Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
“But I—”
I cut him off. “Don’t.”
“But—”
“No,” I said. “Listen. Let me live my life in peace. I’m happy. Go be happy or don’t be happy. It’s none of my business anymore. I don’t care. Leave. Me. Alone.”
Kaden Jones, Country Music Star of the Year twice in a row a decade ago, frowned in a way that reminded me of a little boy as his features formed into a stunned expression. “What?”
How could he manage to still act surprised? What did he expect? Just when I didn’t think anything could shock me anymore, it happened.
Today had been a pretty good day after a string of pretty shitty ones, and I wasn’t going to let it go to hell.
“You heard me, Kaden. Go home. Go back on tour. Go do whatever it was you were doing before you came here. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t care to see you. There’s nothing you can say or do that will get me to change my mind. I meant it, all of you need to leave me alone. I’ll take you, your mom, and everyone you know to court if you don’t let me live my life in peace.”
It was like he remembered his bodyguard was watching, or maybe he cared that Rhodes was seeing this happen, but Kaden’s pale face flushed in anger and embarrassment. He took a step closer, gaze wide, looking damn near desperate for the first time ever. “Roro, you can’t mean that. I’ve been trying to reach you for months.”
For months. It had been months since he had last messaged me. Months since they found out where I was, and he was just barely getting around to coming to see me? Didn’t that just say more than any of his words ever could?
Rhodes’s hand rubbed at my upper arm, and I glanced up to see him looking at me with an extremely blank face.
“I’ve been trying and trying.” Kaden kept talking as Rhodes’s mouth twisted down at me a little. “I fucked up. I know I did. It’s the biggest mistake of my life. Biggest mistake of anybody’s life.”
One corner of Rhodes’s mouth went up just a little.
Hadn’t those been his exact words?
“I miss you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you,” Kaden pleaded, genuinely sounding heartfelt.
But his words were going in one of my ears and out the other, especially when Rhodes was looking at me the way he was looking at me.
“Please. Please, talk to me. You can’t throw away fourteen years. You can’t. I’ll forgive you. None of this has to matter. We can put it all behind us and forget about it. I can forget you being with somebody else.”
Only then did Rhodes’s little smile disappear at the same time his head lifted and his gaze landed on my ex.
Rhodes was in his old Levi’s, this crazy cute zip-up wool sweater that Amos’s aunt had given him for Christmas that was maroon, and dark gray boots. He hadn’t even bothered with a jacket, but there was one in the car. And he was the best-looking man I’d ever seen as he reared up to his full height, holding on to me just as tight as ever, and said in that voice of his, “She’s going to be forgetting someone, and it’s not going to be me.”
The flush on Kaden’s face went even deeper, and to give him credit, he looked pretty determined. “Do you know how long we were together?”
This shallow chuckle bubbled out of Rhodes’s chest, and the hand he had been rubbing over my upper arm halted as he turned his arm to let his wrist dangle over my shoulder. But I knew that expression, and there was nothing casual about it. “Does it matter?” he asked, stone-cold and serious. “Because, to my thinking, it already doesn’t. You’re the past. And I’ve got no problem with making sure you end up being some guy that broke her heart before I took over and put hers in mine for safekeeping.”
For someone who wasn’t used to being so loving, he really did say the sweetest things. And if I had ever doubted that I loved him, which I hadn’t, I knew then that I’d chosen right. Chosen best. There were going to be no mistakes here.
Not ever.
By the time I focused back on him, Rhodes’s facial features had morphed even more into one of his most serious expressions. “I love her. And I will gladly give her all the things you were too stupid not to give her. You wouldn’t even hold her hand in public, right? Or kiss her?” he basically taunted him. “I’m fine not being the first man she’s ever loved because I know I’m going to be the last.”