Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
I sighed. He was saying smart things. “We had a decent sex life.”
He swung his gaze my way, a flash of heat there. “Don’t give that guy credit for anything. You never married before?”
I shook my head.
“You’re what? Midthirties?”
I frowned. Where was he going with this? “Thirty-six.”
“Unless you waited to go to college, you were probably twenty? That’s sixteen years together, give or take a year or two. Probability of him marrying you after all those years was low, statistically a zero percent chance. You should’ve seen the writing on the wall. He was never going to marry you.”
Indignation swept through me. I took back all the nice things about him.
“I supported him when he went to graduate school.”
His gaze softened. So did his voice when he said, “He let you go. That’s a gift he gave you.”
My stomach was back to churning into a pit, deep down inside of me.
He was eyeing me, narrowing his gaze. “Don’t take him back.”
“What?” I was back to being breathless.
“When he realizes how much he messed up, don’t take him back.”
He sounded so sure. He looked so sure, his eyes falling to my mouth and holding there. His face tightened for a second.
I looked away, my insides suddenly feeling empty. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew the full story.” If he knew how pathetic I’d been in the relationship. I may as well have chased Beck off, with all the ways I’d failed myself. Who’d be attracted to that?
“You’re not a woman a guy leaves. I know that much.”
Oh. Oh!
That—yeah. Wow.
He was looking at me, but not in a way he was seeing me. It was like he was seeing inside of me, and that made him . . . I couldn’t tell, but he grew suddenly sharp, all the way alert. His gaze was only focused on me.
That breathless sensation was back.
It wasn’t there because of the idea of Beck coming back to me.
Chapter Seven
Jake
Once we were done, I tossed enough money on the table and we headed outside.
Her eyes were wet with unshed tears, but she was holding them in. She wasn’t letting them fall. Still hugging herself. She’d been holding herself like that most of the time we were in there. It did something to me.
But, fuck.
She was lost and I knew one thing. Lost people didn’t belong in this city. They became more lost and became my problem.
Or they did.
When I’d been police.
Fuck.
I wasn’t a cop anymore.
It was going to take some time for me to adjust. That’d been my identity for so long. Justin’s brother. Then a cop. Whether I’d been a good or a dirty one, I’d still been a fucking cop. I tuned in that I was glaring at her as we stood on the sidewalk outside of the diner.
I tried to shove my anger down, and reached for her. “Hey.”
“Worthing! You piece of shit.”
I heard someone yelling behind me.
The voice was male, aggressive, and ice rushed down my spine. I acted on instinct, the same reflex that’s kept me alive this far, and whipping around, I shoved Sawyer behind me, my arm up with my gun already extended. I didn’t have time to plant my feet because as I looked, the guy was walking my way. He was on the outside of the sidewalk, a long winter coat open, the ends flopping behind him. He was white, had a dark beard. Grizzled face. Weight at two sixty and not with muscle, and he thought he was a motherfucking gangster.
“You gonna be dead, you pi—”
I shot him.
No hesitation. No thinking.
I had my gun in my hand the second I heard him speak. And I was raising it as I turned to look at him. It was like breathing for me, and as everything slowed down, right as I pulled the trigger, I saw the surprise on his face. He was here to shoot me, but he never thought I’d shoot first.
I’d seen that look time and time again, and never understood it. He was shocked that I would defend myself?
The bullet ripped into him, hitting his shoulder, and his hand jerked up right as he pulled his own trigger. His aim went high, shattering a window, but I was moving at him, tackling him before he could regroup and try again.
He grunted, trying to meet me, and instead of a clean hit, I threw him against the vehicle behind us. The car’s alarm started going off, but at that moment, it was just him and me. No other sound penetrated my ears. This was a fight for life. My life, and I hadn’t made up my mind what I wanted to do with him, but it took a second hit before I got him down to the ground. He was bleeding everywhere. I heard a crack as his head made contact with the cement sidewalk underneath him, but his eyes were wild. Crazed. He was on something. Adrenaline, and bloodlust.