Page 35 of Before We Were Us

I won’t give her the reaction she hopes for.

Fifteen minutes later I’m parking in front of Connor’s and moving around with blind rage. Beating on his door, I pace, and when he opens the door and gets one good look at me, he hollers over his shoulder. “Sorry, but we have to call it a night.” A blonde woman appears looking less than happy as she grabs her jacket and storms out, her shoulder colliding with his as she passes.

“Call me,” he says with a smile and she flips him off as I step inside.

“Thought you were having dinner with Brynn? Did she ghost you again?”

“She met Chrissy.” I yank open his fridge and grab two beers, passing one to him. Gone is the humor in his expression and it’s replaced with that oh fuck look. Eyes wide, lips pressed in a tight line, shoulders tense.

“We had dinner, we walked out of the restaurant and there she fucking was. It all happened so fast there was no time to prepare. She introduced herself as my wife, Brynn walked off and when I tried to go after her she slapped me.”

“Damn.” He lifts his beer to his lips.

“I tried calling her, I tried going to her place but her bodyguard refused to let me by and I’m trying my hardest not to drive to my house and drag that fake ass bitch outside and all her fucking shit too. She screws around, she bounces on every dick she can during our marriage and I’m the bad guy. She gets caught and then she wants to hold on to the joke of a marriage. Fuck that!”

Connor lets me vent.

“I’m living in some shithole apartment with one fucking window. I’m the one with lawyer’s fees because I keep trying to get this thing over and she refuses to fucking give up. Why? Because if she does she loses the house, my fucking house and she loses the car I still fucking pay for.”

My throat burns, my chest aches.

“I finally find something good, hell with good, it’s incredible and she fucks that up too.”

I feel like I could kill her if I got my hands on her.

“What in the hell was I thinking when I married that bitch in the first place?”

“She’s hot.” He shrugs and I glare at him. “What, she is, as long as she keeps her mouth shut because once that starts in even her looks can’t save her.”

I down the beer and grab another, making my way to his living room, flopping down on his couch.

“I know I should’ve told her, but I didn’t want Chrissy to ruin another great thing for me. From the moment I said I do, that woman has been taking from me and Brynn was the one thing I wanted to hold on to. She was the one great thing I didn’t want tainted by the bitch that seems to be slowly ruining my life.” I sag back into the cushions.

“Give it a few days, brother.” Connor sits in the recliner opposite me. “Give her time to cool off, and try again.”

“You didn’t see the look in her eyes.” I glance up at him. “She now has me pinned as an adulterer, a cheating asshole and Chrissy is the scorned wife.”

“You moved out of your home, and into a shitty apartment. You called a lawyer two days after you found her screwing a man in your bed and filed for divorce. For almost a year now you’ve been trying to cut ties and she is the one holding onto something that is broken beyond repair.” He makes it sound so simple but from Brynn’s side I can see how I’m the awful one in this scenario. “Give her a couple days, and then you make her listen.”

“And how do you suggest I make Brynnlee Webster do anything she doesn’t want to?”

“We’ll figure it out,” he assures me and I’m not sure I want to know what he is thinking.

I’ve got a mountain to climb, a blond pissed off mountain before I reach my raven beauty. Then even if I somehow clear Taylor I know it’s only a matter of time before both Sebastian and Gerald Webster get wind of what’s taken place.

There is no easy way to get through this.

But for Brynn, I’ll face the fire, because what I feel when I’m with her is like nothing I have ever felt before.

I refuse to let Chrissy take this from me, not without one hell of a fight.

I gather my phone and without thinking I type out a message and hit send. This isn’t over, not by a long shot.

twenty-two

. . .

Brynnlee

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