Page 3 of Second Chance Husband

No one whispered about him. No, because he was the golden child, and I was the whore. Which was funny considering I hadn’t cheated.

Perhaps I hadn’t loved him like I should, but how were you supposed to love when you had already had your heart shattered once before?

I stood up from the table and turned, my stilettos making sharp and echoing sounds down the marble hallway as I left the chambers of the high-end lawyers.

The divorce had cost far too much, but not in just money. My pride had taken a beating. And soon I would have to tell my best friends and coworkers I had failed. Because Devney and Addison were both married, happy, and mothers. They had the sweetest little babies, and the best lives.

And I was so freaking jealous it wasn’t even funny.

Only it wasn’t their fault they had married attentive and caring men. Who maybe growled a bit, but not as much as their brother. Because of course Devney and Addison had married brothers. The Cassidy brothers.

Heath and Luca were the cream of the crop, and I had appreciated them and cared about them. After all, they had once been my brothers-in-law. Because I was the one who loved making mistakes.

I had not married merely one man who had tried to break my heart; no, I had married another man who had succeeded at doing so.

August, Heath’s twin, had been my one true love.

I rolled my eyes at my own ruminations, my ankles hurting from my damn heels.

No, not my one true love. You would have to believe in that crap in order for it to happen. So I didn’t believe. Maybe for others, but not for me.

I was not the pretty princess who would find her prince. Nor was I the knight who would slay the dragon. I didn’t have to believe in fairy tales. I just needed to get what was mine.

And that was not a man, not a happy ever after, and not anything to do with what I had once thought I wanted.

So I would make my business the best out there. I would make loads of money and give as much of it away as I possibly could to help other businesses. I would be the ice queen, no princess title for me.

I’d be the one that the other men at the board meetings and golf resorts would whisper about.

That ballbuster who didn’t give a shit about men and maybe even ate them for breakfast.

That shield would be much easier to wear than any crap some silly thing like a divorce could hover over me like a mantel of whispers of what could have beens and my past. I wouldn’t wear the title of Jacob’s former flame and cover myself with the label also-ran as a shroud.

Jacob Barton of the Colorado Bartons would live on in infamy, and dust off this divorce like a silly mistake people would whisper about but never truly talk about. He would marry Lydia and have two point five kids and one day would become the governor of Colorado before a scandal broke out and he would either rise above it with his newly crowned wife at his side, or he would fade away into the distance and still make boatloads of money.

Because that’s what happened to people like Jacob.

My phone buzzed in my purse, and while I looked down at the screen, I still ignored it.

My mother was not a happy camper. In her eyes, my biggest sin hadn’t been marrying far too young and being left nearly at the altar for someone not good in enough in her eyes. No, it was how could I ever walk away from Jacob?

It didn’t matter that Jacob had hit me once. Degraded me. It didn’t matter that he had cheated on me and had never loved me. I couldn’t walk away from that type of notoriety.

Too bad I was never good about pleasing my mother.

The only time I’d ever made my mother happy was when August, a high school chemistry teacher, and a man I thought loved me as much as I loved him, had walked away.

And I hadn’t fought back.

Because in my mother’s eyes why would I lower myself to fight for something that nobody wanted? And the only regret I ever had was that I hadn’t fought. But what was the point? What was the point in pretending I had the strength to fight for someone who didn’t want me?

I shook off those thoughts, ignoring my mother’s call, and got into my Mercedes, pulled the top back, and drove like a bat out of hell toward my home.

The wind blew in my hair, the sun shined bright over the Rocky Mountains, and I laughed.

It was either laugh or cry and I had done enough crying.

Maybe I should call my friends; maybe I should tell them what had happened. But not tonight. Tonight I was going to be anyone else but me.

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