted items mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

  Cover Design by Tara Sivec

  Edits by Erin Garcia

  Interior Design by Paul Salvette, BB eBooks

  bbebooksthailand.com

  For any woman who has a significant other like Jed. I hope someday you find your Payton and Bettie, and bake that man a blueberry pie.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Other books by Tara Sivec

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  “Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.”

  —George Carlin

  CHAPTER 1

  Coffee: Because crack will get you fired.

  —Coffee Mug

  “I love you more than anything. You’re strong, wonderful, and amazing. You never let me down, and I’m so blessed to have you in my life, Cecil,” I whisper, tightening my arms and putting a little more feeling into my hug of gratitude.

  “I’ll take ‘What You Should Have Said to Your Boyfriend When He Proposed’ for two-hundred, Alex!”

  With a sigh, I drop my arms from around the Cecilware Venzia espresso machine and turn to face the woman leaning against the counter with a smirk on her face.

  “You’re hilarious, Bettie. Remind me again why I hired you?”

  Bettie pushes away from the counter with her hip and runs her palm lovingly down the side of the espresso machine.

  “Because I’m the only one who loves Cecil almost as much as you do, and I’m the only employee at Liquid Crack who can understand what you’re saying when you lose your shit and spray your southern accent all around this place,” she muses with a shrug.

  She’s right, but I refuse to give her the satisfaction of admitting it. Bettie Lake is the exact opposite of me in every way, but for some reason, we click, even if she annoys the shit out of me sometimes. I knew within the first ten seconds of meeting her when she came in to interview for a manager position three years ago that I would hire her, no matter what her experience was. After spending the day interviewing people who didn’t shy away from telling me they hated coffee, but didn’t mind working in a coffee shop, I was ready to flip tables when Bettie walked in. With her poker-straight jet black hair chopped off right at her chin, short, chunky bangs with hot pink streaks, a nose ring, and tattoos that covered both arms, her chest, and the side of one neck, she flopped down in the chair across from me and said, “Coffee. Must. Have. Coffee,” and it was love at first sight.

  Platonically, of course. I don’t swing that way, even though my ex-boyfriend now assumes I do just because he can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to marry him. But I’ll get back to that later.

  Liquid Crack is my baby. My one true love. Well, aside from Cecil, but without Liquid Crack, I wouldn’t have Cecil.

  Don’t worry, he understands.

  After running from my hometown of Bald Knob, Kentucky as fast as I could when I graduated high school, I moved to Chicago and spent the next four years working my ass off getting a Business Management degree from Loyola while working two jobs and saving every penny I made to open my own coffee shop. Five years after I graduated from Loyola, Liquid Crack opened its doors in Lincoln Park, one of the most popular neighborhoods in the city.

  Much to my amazement, people flocked to my little shop when word spread fast that I sold the best coffee in the city, and ordering your favorite cup of Joe didn’t require you to know how to speak Italian to get the size right. When you come up to the counter at Liquid Crack, your size choices are I’m Okay, My Head Hurts, My Eye is Twitching, and PEOPLE ARE ABOUT TO DIE.

  That last one is the extra-large, obviously.

  It’s not as confusing as it sounds because I don’t have ten thousand different types of caffeinated drinks on the menu. I only use Kona beans from Hawaii, and you can pick from black coffee, espresso, or a latte. Period. No ha
zelnut-mocha-choka-froo-froo-with-extra-whip nonsense here. Sometimes I’ll have a flavor-of-the-day if my distributor is running a special, but that’s as close to froo-froo coffee as I get. When you come in to Liquid Crack and you’re having a bad day, all you have to say is, “People are about to die,” and within thirty seconds, you’ve got yourself an extra-large cup of the nectar of the gods.

  Coming in at just around a thousand square feet, with the original red brick walls and hardwood floor of the building it’s housed in, Liquid Crack doesn’t have tables and uncomfortable wooden chairs. It’s filled with mismatched couches and high-back comfy chairs I found at flea markets. Even though my shop is right in the heart of downtown Chicago and frequented by all the business people who work close by, this is not the type of coffee shop where you come to do business. When you sit down on a couch in Liquid Crack, you sit there and enjoy the coffee in your hand like a proper human being. You don’t power up your laptop to finish a spreadsheet, talk loudly on a conference call, or conduct a performance evaluation. You order your drink to go, or you sit down and forget about your troubles for a little while. It’s perfect. It’s cozy, and it’s all mine.

