Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
But the gentle way Destiny keeps looking at me, the distance gone again, like she can just push it aside when she’s worried about me, does strange things to a man’s mind.
You know what?
Fuck. It.
“Did you know I was married once?”
“What?” Her eyes turn into dinner plates. “You were?”
I nod.
Too late to back out now, dumbass.
“Serena Jameson. I proposed to her before my second tour of duty in Iraq. She said yes. I was gone longer than intended, though, when my unit’s time was extended. I’ll spare you the details. What matters is, when I came home unannounced, I found her in bed with another man.”
Destiny gasps. Her nails dig into my chest as her eyes darken with anger.
A warped part of me loves the way she looks at me.
“Oh my God. That’s awful and unbelievable and... and you deserved better, Shepherd.”
“That’s what I thought, too. That’s why we fought like wolverines when she leaped out of bed,” I say bitterly.
It’s like another life after so many years gone by.
At the time, it was like being eviscerated, but now it’s just a cruel distant memory.
A glaring reason to keep myself separated from anyone who can inflict pain.
“She told me I never loved her. I was too cold, after I had so much poison earlier in my life,” I say slowly. “Serena said I never made her feel loved, that I was just using her for sex. I wasn’t using her, but in her own way, she was right.”
“No way! Shepherd, she cheated on you.”
“And people do terrible things for a reason, don’t they? Every villain has a story and every crime has a reason.” I look at her sharply. “Anyway, she said she couldn’t spend the rest of her life waiting around for me to come home and shape up to be the man she wanted. She couldn’t live with the way I made her feel—more like one more asset in my account than a proper wife.”
“Jesus,” Destiny breathes. “Holy shit.”
My gut aches with phantom pain. I really wonder how deep I should go, but this is our last night, isn’t it?
Why shouldn’t she get to see all of me naked and exposed?
“It gets worse,” I grind out.
“Tell me.” She leans forward, slowly stroking my arm.
“The other man was still in the bedroom when I confronted them. After he heard us fighting for a little while, he snapped, I guess.”
It’s a rotten memory I’ve kept locked away in a vault.
Serena’s betrayal was one thing, but this was so different.
So fucking unnecessary.
The Marines showed me plenty of gruesome shit, everything from half-starved kids to charred human flesh.
Active duty does that to every man who steps into a combat zone, I suppose, but this didn’t happen on a barricaded Fallujah street where you’d expect it. This ambush happened right in my own home.
“I told Serena I loved her—as well as I ever could. I always had. But she didn’t feel the same way anymore. We were too broken, too damaged. Too fucking betrayed. I was ready to walk away from the flaming wreck of our marriage and give her the divorce she wanted. Then her lover boy came barreling out with a gun.”
Destiny stops breathing.
She’s not the only one.
“Obviously, I tried to get her clear, push her out of his path, but the man was crazed—and clearly, he hadn’t fired anything at a living person before. He pulled the trigger anyway. Shot Serena before I could get her on the ground. The bullet ricocheted and grazed me.”
Deathly silence now.
Maybe she knows just getting this out is killing me.
Then her small hand comes up to my face, fluttering, and stops on that faded line on my cheek. I nod like my head weighs more than a boulder.
“She died instantly,” I say coldly. “The man was still there, staring in disbelief. I knocked him out cold before he could do more damage, tried to resuscitate her, called the cops, EMTs, the works. But when he woke up, he claimed I provoked the fight. He insisted I shot her in a jealous fit and because I had PTSD. Lying fuckrat.”
She’s too stunned for words, but her hand tightens on my arm, so small yet so soothing.
“There was a massive scandal. With my past, people thought I did it—it’s not unheard of. In crime of passion murders, it’s often the partner. And she was unfaithful, after all. There was a big investigation and it went to trial.”
“While you were still grieving,” she murmurs, shaking her head sharply.
“It was rough. I had to face up to her betrayal and death and the fact that I was being accused of her murder. I also had the media up my ass for—”
I stop.
Goddamn, where do I even begin with my other dirt?
“My past. It always comes back to that.”
She looks at me, her eyes glassy with confusion.