Page 4 of Broken Heart

I couldn’t figure out why I was suddenly unable to sleep.

Obviously, over the course of the two years I’d dated Simon, there were plenty of nights we spent together. But in any given week, we spent more nights apart than we did together, so no longer having him in my life shouldn’t have impacted me the way it had.

The only thing I came up with was that I finally realized I had just myself. I was alone without a best friend or a boyfriend.

But I could be happy with my store. I could find plenty of enjoyment in meeting new customers and helping everyone who walked in to find wonderful books to read and enjoy.

My days could be filled with my work, which had increased a bit for me since everything went down. Maria had been working at the store with me for years along with one other employee, Joan, but after I’d learned of her betrayal, I changed the locks on my door and gave Joan a new key.

With my days being jam-packed with work, I only needed to worry about my spare time, which often came in the evenings. And I already had a plan for that. My nights could be occupied by stories that had happy endings.

Of course, I had a few extra things I would continue to do for fun and for myself, at the same time there were things I’d have to give up as a means of self-preservation. It wasn’t what I’d hoped for, but it was what it was.

And I was going to accept it.

I knew it’d probably take a bit more time to really come to grips with the reality of losing my boyfriend and best friend, as well as accepting that all the dreams I’d had for my future were gone, too.

That was another thing I found myself thinking about when I couldn’t sleep at night. The future I had envisioned for so long was gone.

At this point, I was at a place where I was finally not consumed completely with thoughts of what Simon and Maria had done behind my back, and by some miracle, I was excited about where the next several months would lead in my business.

It was a week and a half into June, and things had started picking up as they typically did at this time of year. Joan and I were doing our best to manage the day-to-day tasks, and I was actively trying to find someone to fill Maria’s position. Even though Joan and I were managing okay—The Next Chapter was a small enough store that one person could handle the usual load—it was certainly a little easier to have that extra set of hands around, especially to cover us in case someone got sick or had an emergency.

Joan had been wonderful. She obviously knew Maria was no longer employed at the store, but she never pried for information I didn’t willingly provide. I had a feeling she figured it out anyway, considering Simon never stopped in anymore, either.

Fortunately, I could confidently say I was the best I’d been in months. And I was settling into this new vision I had for my life moving forward.

But I should have known the chaos wouldn’t simply end for me.

Because it was at that very moment I heard a loud crash at my front door. My eyes flew in that direction to see something zooming through the air. As the glass from the window that made up most of the door shattered and fell to the ground just inside the store, the unidentified object landed with a thud.

In the shop alone, since I was the one scheduled for the opening shift today, I felt my heart pounding. I moved toward the front door to see what exactly had happened, and by the time I’d realized there was what looked to be about a two-foot-long piece of two by four sitting on the floor, a pair of boots came to a stop on the other side of it.

My body tensed as my eyes traveled up from the boots and over the jean-clad thighs to the black T-shirt and finally the face of a man I’d never seen before in my life.

Even if I couldn’t miss just how striking his blue eyes or dark hair were, I was mostly focused on how utterly menacing the man looked.

And I was suddenly terrified that I was about to suffer the same fate as my parents had. Was I about to be the victim of a robbery gone wrong?

The man’s broad chest was heaving, and he looked like he could snap me in two with his bare hands if he so chose.

I took an uncertain step backward, my eyes remaining pinned on the man’s face. His eyes ran the length of me, and something washed over his expression. I didn’t know what it was, and I was too terrified to speak.

I was about to die. This man was going to kill me.

But why would he throw something through the window when the store was open, and he could have just walked through the door? And was he really here to steal books?

I felt like I was losing my mind.

Finally, the man moved, but he did it by bending down to pick up the piece of wood. I watched with my eyes transfixed on every part of him. I noted the way his jeans pulled taut across his thighs as he crouched down. I took in the sight of his toned forearms and large hands. And I couldn’t miss the way his shirt molded around his shoulders and biceps.

My gaze remained pinned on him as he stood and finally said, “I’m sorry about what just happened here.” He held up the wood. “This is mine, and I’ll get your door fixed immediately.”

His voice was unbelievable. It was buttery smooth and firm. Like every word was spoken with intention. Like he was the kind of guy who could take charge of any situation, because he had a voice that would coax anyone to bow to his whim.

If I was a woman who was much more outgoing and confident, I might have told him how sexy I thought his voice was.

But that wasn’t the kind of woman I was, so I kept that little nugget of information to myself. Instead, I asked, “What exactly happened?”

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