  The bell above the door chimes and I lean around Bettie to smile at the incoming customer, my cheery disposition momentarily faltering when I see who it is.

  “Payton, I need two My Head Hurts and one People Will Die, ASAP. Oh, and I hear congratulations are in order! Benjamin just told me the good news.”

  Bettie snorts and I grab the hand-towel draped over my shoulder and whip it against her ass as she walks by me to get started on the order.

  “Hi, Mark. And I’m not sure what Benjamin told you but-”

  Mark, who works with my ex at a brokerage firm across the street, holds up his hand and cuts me off when his cell phone rings, bringing it up to his ear and talking so loudly I’m sure people back home in Kentucky can hear him. Leaning over to the register, I grab the framed sign sitting next to it that says, “Anyone caught working will be shot or sold to the circus,” and hold it up right in front of his face.

  He wisely ends the call with a sheepish shrug as Bettie comes up next to me, humming the Jeopardy theme song under her breath while she sets the cups of coffee on the counter in a to-go container.

  “Sorry about that, Payton. I forgot about your crazy no work rule,” Mark apologizes as he picks up the cardboard tray. “I hope you go easier on Benjamin when he’s in here. My man needs to work a hell of a lot more to pay for the big, fancy wedding you two are going to have.”

  He gives me a wink and starts backing away, the phone ringing in his hand again and his booming voice filling the quiet space when he answers it. He moves faster across the shop until he’s out the door, all before I can say anything to him.

  “You can take those coffees back to the firm and shove them up Benjamin’s ass! Or better yet, bend over and shove them up your OWN ass for insinuating I need a man to pay for anything!” I shout across the shop, getting a few weird looks from the handful of customers sitting around and enjoying their coffees.

  “That was nice, but it might have been more effective if you said it TO him, and not yelled it across the shop like a crazy person after he was already out the door,” Bettie laughs.

  “He’s the third person today to come in here and congratulate me. What the hell is Benjamin thinking?” I mutter, heading over to the sink to start cleaning the pile of dirty mugs.

  “I believe his exact words when he came in yesterday were, ‘I know you really meant to say yes, you were just surprised. As soon as you start wearing that gigantic ring the size of the Sears Tower that I’ve been bragging to everyone about how much it cost, it will sink in that you’re going to be Mrs. Benjamin Montgomery!’” Bettie says in a deep voice. “I’m paraphrasing, of course. He actually said the dollar amount out loud, but I’ve blocked it from my mind. Even just the idea that you have a piece of jewelry that costs more than my car shoved into the back of your nightstand drawer makes me want to stab you in the face.”

  I sigh, turning off the faucet when the sink is full of water and soap bubbles, wondering how on earth I’m going to convince Benjamin that I meant it when I told him I didn’t want to marry him. I moved to a big city like Chicago because I was tired of living in a small town where everyone knew your business. And also because the only place that sold coffee was the one, full-service gas station on the town square and they wouldn’t know what fresh coffee beans were if a bag smacked them in the face.

  “I don’t know how many different ways I can inform him it’s over,” I complain to Bettie with a sigh, rinsing off a blue coffee mug that says Washington, D.C. on it, under a picture of the White House. “With Benjamin lying to everyone he knows and telling them that I said yes to his proposal, and most of those people being customers of Liquid Crack, it’s like living in Bald Knob all over again when they come in here.”

  That thought makes me shudder even though I’m up to my elbows in hot water. There are a multitude of reasons why I haven’t been back to my hometown since the week after I graduated, and the gossip mill is just one of them. I love the hustle and bustle of a big city, I love the noise, I love that everything you need is within walking distance, and I love that you can stroll down the block every day at the same time and never see the same people. If Benjamin would just accept the fact that I don’t want to marry him, I wouldn’t be standing here on the verge of getting hives at just the thought of Bald Knob. I love Chicago, but Benjamin and his denial are starting to ruin that for me.

