Page 120 of Sweet Wicked Vows

“And why do all this?” I snapped. “Because of an outdated grudge. Now you look me in the eye and tell me that a ‘I’m sorry’is really going to cut it.”

Olivier said nothing as he slid the bourbon back to me.

I left it untouched.

I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I spent most of my life protecting Olivier from the darkest sides of me. Frederic relished bringing that side out, but my youngest brother had the naturalability to soften my sharp edges.

“You fucked up,” he finally spoke. “Big time. Like explosively big.”

I rolled my eyes.

“That doesn’t mean you give up,” Olivier stated. “I’ve spent my whole life looking up to you, Jax. You stepped into the dad-role for me when you were still a kid yourself. You made sure I never wanted for anything. You looked after me and I will always be grateful for that. But I’ve watched you glide through your life, not unhappy but not happy either.”

“Your point?”

“Evelyn woke you up. She brought color, life, and happiness into your world, and because of that, I am not going to let you sit here and drink your liver into oblivion.” He knocked the bourbon back and winced. “That’s nasty. How do you drink that?”

I rubbed my hands over my face—fuck, I needed a shave.

“Anyway,” he pushed on. “If you truly love her, which I know you do, and you really want to be with her? Then you fight for it.”

“You say it like it’s easy.”

Olivier grinned. “Never said it was going to be easy,mon frère.It’s going to be one hell of a fight, but she’s worth it. Fight for her. Fight for yourself. Fight until you win or go down swinging.”

Chapter ThirtyEight

A sane person would have closed the door in his face.

Honestly, I thought I was stuck in a fever dream when I opened Lola’s front door and found a broken Jaxon on the other side.

He was completely disheveled and holding a piece of paper.

“You served me divorce papers.”

It wasn’t a question as he fisted the paper tighter, crumpling it in his grip. To say I was surprised was an understatement. When I spoke to my lawyer about starting the process of getting divorced, I didn’t anticipate how quickly they would move.

I didn’t even know where Jaxon was living since we separated. The fact my lawyer was able to hunt him down and get the papers to him without me knowing proved I hired the best, despite the wave of nausea rippling through me at the sight of them in his hand.

“I told you I wanted a divorce.” I crossed my arms. “I saw little need to draw out the inevitable any longer. Also, how did you know where to find me?”

“Your friend Violet. I paid her gallery a visit and she mentioned you were staying with a friend,” he said matter-of-factly. “She didn’t say who, but it didn’t take too many guesses to figure out what friend.”

Safe to say, I was going to strangle Violet.

“Why were you at the gallery?” I tried not to make contact withthose autumn stormy eyes. Not trusting myself to get lost within them. “You don’t like art.”

His jaw twitched. “It wasn’t the art on the walls that brought me there. I was hoping to see the only true masterpiece worth seeing. You.”

Just like that, my lungs ceased to function. My traitorous heart somersaulted and ached for the man it once and still, stupidly, beat for.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I said. “We both knew this day was coming, one way or another. It was always on the cards for us. We both said so at the beginning.”

“That was then. A lot of things have changed in the last year.”

I sighed. “Just sign the papers and then we can be done.”

“Is that what you want?”

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