Total pages in book: 200
Estimated words: 189898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 949(@200wpm)___ 760(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 189898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 949(@200wpm)___ 760(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
Rich let her go, and her dead gaze followed him as she watched him back away with no emotion. His legs seemed to give out, so he sank onto the arm of the couch with his gaze fixed on the floor. The four of us waited in the heavy silence that followed, and I wondered if they could hear my heart beating out of control.
“I wasn’t going to leave her,” he eventually whispered so low I almost didn’t catch it.
As I sat up, my confused gaze flew to Houston, who gave no obvious reaction. He was pissed, but he didn’t seem surprised.
What the hell had I missed?
“Come again?”
Rich looked at me, and I was surprised to see the same plea in his eyes that he’d given Braxton moments ago. “Emily. If her baby was mine, I wasn’t going to go through with it. I wasn’t going to divorce her.”
I can’t explain why I suddenly smiled when nothing was funny about what he said. Houston moved away from the window as soon as I stood because he knew what was on my mind. Jericho knew it too, but he didn’t move to try to defend himself if it came to that.
He’d let me beat him.
Jericho deserved every broken bone and ounce of blood lost after what he just admitted to, so he’d allow me the pound of flesh.
“Let me make sure I heard you correctly. While Houston and I were risking everything, you were plotting behind our backs to leave us and ride off into the sunset with Emily?”
“Yes.”
I stood there in the wake of his confession, waiting to hear him explain or make excuses.
He didn’t.
He simply sat there. He let me see his shame. I couldn’t hide my hatred or the betrayal I felt, so he welcomed it so that I wouldn’t succumb to it.
I was as furious with myself as I was with Jericho. I chose to trust my best friend instead of this very suspicion that had been prickling my mind for months. I’d underestimated him again, but not in the way I could ever respect.
Or forgive.
The truth had been there the entire time. I refused to believe it because I trusted him. Jericho had built enough evidence a long time ago to get a court-ordered dissolution without Emily. She’d run for no fucking reason other than to keep Jericho in her claws. She knew he’d never divorce her without confronting her first. And without knowing if the kid she may or may not have had even belonged to him.
After Braxton, I assumed only the former still held.
I believed he hesitated for the reason his surname implied.
He had to be so goddamn noble.
He had to give Emily the honor of telling her to her face that he should never have married her, that he wasn’t in love with her anymore, and that Braxton was the woman he should have fucking waited for but didn’t.
Jericho hadn’t just been playing Braxton.
He’d been playing us all.
“Fuck you.”
I didn’t allow myself to say more. I didn’t allow myself to look at Braxton, Houston, or even Rich.
When I stormed through the door, I didn’t just walk out on our fight. I knew in my heart that I’d just walked out on us.
On Bound.
THE BOUND & BELLICOSE TOUR HAS BEEN POSTPONED
Sources report difficulties among the band. There are also rumors circulating that Bound’s newest guitarist, Braxton Fawn, is dating not one but all three of the band’s original members. Could this be the end of Bound?
I clicked out of the article and hit the ignore button as soon as Xavier started calling me. I’m sure he wanted to see where my head was, but there was nothing he could do about the answer. Climbing out of my truck, I stared up at the country château that had taken me an hour of driving and pondering to reach.
I still didn’t know what I was going to say.
Loren had made us buy and restore that monstrosity in the woods so that he could tell his father that his was bigger.
I hope he got the chance because I wasn’t leaving here without him.
It had been three goddamn weeks.
I thought the last six years had been rough, but it was nothing compared to the feeling of actually being without your best friends and losing your girl all in one week.
Braxton had shut down, Loren had run back to Portland, and Rich…he was a fucking ghost. He wasn’t eating, he wasn’t sleeping, and he had an episode whenever he did. None of that was what concerned me the most.
Jericho hasn’t spoken a single word in twenty-three days.
My fear had reached the point of being irrational. I was afraid he’d forgotten how. I was terrified he’d lost his will—for anything. I was watching our best friend waste away so, yeah. I’d hogtie Loren and drag his ass back if he forced me to.