Copyright © 2022 by Whitney G.

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  Formatting by Elaine York of Allusion Publishing

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  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  A Note from Whitney G.

  Epigraph

  The End of an 'Error'

  What a Friend

  No Point in Trying

  One Night, One Glance

  Wicked Games

  Foul Play

  You Don't Know Me at All

  Watch the Warnings

  Not So Fast

  A Different Type of Guy

  The Answers Aren't There

  One Last Round with You

  Unexpected Assistance

  You Asked for This

  Goodbye to All That

  Final Warning

  A Change in View

  Defiance

  Run & Hide

  Time Ticks By

  Darkness & Light

  Testing the Waters

  A Dangerous Miscommunication

  Burn It All

  We're Just Getting Started

  Coming Soon

  Want to jump into another trilogy?

  Dedication

  For the readers who gave this story a chance with no cover, no blurb, and no release date.

  You made this serial the best experience I’ve had in my entire career.

  A Note from Whitney G.

  Thank you so much for picking up Wasted Love with You! This steamy, episodic serial is one of my favorite stories to date, and I can’t wait to take you on a wild ride with these sexy characters!

  If you want to be the first to learn of my upcoming releases, sales, and special things that I only offer to my readers, be sure to sign up for my Exclusive F.L.Y. List. (F.L.Y. = Effin Love You. Because whether you love or hate this story, I still love you for giving it a chance!)

  Sincerely,

  “Don’t get married at eighteen, Autumn. You’ll regret it.”

  —My mother, six years ago

  Episode 1

  Autumn

  I don’t love my husband anymore—especially not on these days.

  Our flame burned out a long time ago, leaving two severely scorched hearts in its wake. No matter how many times I try to convince myself that a stray ember will soon catch fire, that the old sparks will return someday, the coldness remains.

  I married him when I was eighteen years old—when I was young, dumb, and thought I knew everything. I was captivated by defiance, too obsessed with the whole, “But mom, I love him,” and “He’s the only person who understands my deep, dark past,” that I couldn’t see the web I was weaving. (By the way, having strict parents who enforce a midnight curfew hardly equates to having a “deep, dark past.”)

  I don’t even think I’m attracted to my husband anymore.

  He’s currently on top of me—thrusting in and out of my “sweet kitten”—and the only thing I can think about is whether I turned off our coffeemaker.

  I think I hit the switch. Did I hit the switch?

  “You like that, baby?” he asks, bringing his lips close to mine. “You like the way this feels?”

  “Oh, yeah, Nate.” I moan. “Oh, yeah.”

  Wait. Didn’t I say “Oh, yeah” ten seconds ago? Damnit. “Oh, baby.” Say, “Oh, baby,” next.

  “Autumnnn.”

  “Oh, baby…” I splay my hands across his back, now convinced that I didn’t turn off that coffeemaker.

  He speeds up his thrusts, gripping my breasts like he’s attempting to yank them off my body. His kisses are erratic and wet, and I have no idea why he’s using his tongue to lick my chin.

  Groaning and snarling, he’s now making some type of feral noise. It sounds like a cross between a wounded bear and a dying tiger.

  “Fuck, Autumn,” he pants. “Can you feel me, baby? I’m about to come inside of you.”

  “Yessss.” I freeze my eyeballs to their sockets. “I’m almost there. Ahhhh.” And with that, I moan a little louder, suck in big breaths, and shake my legs. Faking yet another orgasm.

  I should start keeping count.

  He collapses on top of me, his sweaty chest pressed against my breasts, and we lay in silence.

  Strained phrases during morning sex are the only conversations we have these days.

  Several minutes pass before he whispers, “I love you, Autumn.”

  I say it back because I always say it back, because the status of our coffeemaker is bothering the hell out of me, and I need an excuse to get up.

  “That was amazing.” I tap his shoulders. “I’ll make some breakfast. You want waffles?”

  “Sure.” He lifts his head to kiss me one more time. Then he rolls over, allowing me to roll off the bed.

  I wrap myself in a robe and head into the kitchen. As soon as I hit the lights, I look over at the counter.

  I didn’t turn it off. I knew it!

  I grab a box of waffle mix and a package of bacon. Usually, Nate offers to make breakfast after sex, but I need a moment alone to think today.

  I need a fucking break.

  Picking up my cell phone, I scroll through my endless list of contacts, wishing I had someone close I could call. Someone who could convince me that these feelings are all in my head or confirm that I’m not alone.

  Alas, ever since Nate moved me to this picture-perfect suburbia—with its street names like Whispering Willow, Sweet Sycamore, and My Magnolia—planting new seeds of friendship has been impossible.

