Page 80 of Sweet Wicked Vows
I hated the sound of her inconsolable tears and knowing that I had no way to fix them.
And most of all, I hated how I wanted to do everything in my power to ensure she never felt that way again.
Shrugging off my jacket, I let it fall to the ground behind me as I strode across the bedroom. Evelyn was, in my eyes, larger than life. Her very presence swelled within me and eclipsed any other thought I ever had. To see her so small, so broken, it wrecked me.
I dropped to my knees beside her and placed a hand on her lower back.
“He’s going to die, Jaxon,” she whimpered.
There was nothing to say. No amount of words would disguise or soften the truth.
“What if I never get the chance to say goodbye? What if I missed my chance to tell him how much I love him?”
“He knows you love him.”
Moving her hands, tears stained her exquisite face. “I just don’t know how I am meant to keep going when he leaves me. I’m not naïve. I know it’s coming, and there’s nothing I can do to stop that. But I try to picture a world without him, and I just can’t.” Her bottom lip trembled. “How do I keep going without him?”
“You’ll find a way. Trust me.”
Water-filled eyes found mine. “How did you do it? How did you go on after your mom passed?”
“When I lost mymaman,the pain was nothing I thought a person could ever endure.” I tried to push the sharpness of the memories back. “Sometimes, the grief comes in such unforgiving waves that it feels like you might drown. But, there will come a day where it hurts less and less. With each new breath you draw, your heart won’t feel so heavy.”
Fresh tears fell.
“Don’t fear embracing the grief, feeling that pain, but only for a while. Otherwise, it will consume you. It has the potential to change you for the worse if you allow it.”Don’t be like me.“You’ll be okay. You have people who care about you and who will help you through it.”
“Not Flynn.” She exhaled unsteadily. “I don’t think he will ever forgive me.”
“He just needs time.” I stroked the length of her back. “Plus, if all else fails, you have me. I’ll be here for you as long as you need me.”
“Promise?”
My throat constricted. “I promise,ma douceur.”
Losingmamantore my family apart. It ripped it at the seams and warped it into something twisted and ugly.
The man lying in front of us was who I believed to be responsible.
Yet, as Evelyn tucked herself tighter around me, her tear-soaked cheek against my chest, I found it hard to find the hatred I once had for Lexington.
For that small moment, he was nothing more than the father of the woman stealing my heart.
Chapter TwentySix
‘HARASSMENT, LIES, AND DIRTY DIAMONDS.’
Two weeks before Christmas,Capitol Pressreleased another article that threw the entire company into damage control mode—again.
Because life wasn’t shit enough as it was.
My dad was still in a coma, and Flynn hadn’t spoken a single word to me since the day I came home from Kansas.
Any hope we had of salvaging the contract with Marina Kentwood vanished the second the new headline was plastered over every news outlet. Along with Marina, other investors and partners were starting to get cold feet, especially as the latest scandal had full-blown evidence, unlike the rumors of my dad being linked to the mob.
This time, it was in black and white how much Dad paid to silence the several women who came to him with in-work sexual harassment cases.
Twelve women, to be exact.