Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
He had said he’d tried to be the voice of reason…
I walked out of the lawyer’s office and into the gray, gloomy day and started marching down the street toward my car.
At least that would stay mine.
I’d bought that under my own name when I was sixteen.
I was halfway to my car when I noticed my neighbor—the rat bastard—leaning against the lamp post a few spots down from my car.
With him was his wife, who was leaning into him.
Or, his ex-wife.
I’d heard they’d gotten divorced not too long ago.
Didn’t surprise me.
If he was a snake that would steal from a dying man, why wouldn’t he divorce his beautiful, stay-at-home-mom wife? Did he not like the way she cleaned his kitchen? Did he hate how she prepared his meals? Washed his clothes? Reared his kids?
“Please, Denver?”
Sinclair, better known as Denver to his motorcycle club brothers, shook his head and gruffly said, “I’m sorry, Julie, but I’m not interested in trying again.”
“Why not?”
“You chose the wrong option,” he pointed out. “You had your chance. You had so many chances that it wasn’t funny. But, inevitably, you chose you. I can’t fix that anymore. We’re already divorced.”
“I’ll give you the money back if you give me another chance,” Juliana begged.
I wondered what money she was talking about.
I’d heard through the grapevine that Juliana had cleaned him out.
My first initial thought was “good.”
But watching this now, hearing what I was hearing, maybe there was something more to this story…
“It’s not about the money, Julie,” Denver grumbled. “It’s about the fact that you threw away fifteen fuckin’ years of our life because you were bored and wanted a vacation.”
Huh.
I hadn’t expected him to say that.
“I’m sorry. You’ll never know how sorry,” Juliana apologized, practically hanging off of him as she pleaded her case. “Seriously, you’ll never know how sorry. I was wrong. I didn’t realize that you put in that much work. My girlfriend and I were talking last night, and she opened my eyes. I wasn’t bored. I was sad and lonely. I confused the two.”
“Then you should’ve unconfused them before you took such drastic measures,” he pointed out. “Then fucked me over so hard. I’m not joking when I say that you broke me, Julie. No woman will ever fuck me over like you did. Not even you. I’m not interested in you that way any longer. Whatever love that I had for you walked out the door when you did.”
“That can’t be true.” Juliana looked crushed. “You’re not dating. You don’t have anyone else. And who else is going to handle your lifestyle? Who better to raise your kids with you than their own mother?”
“Handle my lifestyle?” he snorted.
“Your secrets, Denver.”
His eyes went luminescent as he leaned forward and got in her face. “You share a single fuckin’ one of those secrets, Juliana, and I’ll burn you alive.”
Juliana reared back. “You’d hurt me?”
Denver’s smile was fierce. “In a heartbeat. You threaten my club or my kids? You’re a dead woman.”
I halted in the middle of the sidewalk, wondering if I should move or stay.
In the end, that choice was taken from me when Sinclair’s eyes turned my way.
They were blazing.
Those blazing eyes softened the moment they met mine. “Hey, Georgie.”
I swallowed hard. “Hey.”
“Sorry to block your truck,” he said. “We’ll move.”
He caught his ex-wife’s arm and started to guide her out of the way, but Juliana yanked her arm away as if he’d burned her. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
Denver snorted and turned his back on his wife and me, then started walking toward his truck that was just down the road from where I was parked.
He got in said truck and started it up with a powerful, throaty roar and pulled out into traffic without another word.
When he was out of sight, I looked at Juliana, who was crying.
“You okay?” I asked her.
She sniffled. “I made a huge mistake.”
I blinked. “What?”
She gestured toward where Sinclair’s taillights had disappeared and said, “I kept seeing my friends go out and have fun. Go on lavish vacations and have great times. And I was full of envy for them. I had such a fear of missing out that I broke my own marriage apart to have this elusive feeling. But even now, with him no longer my husband, I still can’t do it. The dating scene is crazy. No one wants to touch me with a ten-foot pole because I used to belong to Denver, the president of the Dixie Wardens MC. I have to meet people all the way out in Tooths Landing. And that’s an hour and a half one way. And all they want to do is party and have fun. Which isn’t really conducive with my work life seeing as I have to have a minimum-wage job to barely make ends meet. I had to start driving for Uber Eats to help supplement my income. He gave me a lump sum when we divorced, but stupidly I put it all into a high-yield money market account to prepare for my future and I can’t touch it. It’s a mess. I had no idea what it all would entail. But I miss my old life. I miss my kids. My husband.” She looked super forlorn. “He’s going to move on eventually, and it’ll break me.”