Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
It was only after I’d dealt with my own shit that my mind had been free to dwell on her. I came back from the abyss with a vengeance. All the things that had once held me back were no longer of any consequence.
Somewhere in that darkness, I acquired a ‘fuck you’ attitude that wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon if ever. I can honestly say that the man who came out of that dazed numb world of heartache and bitter turmoil was not the same man who’d let her walk away all those years ago.
Nick Sheridan would’ve left her alone. I’d already done more than enough to her. Savage wasn’t that chivalrous, he wanted her he was going to have her. I had lost enough for this lifetime I wasn’t going to lose her again. And it didn’t matter to me what or who I had to move out of the way to get what I wanted.
She had no idea what was headed her way, because even as I was planning all this, I never approached her. I guess you can call what I was about to do a blitz attack. I no longer cared about propriety and what was right or wrong.
Had she been married I would’ve found a way to take her away from her husband, I don’t dwell too much on what that says about me.
It was enough that she was all I cared about anymore and I wasn’t going to let something as insignificant as a conscience stand in my way.
I knew damn good and well that my anger was the driving force behind everything I was thinking and doing, but I didn’t care one fuck. Maybe she was my saving grace. I knew that there was no one else in this world that could keep me from going too far over the edge; that could preserve what little bit of humanity I had left.
That’s why I’d left it until this late in the game. I didn’t want what I felt for her standing in the way of what I had to do. She always was able to make me soft.
Outside her home, I looked up at the windows; she was in there. I felt myself settle and hadn’t realized until then that I’d been tense on the ride over.
I let my eyes scope out the place. I didn’t want any good Samaritans getting in my shit if things didn’t go smoothly. I wasn’t expecting her to make a scene, that wasn’t her style. But after all these years, what do I know? I wasn’t willing to take any chances though so I’d left this for late in the night when most folks were in bed.
How many times had I sat out here like this? Just looking up at her place where I knew she was either asleep, or sitting at her desk working herself into the ground until the wee hours of the morning?
The best times were those when I’d see her shadow moving around the rooms behind the shelter of the curtains that were like a silk shield between us. Those times it took everything in me not to go get her. But I let it suffice me, just knowing that she was right here, so close.
She’d pitch a fit if she knew I had run a check on her. That I’d gone digging into her life the way I had. I knew every little detail about her from the day she left me to what she had for breakfast this morning.
She’d buckled down after the number I’d done on her and done everything she’d always said she would. She’d fulfilled all the dreams she’d had, things she’d shared with me when we were young and in love.
She’d achieved everything she set out to do, gotten everything she’d once whispered to me about. All the things she’d wanted for her future, but with one glaring difference. I wasn’t there at her side.
She was a topnotch executive in one of the leading financial houses in the state. At her age, there was always someone making a big deal about her drive and her climb to the top.
Only I saw beneath the façade. Only I knew what fueled that drive that saw her reach the pinnacle of her success years ahead of what she’d planned for. I was proud of her, every little achievement that I’d missed.
While my wife had been alive, I’d stayed away, not even so much as looking up her number. She’d only moved back to the area a few years ago when her mom had fallen ill.
We had both gone to great lengths to avoid each other because I’d never so much as seen her across a crowded room. But you couldn’t help but hear of her return and how well she was doing, or how great she looked.