  I’ve struggled to get close to any of the women here, settling for vapid coffee dates or mindless yoga sessions. Sometimes I feel like they’re all tuned into a never-ending episode of Married Life is Wonderful, and I’m never allowed to complain about where the writers are taking the show.

  I toggle between calling my next-door neighbor Julie or Katy—the president of our neighborhood HOA. Since Katy recently complained about our mums being “a little out of season,” I go with the former.

  It rings once.

  It rings twice.

  “Hey there, Autumn!” Julie answers, her voice hoarse. “Isn’t it a beautiful day?”

  “Very. Do you have any free time today? I need to talk to you about something.”

  “If this is about Linda Watts’ disaster of a PTA meeting, I will bring over two bottles of wine. I can’t believe she tried to make people buy her shampoo products at the end!”

  “No, it’s about—”

  “Hey! Put that back on the shelf, Mister. Now.” She sucks in a deep breath. “Right now, Daniel. Stop embarrassing me in this store.”

  “Should I call back at a different time?”

  “God no,” she says. “You’re the first adult I’ve spoken to today. Hold on one second while I put Daniel back into this cart.”

  I lean against the counter as Nate walks into the kitchen. He’s dressed in one of his custom black suits, looking as if his morning orgasm never happened.

  “I just got a call from a client,” he says. “Raincheck on breakfast?”

  I nod, knowing I’ll never redeem it.

  We say lines like, “You want waffles?” or “Want to watch a movie later?” in the same way that friendly strangers ask, “How are you today?” and “Great weather, isn’t it?” We aren’t interested in the actual answers, and we don’t expect the encounter to lead to any place new.

  He blows me a kiss and I pretend to catch it. Then I watch as he walks out of our front door, as he slips behind the wheel of his quantum grey Audi.

  Julie returns to the line as he drives onto the street.

  “Okay, sorry about Daniel,” she says. “What’s this about?”

  “Nate.”

  “Aw! You want me to help pick out something for your upcoming anniversary?”

  “No.” I swallow. “I want you to tell me why I shouldn’t ask him for a divorce…”

  End of Episode 1

  Episode 2

  Autumn

  A few hours later

  There’s a gorgeous man in Juniper Cafe who can’t take his eyes off me. From the moment I walked through the doors, his blue and grey irises have followed my every move.

  They’re currently beckoning me to leave, to walk away from this conversation with Julie.

  Do it, Autumn. Leave.

  As tempting as it is, as easy as it seems, he and I can never be.

  This ‘man’ is nothing more than a framed Chris Hemsworth poster, and I have the feeling that after minutes of listening to Julie’s rambling, he wants to jump off the wall and kill himself.

  “I don’t understand why Daniel is regressing in his potty training.” Julie stuffs a fry into her mouth. “One day, he goes to his seat and drops those turds just fine. The next day, he’s shitting brown lava all over my favorite couch and the dogs are following his lead.”

  I set down my fork.

  My appetite vanished a while a
go, but she’s assuring me that it’ll never return.

  “My living room smells worse than a zoo these days, so I’m happy that my nanny is coming back from vacation next week. Potty-training my son is her job.”

  Nodding along, I lean back in my chair and wait for her to ask me about Nate. I wait for her to say something, anything, that isn’t about her life.

  Half an hour passes, and she never does.

  By the time her phone sounds with a reminder that it’s time to head home, I’ve learned which neighbors are in danger of having their houses foreclosed on, which decorations she’s setting out for Halloween, and which brand of toddler toilets hold the most poop.

  This can’t be my life…

  We share an umbrella on our way to the parking lot, and she waits for me to slip behind the wheel.

  “Divorcing Nate isn’t a fucking option.” The cold tone of her voice makes me look up.

  “What?”

  “You said vows before God and your family, until death do you part,” she says. “You loved him enough to want a ‘forever together’ at one point, so suck up whatever the hell you’re going through and work that shit out.”

  “Julie, it’s a bit more complicated than that. If you’d asked me in the cafe—”

  “No, it isn’t.” She cuts me off, narrowing her eyes. “Only a weak and pathetic woman would ever consider leaving her marriage, and that’s a fact.”

  I stare at her for several seconds, completely taken aback by her change in demeanor.

  “All you have to do is remember how good things were before.” She attempts to soften her voice, to retract some of the venom, but the damage is done.

  “There will always be rough patches,” she says. “The real couples know how to hold tight and iron them out.”

  I fake a smile. “Thank you for the advice, Julie.”

  “Anytime!” she says, now laughing and acting as if the last minute never happened. “And when all else fails, watch some hardcore porn together. Sometimes a few rounds of good sex is all it takes.”

  “Good to know.” I say goodbye and wait for her to turn away before slamming my door.

  The moment I start the engine, the windshield wipers brush away what was left of our ‘friendship.’

