Just the thought made me feel as though I was lacking and not good enough. At least it had at the time but lately I’d come to realize that my husband was just an asshole and not the man I’d married. Or maybe he was exactly the same and just hid it better when we’d met?
“Sweetheart, nobody who is with you should need another woman. You’re more than enough and your husband was not only a fucking idiot but he was a dickhead too.”
It seemed weird to smile but I couldn’t help it when he said that and I could hear the venom mixed with sincerity in his voice.
“Thank you,” I whispered almost shyly.
When he began painting again, I continued.
“The bimbo,” I started and saw Paxton smirk. “She had the audacity to laugh as I ran from the room, my husband screaming at me to stop as he followed.” I had tried to get away quickly but it hadn’t worked. “As I reached the front door, so did Thomas. He grabbed my arm and whirled me around to face him and when I looked at him wrapped in a sheet, I saw red.”
Apparently so did Paxton when I told him, because a low growl bubbled up deep from within him. “The fucker touched you. Did he hurt you, sweetheart?”
I shook my head no when I glanced at my foot and saw the red streak across the top. Then in the middle of a very serious conversation, I erupted in laughter.
“Not too hard huh,” I said, nodding toward my foot.
He looked down and started laughing too. “Hey, that’s not my fault. It was a casualty of hearing the shithead put his hands on you.”
My heart swooned and before I could think otherwise, I yanked my foot from his grasp, almost causing more polish to spill. Then, trying not to touch my wet toes on anything, I carefully leaned over and kissed his cheek before leaning back down and placing my foot in his lap once again.
“Not that I’m complaining, but what was that for?”
“For just being you,” I said with a smile. “Now back to painting so we can clean up your mess on my foot when you’re done. I have a story to finish and it won’t be easy.”
Who would have thought I would laugh at all while relaying the worst time of my life?
But I also never knew Paxton would be in the new life I had to create for myself.
ChapterTen
PAXTON
Capri had barely gotten startedand I was already ready to go ape shit.
If she hadn’t already said her husband was dead, I might have been inclined to find the fucker and beat his ass. I was working to stay calm for her, especially when I was sure there was a whole lot more coming that was going to send me over the edge.
“I managed to yank my arm free and flee the house,” she said when she began talking once more. “I stayed with my parents that night, relaying what had happened and by the light of day I knew that I couldn’t stay with my husband after what he’d done. So the next day when I figured he’d be at work, I went home to gather some things.”
Knowing she had to even step foot back in her home after what she’d found the day before had me wishing I could have been there for her back then. I wondered why her parents hadn’t gone with her but then she answered my question.
“I didn’t tell my parents I was going there because I didn’t want to drag them into it any more than I already had. In and out quickly was what I’d planned but then my curiosity got the better of me.”
I managed to change my position and start on her other foot while she kept talking.
“After gathering what stuff I could with the notion I’d have to get more later, the last thing I’d done was go into Thomas’s office. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I had this feeling that if I couldn't trust him with my heart, then my parents shouldn’t trust him to do their books for their business. Thomas was an accountant. What seemed like an easily boring job to some, I found out while snooping was a lot more to my embezzling husband.”
Shit, I knew things were going to get worse but I wasn’t liking where this was going. Not when I already knew someone broke into Capri’s bakery, her husband was dead, yet didn’t know how, and that she said she would never be safe.
“Paxton, he was stealing from my parents, but they weren’t the only ones.” Her voice was filled with anger at this point. “Worse, he was stealing from others, laundering it through my parents' business too, and then putting the money somewhere else. I found bank accounts in other names on his computer. He thinks I didn’t know how to get into his computer and that I wasn’t as smart as him but he underestimated me. I could have taken care of all my parents' business stuff, I have a degree, but I like baking better.”
God, the woman is amazing, I thought, but then my mind was back on who the hell was her husband stealing from?
“I found information that day that I wished had made me get my parents and flee right then.”
Capri was worked up. Her words were coming out faster and faster like she was trying to race to the finish line and just get it all out so she could be done. I’d finished painting her toes and put all my focus on her. I’d have to go over all of this with Braxton and the crew atNo Surrenderlater too.
“My parents changed all their bank accounts right away when I’d told them what I’d found. We talked that night about calling the cops with the information we had but planned on doing that the next day. That never happened.”
