Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 111959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Throwing in her face how easily she’d been willing to abandon her own dream.
I have to get out of here. Before I try to convince him to let me stay.
Before I betray myself again.
Josephine was undoubtedly leaving personal items behind, but she didn’t care. Eyes blurred with tears, she pulled on some jeans, ordered an Uber that would probably cost her a fortune, bundled her overnight bag to her chest, and speed-walked toward the front door.
Wells tried to step into her path, but she had too much momentum and easily skirted past him without braking. “Josephine, stop.”
“You just told me to leave.”
“Don’t go like this,” he growled, catching her around the waist with a forearm and dragging her back against his chest. “Tell me you fucking love me.”
“I love you!”
Air burst out of him, followed by a ragged intake of breath, and Josephine knew that he hadn’t really expected her to say it. That made two of them. Maybe when those three words were so unequivocally true, they couldn’t be kept inside if someone invoked them. “Tell me we’ll get through this,” he begged into the back of her neck.
Now that, it appeared, was a request she couldn’t grant. Not when she was this hurt, angry, and confused. “I can’t see into the future, Wells.”
“I can. My future is with you. That’s the only future I’ll ever want.”
Anything resembling energy was ebbing from Josephine’s limbs. The shock of being fired and told to leave by the man she loved was rendering her numb, like a small mercy. She needed to go, before she slumped back into his arms and cried like a baby. Her self-respect was full of holes after nearly abandoning her dream. Her pride was weak after having her offer to stay rejected. So she mustered up what little of those qualities she had left and wiped her eyes. “Don’t be afraid to lay up on that par five at Augusta. Slow and steady, okay?”
She pulled open the door and left, closing it on an anguished rasp of her name.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The night before the opening round of the Masters, Wells sat at the bar in the players’ lounge, staring down into a glass of whiskey. He’d ordered it over twenty minutes ago, but hadn’t yet taken a sip. The energy in the dimly lit bar was high and familiar, everyone buzzing about the tournament of the year. The Masters brought out all the legends, and they mingled with the young guns now, reminiscing about their glory days, holding court in their green jackets. Who would have the honor of winning one this year?
Josephine would have loved this.
That’s what made his guts feel like they were in a miserable pile on the floor.
He no longer had insides, really. They had just kind of fallen out when she left.
Correction, when he told her to leave.
Before that thought could sprout teeth, Wells snatched up the whiskey and drained it, imploring the burn to work higher than his throat. To somehow singe away the memories of his fight with Josephine. Oh God, she’d been so hurt. He’d known she would be, but he’d underestimated. She’d gone white as a fucking ghost and he could not stop seeing that. It was like a horror film playing in his brain 24-7. On their first night in San Antonio, she’d told him having her help rejected hurt her feelings. It was her trigger—along with going to her parents for help—and he’d pulled them both.
But he’d seen no other way.
Did he do the right thing?
Did he?
He’d sat there all night trying to come up with solutions and he’d found only one no-fail way to combat Josephine’s fierce loyalty. But, holy shit, was he suffering now. Not having Josephine around was like being dropped off alone on the moon, seven billion light-years from his beating heart. She hadn’t stopped sharing her blood sugar data with him—that was the only thing that gave him hope that they would come out on the other side of this fight intact.
He could still see the rising and falling dots. He could still see she was okay. And thank God for that, because if she’d taken away that trust, he’d have crumbled.
As it was, Wells wasn’t sure how he’d manage to wake up tomorrow and play a round of golf. He could barely feel his fucking hands. His whole life was mired in fog.
A ripple of murmurs moved through the crowd and Wells watched Buck Lee enter the room with his collection of pros, including Calhoun. He waited for regret and envy to drive up beneath his skin like twin spikes, as usual, but oddly . . . they never did. All he felt was a small sense of nostalgia, but it was layered under a giant heap of indifference.
“You want another one?” asked the bartender, gesturing to Wells’s empty glass.