Page 75 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

I pull out the burner phone Ronald gave me the day of the wedding and dial him, resting my head against the headrest and closing my eyes. But all that does is bring visions of Lyla straddling me in here yesterday. Couple that with the scent that still permeates the air in here and my cock is going to stay hard all fucking day.

Fuck.

It’s the last thing I need occupying my brain right now, and I adjust my semi away from under my zipper and wait while the line rings.

After the eighth ring, when I’m about to give up for now, Ronald picks up. “Silas, what’s wrong?”

Literally everything.

I spent the night planning what I was going to say to him, preparing for this moment, but now that it’s here, all the eloquent words I thought I should say disappear.

All that’s left is the one truth that won’t go away, no matter how long I agonize over it.

“I can’t do this to Lyla…”

Something rustles on the other end of the line, like he’s trying to move to a different room, and a door closes with a loud click. “What do you mean, you can’t do this to her?”

The way her eyes darkened from emerald to evergreen while she rode my cock yesterday flashes through my head, making it throb in my jeans. My body has a very different idea of what I’d like to be doing with Lyla right now instead of being down here making this call, but with the meeting in only a few days, there isn’t any time to be distracted by some primal need to take that woman ten ways from Sunday.

I squeeze my eyes closed. “I can’t expose her to what’s going to happen at that board meeting with Uncle Marty. You know what he’s capable of…what he might do. And I just can’t do that to her.”

Ronald is silent for a moment, considering what I said. “Holy shit, youlikeher, don’t you?”

I drop my forehead against the steering wheel, wishing I could say no, wishing I could go back to yesterday and throw her back into that truck without ever saying a word, without giving in so selfishly and ensuring Lyla is going to end up hurt.

“She’s sweet and innocent, and she doesn’t deserve any of this. Uncle Marty could really hurt her, in so many ways, and you know it.”

“Not if what I’m planning works. I have everything prepared to take to the FBI before the board meeting. You come in, expose him, claim your rightful place, and by the time he’s done ranting and objecting, the Feds should be on the premises to arrest him—before he can do any damage.”

“Should be.”

Those words stick in my head because others have tried to bring him down…and failed or were paid to disappear. Nothing is assured in this—except that he poses a very real danger to anyone connected to me. Mainly Lyla.

I lift my head from the wheel, staring down Main Street at Jensen’s, the bakery Lyla disappeared into yesterday, and the bench where she sat and made the phone calls that started our argument.

Everything looks so peaceful and quiet at this time of the morning. It could lull someone into a false sense of security, but I learned long ago to expect the worst because things aren’t always what they seem.

Which is why that nagging feeling that something is going to go wrong won’t go away.

“But even if he’s taken into custody, he has connections. He has the kind of power that could hurt me and Lyla, even from a distance, even from behind bars, and you know he could do iteasily.”

A tidal wave of memories washes over me.

Each bite of pain brand new.

Stinging my skin.

Tearing me open.

Breaking me.

The thought of anything happening to her because of me makes my chest tighten until I can barely breathe. I suck in a sharp breath, pushing away the nightmares that live rent-free in my head and trying to focus on what needs to happen.

“I have to let her go, Ronald.” The words burn like acid on my tongue. “Annul the marriage—”

“You can’t do that, Silas.”

“I can. I’d be giving up something I never wanted in the first place, something I probably would turn over to someone else in a couple of years once everything settles, anyway. We can still take down Uncle Marty without me complying with the trust, can’t we?”

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