Page 43 of Hendrix

And Jamie was good at that.

“You okay?” Breaker asked gently.

My gaze slid from the door to him, and I smiled ruefully. “I will be.”

“Yeah.” He grinned and shot me a conspiratorial wink. “Reckon you will.” He jerked his thumb in the same direction Hendrix had walked. “I’ll wait outside while you get dressed.”

I nodded my thanks, watching as he walked to my closet, grabbed my small case, and slipped silently from the room.

The instant he disappeared, I let out a quiet sob and blew out a hard breath. “Keep it together, Anna,” I whispered to myself. “Just for a few hours longer.” Tears filled my eyes, and I sucked in air through my nose, trying to calm myself down.

I hadn’t felt this way in so long, even though the last few days had been emotionally tough. Of course I was feeling tearful. It wasn’t every day you discovered your husband had lied through his teeth to you for years about his job and then got violent when you asked him for a divorce. Plus, pregnancy hormones were kicking my ass, and I was worried sick about my baby.

Things hadn’t been working between me and my husband for a while. I’d just gotten to the point where I’d resigned myself to the fact my marriage was over, but then I got pregnant and felt I owed it to the baby to at least try to make it work.

My husband was often stressed and frustrated, and I knew to give him a wide berth, but I never dreamed he’d put his hands on me.

I called Tristan and asked him to speak to our friends about helping to get home, but I assumed a few Speed Demons would come, knock on the door, and strong-arm Antoni into letting me leave. What I never expected was for my ex-lover to stalk into my bedroom all commando-like, looking like a hot, long-haired, sexy man bun-esque, heavily tattooed James Bond, and break me out in the dead of night.

Would I have loved to see Hendrix when I was living my best life so he regretted the day he left me?

Yes.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers. I wasn’t in a position to send Hendrix on his way. I had to suck it up, put my pride to one side, and take the help he offered, if only to get my baby safe. And if that meant looking like a sad loser in front of my ex, then I’d just have to deal with it because I couldn’t stay here for another minute.

I wanted my life back the way it used to be before I got my heart ripped out. No more men, no more love. I’d learned my lesson the hard way too many times. All I needed was myself and my baby. I’d be content with a quiet life full of friends and my own little family.

Hendrix had been blowing hot and cold since the day I met him. Some things never changed because even just then, when he’d walked in, he was sweet to me, but the second the man saw my baby bump, he turned.

Drix used to do this to me all the time. My head spun with it most days, and it screwed me up for a while because I grew so desensitized to it that it eventually became the norm when really there was nothing normal about it, especially when all I wanted was a healthy, loving relationship.

Hell to the fucking no.

That was not the way this was gonna go.

Jamie was pissed I was pregnant because he probably thought if I was single, it would leave the path clear for him to toy with me again. Except things wouldn’t be so simple if I had a baby. He could hardly roll into town on a whim to visit his booty call when I had a child to care for.

For most of our rollercoaster ride, Hendrix had treated me like a second thought. I gave him so many chances to sort his head out but he threw everything back in my face. Thank God I came to my senses and stopped putting up with his bullshit.

My jaw hardened, and I tilted my chin up with a renewed sense of determination as I reached for the pile of clothes I’d laid out on the bed.

The sooner I got out of here and returned to my old life, the sooner I could put all these asshole men with their mommy issues behind me.

Hendrix

Iceman tookone look at the set of my jaw and folded his beefy arms across his rock-hard chest while he watched me descend the stairs. “You need to calm the fuck down, Jimmy.”

Trust him to know, and trust him to understand where my head was at.

“Say again?” I retorted. “You think I can stand down after seeing the state of her fucking neck?”

“I get ya, brother, but let’s not get it twisted. It’s not just her neck making you pissed; it’s also her belly.”

My gut stabbed painfully.

I could always trust Ice to cut to the chase. It was why he was my friend, although at that moment I could’ve punched his fat mouth. Anything to stop him from flapping his gums.

“You got what you asked for, brother,” he went on. “This is what you wanted. You can’t blame her for living her life. She tried to help get you there and probably for longer than she should’ve, but you still ran like the goddamned wind.”

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