Chapter ThirtyFive
It’s amazing how much books helped when life was spiraling completely out of control.
A week after announcing my new business venture and the date for the grand opening, the business’s email inbox was jam-packed with manuscripts. Brand new books, never seen before writers, and so much potential waiting for someone to take the chance on them. It was the perfect way to disappear from the shit show that was my life.
Two weeks had passed since I moved out of the house in Tribeca, and Jaxon hadn’t as much as sent a single text message.
Not that I cared.
Or that was at least what I kept telling myself.
I walked away, and the fact my heart struggled to beat a single time without pain, I tried to keep myself from falling apart.
I’d been a fool to ever think that Frederic Dade wanted something as simple as access to my father’s European market. Something he could have easily achieved with time and smart business decisions.
The two brothers played me like a puppet, preying on my vulnerability, and what made me want to vomit was the fact that I let them do it.
After walking away, I didn’t know where to turn. Flynn was nowhere to be found, not answering a single phone call or text message. Saunders, however, picked up on the first ring of my call, coming to my rescue and carrying the little I fled with from my marital home.
When he asked where I wanted to go, the thought of going back to my empty family home didn’t feel right.
I didn’t want to sit and replay every single word I heard through the air vent.
A means to an end, nothing more.
Marry the girl and use her to take down her piece of shit father.
I didn’t want to be alone, feeling every inch of the unforgiving pain threatening to consume me whole.
Jaxon played me like a fiddle, making me think he loved me when the reality was that I was simply a tool for him to use and nothing more.
How could the same man who made my heart skip a beat, the one who couldn’t stand another man making me laugh, have done this?
Lola didn’t ask any questions when I appeared at her apartment with Bell in one arm and an overflowing suitcase in the other. She simply carried my suitcase into her spare bedroom and told me to rest.
The first night without Jaxon, the sobs wracked through my body so violently that I vomited all over the bedsheets. I hugged myself to sleep while Lola curled herself around me after helping me clean up the mess.
Every night since, I cried unheard tears until I fell asleep.
The next two weeks, both Lola and Violet hovered around me, but they never pushed me into talking about what actually happened.
I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to poke at the fresh wound that refused to heal and instead opened wider each time I thought about Jaxon.
I thought getting over Laurence was difficult, turned out it was a walk in the freaking park compared to Jaxon.
Busying myself helped. I did whatever I could to keep my mind occupied. That was when me and my friends started to organize the opening of my new business while still trying to figure out how to handle my father’s company.
“Morning.” Lola handed me a cup of coffee. “I didn’t wake you last night, did I?”
Curled up on her sofa, nursing my now fourth cup of sweetened coffee of the morning, I closed the manuscript I was currently losing my mind over. “What time did you get in?”
“Three.” Lola plonked herself down beside me. “There was a party after training last night. Lilly was pretty adamant that I shouldn’t go just in case Mickey was there. He flew in a couple nights ago to see his family. But I told her I wasn’t putting my life on hold because I might or might not bump into him.”
Her and Mickey were officially over, or well, as over as it could be for an on-again, off-again, sexually based relationship.
Though she’d never admit it, she was taking it harder than she dared voice.
“It’s not like he has stopped living his life. He’s still the same old Mickey, no matter what’s happened.”
“Was he there?”
“Didn’t notice.” Lola dodged the question. “There were a lot of people there. Some I recognized, some I didn’t.”
He was definitely there. But who was I to judge? My own love life was a total car wreck, and I understood what it felt like to want to stay the hell away from someone and never see them again, while at the same time longing to be near them.
“Your bedroom light was still on when I got home.”
“It’s this manuscript. I seriously cannot put it down.” It was a half-truth. The manuscript was amazing, and I was devouring my way through it at a record pace, but it wasn’t the reason sleep was no longer my friend. There was only one reason. A reason dressed in monochrome and scowling faces. “I fell asleep reading. Forgot to turn out the light.”
Her brows creased. “That’s the sixth night in a row.”
“Like I said, the manuscript is very good.”
Lola looked unconvinced. “You know, I thought giving you space was the best option. Let you come to me when you were ready to talk. But now, I realize whatever it is you’re doing, it’s not healthy. Tell me what happened because I cannot sit by and watch you like this anymore.”
My lips pressed into a thin line.
“You know you can tell me anything, Evie. This is a no-judgment zone.” Lola reached for my hand. “Whatever happened, whatever you need from me, I am right here for you. Vi, too.”
“I know you are, and I love you guys for it.”
“We love you, too,” she said. “We’re worried about you and don’t know how to help. All we want is for you to talk to us.”
I exhaled slowly.
Weeks of silence, weeks of internalizing the last eleven months with Jaxon, came flooding out of me. The harsh truth, every ugly, twisted detail.
By the time I let it all out, tears stained my cheeks, and my body physically sagged.
The weight I’d been carrying around, keeping everything locked away, it eased enough to make each breath no longer burn a thousand fires.
“Holy shit,” Lola said. “Do you want me to go and slice his testicles off with my blades? I won’t sharpen them beforehand, so he really learns a lesson.”
I laughed weakly. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think it’ll help me feel any better.”
“The offer stands any time, day or night. I’ll do it.” Lola squeezed my hand. “I guess I have to ask what are you going to do now? Walk away and file for divorce?”
“It’s not like there is any other option.”
“Talking to him is always another one,” Lola said. “If you want to call it quits and never see him again, then I will support you a thousand percent. But, I am struggling to match up the man who nearly killed your ex, who spent Christmas and Thanksgiving with you, with the man you overheard a couple weeks ago. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“It was all a lie, Lola. He was using me, pretending to give a damn about me, pretending to—love me.” My voice cracked alongside my heart. “All so he could make my dad pay for something that happened in his past. I was nothing more than a weapon to utilize at the right moment.”
I don’t believe I am strong enough or selfless enough to ever let you go.
I warned you not to fall in love with me, I guess somewhere along the way I forgot to heed my own warning.
Marry the girl and use her to take down her piece of shit father.
“All I am saying is maybe there is more to what you heard,” Lola soothed. “I’m not making excuses for the man. I just think you should know all the facts before you make any decisions.”
“He went behind my back and released files to the media with the sole intention of destroying my father’s life’s work,” I said bluntly. “He used me. He married me for what? To get access into the computer systems and dig up dirt.”
“A total dick move.”
“If you say you love someone, you don’t lie to them for nearly a year. There is nothing more I need to hear from him.”
Lola nodded. “If that’s what you want, then okay. We can start looking into filing for divorce.”
Divorce.
The word was so final.
But it was what I needed to do, right?
“All I want right now is to sort out who is going to run Dad’s company in my absence. Let me sort out that mess first before I deal with the next one.”
Then, I’d file for divorce.
I wasn’t stalling because the very notion of divorcing Jaxon was like swallowing a red-hot poker. I was simply being practical.
One mess at a time.