Page 67 of Broken Vows

“I swear to God, Lexie, if you do something…”

His death grip drops from my arms and he steps back. I immediately feel the void, which is so wrong on so many levels. I want to be in his fierce grip. I want to live in his fury. I want him to admit right fucking now the kind of man he is so I can stop dreaming about him.

And then he storms toward me, but I don’t back up. Come get me. I don’t even care anymore. I’m done with his games, and I’m not taking this anymore.

“Fuck!” His jaw flexes and pops. “Tell me what you know about Olivia.”

My heart shouldn’t be hurting right now, but the confirmation that there’s another woman is a punch in the stomach. I thought I was being strong by challenging him, but I’m not. My head swirls with everything that happened tonight, and I’m so close to cracking.

He glares at me with such black, erratic eyes that my mouth turns dry. “Listen to me, Lexie, very fucking carefully. If you do anything about Olivia, I will ruin you. Do you fucking hear me? I will ruin you. Do not mess this up, do not look into her, do not contact her, do not even fucking think about her.”

The words are said with such harsh conviction that tears rush to my eyes. He’s said terrible things before, but this is different. This isn’t sharp or cutting; it’s rusty, jagged, meant to tear something open. My lips tremble. I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek, trying stop it—but a few tears spill out.

“God, I’m so stupid. I thought you’d changed, but you haven’t.” I swipe my eyes with my hands. “You’ve ruined me once before. Back in Boston.” He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t care. He’s worried about Olivia, and not me, and I absolutely hate myself for even caring. “I shouldn’t be surprised you want to ruin me again.”

I storm away, leaving an unconscious Cody in an alley, and a raging Theo on the sidewalk. By the time I hail a cab, and slide into the back seat, I’m bawling.

29 Theo

What the absolute fuck is wrong with me? I storm into my studio, flip on all the lights because she fucking knows I live here anyway, and dig ice out of the freezer.

The second a shattered, crying Lexie stormed off, reality hit, and everything in me broke. What was I thinking threatening to ruin her? Jesus Christ, I wasn’t thinking. About anything. Ever since I saw her nine months ago in that coffee shop, I don’t think, ever. I know why I lashed out. She caught me off-guard with Olivia. I’ve been protecting that woman for years, building this case against my father, and I panicked.

But it’s still not okay.

The second Lexie got in a cab, I jumped into another one to follow her home and called Michael to scrape that stupid prick off the alley and bring him to the ER. Not that I care if he lives or dies. With what he said to Lexie, with how he was trapping her, he can fucking rot. But prison time doesn’t sound fun, and I don’t want to task Michael with covering up a murder.

And then I called Lexie. Over and over, ten, twenty, thirty times. All calls went to voicemail.

I slump onto the couch, glance to see if by some miracle she opened her blinds (she didn’t) and rest the towel-wrapped ice on my knuckles.

And then I call. Again.

She sends me to voicemail. Again.

I flex my hands, confirming full movement, and thank Christ the blood on my fist was his and not mine. By tomorrow, they’re going to be bruised and swollen, but nothing’s broken thankfully. How the hell would I explain that at the clinic? Tell them there’s a reason I’m a doctor and not a carpenter, and I’m never assembling a dresser again? They’d all believe me. No one sees this other side of me, the darkness behind the shiny cloak.

Except now, Lexie.

Fuck.

I’m a doctor, for God’s sake. A doctor. I heal. I don’t hurt.

Do I feel bad for what I did? No. He got exactly what he deserved.

Was it still bad judgment? Yes.

And yet, I soak in the vision of the bloodied, half-conscious prick on the ground, paying for his sins and the vile shit he spewed. When I hit him, it felt good. Really fucking good, and I want to do it again. The intense blinding rage consumed me. In a few months, Lexie will leave my life forever, and I can’t even breathe thinking of that world. She’s been part of my life for so long, stitched and engraved into my soul, and that guy didn’t even fucking care.

But now what? Am I just supposed to walk away? Pretend like it’s done? Pretend like the taste of her mouth was enough, that it was the taste I was chasing all these years, and not her? Because now that I’ve had the taste, I know it’s more.

It’s always been her.

I pace the studio, look out the window, pace some more. Fuck, why did I threaten her like that? My stomach knots, furious and gross, and I try Lexie’s number again.

Voicemail.

I still feel the way her body moved against me. How she grinded against my cock, how I wanted to fuck her in the alley and the only thing that stopped me was knowing I had that guy’s blood dripping from my hands.