“Mr. Maddox, you have a package delivery for Mrs. Maddox,” Piers, the building concierge and front desk manager said, his tone clipped, professional, just like Gideon paid him to be.
“Packages?”
“Yes, sir, for Mrs. Maddox,” Piers answered.
Kendra. ThecurrentMrs. Maddox.
He mentally laughed at that, no humor in sight.
Isabella hadn’t been wrong; Kendra had failed at the most important task he’d given her, the one that meant the continuation or the termination of their marriage—if he so wished it. And Isabella had also been right in that Kendra hadn’t even read the full prenup before she’d signed it, utterly trusting in the man she was marrying, believing he was a fair, good man, that he would never put anything in a legal document that would hurt her.
“I trust you, Gideon…and I love you, so I can never imagine needing to use the prenup….”
Fuck, the woman had no sense of self-preservation.
You did warn her to read it, she just didn’t. That isn’t your fault.
No, but he could have fucking told her about the clause regarding the producing of an heir within three years.
But he hadn’t, and now he was staring down a mess of his own making.
I should have worked harder at getting her pregnant; no Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday “appointments.”Maybe if he’d put as much effort into impregnating his wife as he did in building and ruling over the Maddox empire, he’d actually have an heir to pass it to when he died.
He was man enough to know his priorities were skewed, and that he’d placed blame on a woman who didn’t know she was performing on a deadline—and had been hamstrung by his demand to only have sex on certain days rather than all the fucking time.
And he still refused to admit to himself why he’d ever done that in the first place.
It wasn’t like the sex was bad—it was out of this world, the absolute best sex he’d ever had in his life. And that might have been the problem; the sex was too good…and it was with a woman he’d never expected.
Sitting up in bed, he kicked off the tangled Egyptian cotton sheets, and stood.
“Send them up,” Gideon commanded Piers before disconnecting the call.
He pulled on cotton trousers, a cotton shirt, and headed toward the front door, leaving it cracked open so Piers could just leave the packages on the foyer table as per usual.
That done, he headed into the kitchen and stopped, his gaze landing on the iPad where it was still sitting, waiting for Kendra to go back to the chicken recipe she was making for dinner.
How long ago had that been? No more than a few days, right? So why did it feel like lifetimes had passed? Why did it feel like the very air in the kitchen had gone stale, devoid of life, hollow from abandonment.
Kendra had left before she could finish making dinner, before he could take a fucking breath and think without the noise of Isabella and Adolfo in his head. She’d gone without a second glance, without a goodbye, without a way for him to reach out to her.
To reachher.
To see if she was okay, if she was safe, if she was ever coming back.
Why does that matter? She had three years to get pregnant, and she couldn’t even do that, right?
The cold, petrified organ in his chest shuddered, making his breath catch.
No, Kendra wasn’t totally to blame, but…the thought of her never coming back, never filling his home with warmth and life again….
You don’t need those things, you only need your empire and your brothers—if it doesn’t serve you, cut it out.
The beast inside him snarled, a wordless admonition.
It didn’t like that he could be so willing to cut off one of his limbs…because Kendra—fuck—she was so much a part of him, signing the divorce papers would feel like reaching into his own belly and pulling out his own guts.
“… she never should have been your wife in the first place…. What the hell did you ever see in the fat, ugly, barren, nobody?”
