Page 126 of Irresistibly Wicked

The papers were still there, neatly stacked. Leaving them was the biggest mistake of his life.

He stepped closer and saw a check written out to him in the exact amount of Brian’s rehab. Fuck.

He stared at the papers like they were the enemy, but he was the one who’d left them there. He was the one who had signed them in front of a notary yesterday. He was the enemy within their home, and he wasn’t ready to face her signature on that fucking final line.

Grief coiled tight and painful inside him as he went through the motions of feeding Kitty, trying to ignore the pain and the full-on war raging in his head.

After setting Kitty’s bowl on her mat, he turned back to the island, his teeth clenched. He carefully moved the rings, the check, and the fucking pen she must have used to sign the damn things and shifted the papers to the last page, her loopy signature staring back at him. His chest seized, and the room spun, heartache and rage snapping through him like live wires.

“You signed them,” he growled. “You fucking signed them.”

Of course she did, you idiot. You basically handed her the goddamn pen. What the hell did you expect?

“Fuck!” He slammed his fist against the counter, sending Kitty scampering out of the kitchen.

He sank back against the counter, grief like a weight dragging him under, rage like a storm trying to slash its way free, and his fucking heart shattering so painfully, he wanted to put his fist through his chest wall and tear the damn thing out.

“HEY, FLORES,” MIKE called out from the open bay. “I’ll pull my truck in next.”

Shauna looked up as she filled a bucket with soapy water to wash the ambulance and shot him a deadpan look, pretending the sting in her eyes was from the low-hanging sun and not the crushing feeling she’d been carrying around all day. The papers were signed, the debt was paid, and Brian was making headway toward getting settled, but she felt empty, her heart splintered. The iron threads that had held her together since she was too young to realize it were unraveling against her will.

“Dude, leave her alone,” Paul said. “She’s been crabby all day. She obviously didn’t get any last night.”

“I told you there was trouble in paradise,” Lance said.

She hosed down the ambulance, tuning them out as they debated her life. They had no idea her marriage was supposed to be fake by all means other than the legal contract that bound her and Zander together. She hadn’t even thought about how she’d explain the end of it to them. Emotions were never part of the deal, but they’d been there from the start for her, hadn’t they? There was something about Zander she’d trusted from the get-go. Something that drew her back to that hospital room day after day, to the man who had called himself Zeke and had pleaded with her not to let him go when he’d been lying on the ground bleeding.

Setting down the hose, she picked up the soapy sponge and began furiously scrubbing the ambulance.

“Don’t worry, Flores,” Howie called over. “Everyone goes through a honeymoon period, and then real life sets in, and you realize you don’t like finding his towel on the floor or his clothes by the hamper instead of in it. But you and Zander will get through this.”

The fragile hold she had on herself snapped, and she spun around, spewing the truth. “No, we won’t! It wasn’t real. He was just helping me get my inheritance so I could pay for Brian’s rehab. I wasn’t supposed to fall for him, but I did, and—”

The roar of a motorcycle drowned out her voice, and they all looked toward the street. The sponge slipped in her hand, her heart tripping up as Zander came barreling down the road and rolled to a stop at the curb, his black bike gleaming. Kitty was strapped to his chest in some kind of carrier with a tiny helmet covering her head. The ridiculous sight should have made her laugh, but as Zander took off Kitty’s helmet and then his own, the fury etched into his face made it hard for her to breathe. Why was he angry? She’d kept her end of the deal. Had he wanted her to move out this morning?

She was vaguely aware of one of the guys saying, “Oh shit. He looks pissed,” as Zander swung his leg over the bike and stalked up the driveway, his jaw clenched and eyes trained on her like she was the only thing he saw and the last thing he wanted to look at.

Shitshitshit. She didn’t think it was possible for her heart to hurt more than it already did, but here she was, feeling the blood draining from her face and stifling the urge to ask what she’d done wrong. But she wouldn’t let him see that weakness. Not if she could help it. She’d made this deal, and she owed it to him to hold herself together.

Gathering all the strength she could muster, she straightened her spine, meeting his angry gaze. “What are you doing here?” Her voice was steadier than the panic inside her.

“Is that any way to greet your husband?” he growled.

Her thoughts stumbled, and then she realized he was saying it for the rest of the crew. “You don’t have to pretend anymore. I told them the truth, and I signed the papers and left you a check in the kitchen. Didn’t you find them?”

“I found them, and I burned them. The check, too. You’re not dumping me that easy.”

“What are you talking about? You left those papers for me, and you had already signed them!”

“Yeah, because I was holding up my end of the bargain,” he barked, ragged and rough, like the words were scraped from his chest. “I know you think you belong with Brian. Your whole life has been tied to him, and it always will be, but damn it, Shauna, that doesn’t mean you can’t have the life you want and the love you deserve.”

Her pulse jumped, but her mind lagged behind, her thoughts tangled.

“I’m not going to walk away and pretend all I feel is friendship for the woman I love more than life itself. Not without shooting my shot, which makes me a raving asshole because Brian went through rehab for you, but I love you, Angel, and I never believed in regrets, but now I have a list of them. I wish I’d never left you the night I drove you home all those years ago, so I could have been there to help you get sober, and we could have had the years in between together. I wish I’d never hidden my feelings from you, so you would’ve known how madly and passionately I was falling for you every step of the way.”

I love you, too was on the tip of her tongue. She wanted this. She wanted him. Forever. But she didn’t know how to let herself have it when it meant Brian might falter again.

Zander stepped closer. “And most of all, I wish I hadn’t been with so many women before you, because I know in my heart I was always meant to be yours, and you were always meant to be mine.” He took her hand in his and lifted it between them. “This four on your hand is me, and the sforzando on my finger is you. We were bound by ink before we even knew it.”