Page 130 of Angel

‘Angel, please, you can’t -.’

‘Listen to me,’ I cut her off. ‘You jilted me. I married Roxy, and now I care for her. Now your ex is hitting me up to try and get back in touch with you, and I want nothing to do with it. Leave me out of whatever boyfriend drama you’re involved in.’

I severed the connection before she could launch into another manipulative crying jag.

The afternoon crawled by, the humid Nashville sun baking the pavement outside the studio windows.

Around four o’clock, the anonymous caller buzzed again.

Unknown number: She owes me, and if you can’t tell me where she is, you’ll owe me instead.

A red haze flooded my brain.

I just about lost my cool then, my thumbs flying across the keyboard as I let him have it.

Angel: You’ve got the wrong man. Evangeline walked out on me months ago. She jilted me at the altar. She’s not living with me, and I want nothing to do with her.

Unknown number: If I find you lied to me, you’re dead, rockstar.

I almost threw my phone through the lobby’s plate-glass windows in sheer frustration, desperate for a quiet life, without Evangeline ever in it again.

Gathering my composure, I screen-shotted the threat and flicked it to Brian, our lawyer, with a note to look into whoeverthefuck Maurice was.

If he were as dirty as Evangeline claimed, perhaps the Waring Partners team would dig enough dirt to get him off my back for good.

Chapter 25

ROXY

The prestigious Annual Nashville Civic Gala arrived a few days later, a grand celebration of community, culture, and the arts.

I was due to receive a major art award for the Upcoming Artist category, a milestone that should have filled me with pure joy.

Instead, I was a bundle of nerves, still unsure of how much to share with Angel about the fact that he was about to be a father.

What stopped me every time was how distant and aloof he was.

Plus my fear that he’d reject not only me but the child I was carrying.

I wasn’t sure when to tell him, but it needed to be when things weren’t so tense between us.

Angel and the Six Sinners were also receiving an award for their massive philanthropic contributions to the city via their charity, The Sanctuary.

The ceremony was to be splashed all over the local entertainment news and social media.

I was working on one of my canvases in my home studio when Di called to make sure we’d both be present and dressed to the nines.

‘For the photos,’ she trilled before she rang off.

I groaned out loud after hanging up.

I was so over her and Reese’s ongoing, pesky requests for Angel and me to act as the perfect, smiling faces of the Rosedale Group.

The clown circus continues, I thought to myself as I threw more paint on a surface, taking out my frustration in streaks of black and navy oil paints.

At five p.m., Angel arrived, his tires crunching on the gravel.

My heart jolted as he called out from the hallway.