  “You know every time you say Bald Knob I picture a town square with a giant stone statue of an old guy with his dick hanging out. And people flocking to the statue to touch his ‘bald knob’ for good luck,” Bettie laughs, making the same joke she always does on the rare occasion that my hometown comes up in conversation.

  I ignore her, lining up all the now-clean coffee mugs on a towel spread out on the counter next to the sink and taking a step back to admire them.

  “Did I tell you Benjamin wants me to get rid of all my coffee mugs and order matching ones for the stores?”

  She gasps, grabbing a hot pink and blue mug with the word Dallas written across the center in white, hugging it to her chest.

  “I’m so glad I didn’t let you know I was starting to feel bad for the guy. Let’s kill him. I know people who can make it look like an accident,” Bettie tells me in complete seriousness.

  “You felt bad for him?” I ask in shock, wiping my wet hands on the apron tied around my waist as I turn to look at her.

  Yes, I zero in on that instead of her comment about killing my ex-boyfriend. If one more person walks in the door and asks me about my wedding, I won’t care about making his death look like an accident.

  “Only for a second. I mean, you’ve been with the guy for five years. He was here when you opened Liquid Crack, and even though he’s a pompous asshole who wears entirely too much hair gel, you dumped him when he proposed, the same day you signed the papers to franchise this place,” she reminds me.

  When she sees my eyes widen with guilt, she quickly sets the coffee mug down and rests her hands on my shoulders.

  “I said only for a second,” Bettie repeats. “Any man who wants to get rid of coffee cups you’ve been collecting since you were a kid deserves to be dumped. And castrated. Possibly poisoned with a side of head-and-eyebrow shaving while he’s sleeping.”

  While it’s true that I broke up with Benjamin when he proposed, a few hours after my final meeting with the lawyers to sign the paperwork to make Liquid Crack a franchise, I didn’t want anyone thinking I said no because of my business and where it was going. I said no because I didn’t want to get married. To anyone. I said no because growing up in Bald Knob, you had two choices – get married to someone you’d known since birth and start popping out kids, or get the fuck out of there and get a life. I chose option two and I learned how to be a strong, independent business woman. I loved Benjamin and we had a pretty good relat
ionship, up until the franchise discussions started six months ago. He wanted to change everything that made Liquid Crack what it is today. He wanted to make it uniform and corporate and just like every other coffee shop franchise all over the world. We’d done nothing but fight about it for months and his proposal honestly did surprise me at the time. I thought we were on our way to ending things and here he was planning for our future.

  The coffee mug fight right before I left to sign the papers was the final nail in the coffin of our relationship as far as I was concerned. Every single mug in this place that people use when they stay to drink their coffees are mine. Growing up in a small town, I had nothing but time on my hands to dream about my future and all the places I wanted to go when I was finally old enough to leave. Anytime someone I knew went on vacation, I always asked them to bring me back a coffee mug. In a place where everyone knows your business, it didn’t take long for the entire town to know about my coffee mug collection and help contribute to it over the years. When it was my turn to travel, and when I finally had the money to do so, I kept up with the tradition, always grabbing a mug from the airport gift shop on my way out of town.

  I love that my shop doesn’t have boring, matching coffee mugs. I love that when you come in, you never know if you’ll be drinking out of a London cup with Big Ben on it, or an Orlando one with Mickey Mouse ears.

  “So, if Benjamin wanting to do away with the mugs gets him castrated and poisoned, do I even want to know what would happen to him if I told you he wanted to change the name of the shop?” I ask, taking a step back when her nostrils flare and she growls low in her throat.

  “Excuse me? Can I get a triple, Venti, soy, half-sweet, non-fat, Caramel Macchiato? With extra Caramel drizzle?”

  Bettie and I turn to see a twenty-something woman standing on the other side of the counter and looking up at the menu board in confusion. I knew as soon as the first couple of words left her mouth that this wouldn’t end well. The majority of young women who frequent Liquid Crack are college students from DePaul. Some of them are normal and order their coffees like the smart, college-educated people they are, while others are like this chick. They speak every sentence with an upward inflection, like every word out of their mouth is a question and they have no idea what the fuck they’re doing.