  Contrary to what she thinks, I’ve played the ‘remember how good things were before’ game millions of times, and all it ever does is reveal how many red flags I missed. How many times I had the opportunity to step off the field and accept our try at love as a loss.

  I met him during the summer before my senior year in high school, after he’d already graduated from college.

  A small part of me thought he was too old and experienced—way too full of himself as well—but the larger part of me didn’t care.

  I let him sneak into my room and steal my virginity, let him show me what it felt like to be utterly reckless, while we smoked marijuana and drank warm beer on the beach.

  Our relationship was a special brand of toxicity, and every sip of danger and instability left me wanting more.

  And the sex was definitely better. Not “great,” but better.

  As I steer my car onto the highway, my dashboard lights up with a new call.

  Nate.

  I turn up the volume before answering. “Hey.”

  “Hey. I just realized that I forgot to tell you happy birthday this morning.”

  Silence.

  “Happy birthday, Autumn.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you like me to treat you to dinner this evening to celebrate?”

  “Sure.” I ignore the familiar ache in my chest. “What time and place work best for you?”

  “You tell me. It’s your birthday.”

  The billboard ahead brags about a brand-new eatery downtown.

  “O’Malley’s at seven?”

  “Seven at O’Malley’s sounds good.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.” I end the call and switch lanes.

  I prepare to return home, but a sleek, black McLaren speeds past me on the right.

  My car shakes in its wake, and I know the driver has to be going at least thirty miles over the speed limit.

  What the hell?

  I can’t help but remember when Nate and I chased down anyone who dared to speed past us on the highway.

  We’d get close enough to match their speed, and then we’d see how long they let us follow. Where they let us go.

  I’m not sure what comes over me, but I switch lanes and press the gas pedal to the floor.

  I catch up to the McLaren when my dashboard warns I’m driving eighty-five miles an hour, and I’m close enough to read the license plate.

  MISTER R

  He speeds up. I speed up.

  He switches lanes. I do the same.

  I match the car for miles, for no reason, knowing that this one-sided game could end in disaster. That he may not even want to play.

  He drives far past the city that holds my suburb and into another county. For a long stretch of the road, there’s only the two of us.

  As we approach Exit 180A, he flashes his right turn signal.

  This is supposed to be the stopping point, when I slow down and turn around. Game over.

  I don’t follow the rules this time, though.

  I continue to trail him.

  When we get off the ramp, a different type of suburbia appears, and I can’t help but question why I’ve never ventured this far before.

  I’m admiring this winding, tree-lined drive so much that I fail to realize that I’m not following the McLaren into a subdivision.

  This is clearly a private road.

  Shit.

  His car comes to a stop, and I notice the black iron gate ahead of us. The letter “R” is embedded within its bars.

  The driver’s side door suddenly opens and a black umbrella lets up into the rain. Then a man dressed in a dark grey suit steps onto the pavement.

  He strolls toward me, rendering me speechless with every step he takes, with every glance I’m stealing of his gorgeous, chiseled face.

  Oh. My. God…

  I can’t determine his exact eye color from here, but I know that the hard clench of his jaw means he’s not too pleased about being followed.

  Not wanting to give him a chance to make it to my window, I put my car in reverse and slam on the gas.

  My heart races as I struggle to maneuver the backward turns, my palms sweat against the steering wheel.

  The man remains standing under his umbrella—watching me until I’m gone—then I return to the highway and head back to where I belong.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  End of Episode 2

  Episode 3

  Autumn

  O’Malley’s is booked with reservations for the next two months, no exceptions.

  Our seven o’clock plans for my birthday dinner are derailed, now exchanged for a last-minute ticket to Outback Steakhouse. Even so, we may never get the chance to claim our rides.

  Today’s “light and steady rainfall” is a full-blown thunderstorm that’s shedding sheets of rain every few seconds, and we’re currently killing time in the restaurant’s parking lot. Desperately waiting for it to slow.

  My designer red dress—with its deep, plunging neckline and sparkling nude stilettos—feels like too much of an effort; same with Nate’s custom black suit and Italian leather shoes.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead and check on O’Malley’s.” Nate turns down the heat.

  “It’s okay. You didn’t know.” I clear my throat. “How was your day today?”

  “Good. Yours?”

  “Same.”

  Silence stretches between us, painful yet comforting at the same time.

  “You know what?” He taps his chin. “I can drive next to the entrance to get you close enough to the awning to stay dry, or we can order your birthday dinner to-go.”

  “That would be nice.”

  Without asking whether I’m referring to the former or the latter, he puts the car in drive and speeds toward the entrance.

  “What do you want me to order?” He turns on the hazard lights, picking ‘the latter’ for me.

  “I’ll have whatever you have.”