Page 138 of Sweet Surrender

Her voice breaks as she says it and my heart cracks wide open.

There was such conviction in those words that were absent in the ones she told Nathaniel.

No. He’s my everything.

Those words repeat in my head as I walk into Josie’s Java, and despite protests from the barista at the cash register, I head straight to the back.

I may be impatient as fuck, but I wait for Josie to notice me. The brief conversations we’ve had in passing over the past few months were enough for me to know this might not be the easiest of conversations.

She has always had Hendrix’s back, and I doubt this time will be any different.

Josie’s eyes widen when she sees me standing in her kitchen. Her eyebrows lift and her posture stiffens. “Make yourself at home, why don’t you?” Sarcasm drips from her lips.

I don’t have time for small talk. “The bakery has a sign up. It says ‘closed for a few days.’”

“That’s the great part about owning your own business, right? Setting your own hours.”

“Where is she?”

Josie crosses her arms, already on the defensive. “If she wanted you to know, she would have told you.”

My smile is tight, unforgiving. “Josie, I—I screwed up. Plain. Simple. Truth. I fucked up big time, and I’m worried about my wife. I need to find her and make sure she’s okay.”

“She’s fine. She’s okay. She doesn’t want to see you.”

I clench my jaw. “I need to see it for myself.”

She stares at me, expression unreadable. “Why?”

A simple question with the most complicated answer I’ve ever had to give. So much so that the words clog in my throat before I finally force them out.

“Because I love her.” Four words that have never been more accurate. “I love her, and she needs to know that.”

Josie’s expression softens, a quiet sound slipping from her lips.

“Please?” I ask, barely holding myself together.

She exhales. I can see her struggle with betraying her friend. “She went home. To her mom’s.”

“Thank you.” Relief surges through me but then I realize, I have no idea where home is. “Josie, do you know where that might be?”

“I do.” She picks up her phone and scrolls through presumably her contacts to look for it. “And when you get back from groveling for her to take you back, you’re going to repay me the favor.”

“Sure. Anything.” Just give me the fucking address.

“A social media post about the café would be great.”

She holds up the address for Sandra Wright, and I quickly enter the information into my contacts. I look up and meet her eyes. “You got it.”

I don’t waste another second. I head straight to the airport, my phone pressed to my ear the entire way.

Halle is on the other end of the first call. She’s getting the pilot to the band’s jet and whatever it is he has to do to get an immediate departure cleared.

I hang up with her, my head spinning as I listen to that damn voice text from last night again.

And again.

Paul’s threat. His attempt at blackmail. The smug fucker.