It was amazing what Rex’s men had already accomplished.
It seemed almost a dream now. The excitement and hope I’d felt the last time I’d been in this very spot just a couple of days ago, envisioning its completion. The day I would finally be able to turn on the neon open sign I’d ordered. When customers would begin to pile in, eager for a taste of my grandmother’s legacy that would become my own.
It shivered around me, a haunting reminder that these walls still held their secrets. My past an echo that had hit its end and came bounding right back.
I turned toward the old counter, hands fisting around the wooden handle. At least it gave me something to hold on to.
I froze when awareness struck me from behind.
The door slowly creaked open. It was instant, the way the air thickened and the tension pulsed.
It slammed the walls. Amplifying. Lifting. Increasing. Pulling and pulling and pulling.
Gravity.
I swore I could feel his wary footsteps tremor across the floor and climb my legs. That connection streaking free. Though this time in a frenzy.
Slowly, I released the sledgehammer to the ground, turned around. The man had the power to reach right out and pluck the breath from me. My lungs heaved at the sight of him, and I whispered, “Rex.”
“Rynna.” He shifted on his feet, an agitated hand jerking at the longer pieces of his hair. He looked at the floor as if it might hold an answer, his tone low, laden with guilt. “God, Rynna...never in a million years would I have expected what we woke up to this morning. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Lightheadedness spun, and I gulped for air, trying to focus. To see straight. To focus on what was most important. “Where’s Frankie?”
He swallowed when he met my eye. “Took her to my mom’s. Didn’t want her in the middle of this. Not when I don’t have the first clue what the fuck I’m supposed to do.”
“What does she want?” The question broke in desperation.
What do you want?
I wanted to ask it, but I was terrified. Terrified of the answer. Terrified of how this man made me feel. How he’d consumed me entirely. Everything that was mine, his.
My body.
My heart.
My mind.
Mouth trembling, he stared at me, expression distant, the man shaken from his own axis. “Frankie. Me. Fuck, I don’t know.”
A strangled sob sprang from the depths of me, and I clutched my stomach. “And what do you want?”
In a second flat, Rex rushed me. Those big hands were on my face, forcing me to look at him. “I want you. God, Rynna, I want you.”
The relief was almost as fierce as the pain. As fierce as the stark grief that passed through his eyes. Eyes that swam with the deepest guilt. “Need to tell you something, Rynna.”
I blinked at him. Strung up. My world hinging on what he might say.
He squeezed his eyes closed, his expression pinching in regret. “I...”
“What?” I begged.
Shaking his head, he slightly angled it to the side and pulled me closer, as if he were pleading with me to understand. “She’s still my wife, Rynna.”
My heart froze.
Froze in horror. In disbelief.
“What?” I begged again, but this time because I didn’t want the answer he’d given. I wanted him to tell me I’d misunderstood. That he didn’t mean what I’d heard.
