blur. That thick haze messing with my mind as I unleashed all of my fear and anger on him.
Ramming him into the far wall across the room.
Punching him once . . . twice.
His head cracking against the wall.
Hunter was fast. I’d forgotten that. But once I started going, he couldn’t stop me. Almost nothing could.
Not even my own horror when the next thing I knew, I had my hands on a woman. Madison was pinned against the wall, and I was holding her so damn tight. Fucking shaking as I kept her arm twisted between us and gripped her jaw.
But all I could think in that moment was this was on her. She’d put everything at risk the moment she’d thrown away our agreement and set foot in my town. And now, she was actively threatening my marriage. “What’d you do, Madison?” I demanded through clenched teeth. “The fuck did—”
A pained breath burst from me when I landed on the floor with Hunter on top of me. Swinging and connecting with my cheek as he seethed, “That’s for fucking my girl.”
No!
Fear and rage exploded from me as he struck again. Yelling more accusations as I used Hunter’s weight to throw him onto the floor—twisting and shoving my foot into his chest. Sending him back a couple feet as I scrambled to my knees and swung as he did the same. Connecting with his nose and feeling the crunch beneath my knuckles. Knowing it wasn’t enough.
It never would be.
That rage and that haze blinding me to everything except the threat in front of me.
“Beau.”
That voice . . . that girl . . . stopped everything.
My name couldn’t have been louder than a breath, but it stripped me. Cooled that fire and filled me with the deepest shame in an instant.
My world, my world, my world.
Oh God.
Fear slipped back into my veins like poison as I stared at the floor I knelt on. Unable to meet her eyes for the first time in my life because I knew—I knew she’d heard.
It was in the way she’d said my name.
In the betrayal I could feel crawling toward me, reaching out and gripping me.
In the shock hanging in the air, making the silence we were surrounded in seem so damn loud.
Silence . . . it was silent.
Shit.
“Where are the kids?” I asked through the knot in my throat.
“What’d you say?” Savannah asked, the cold demand clearly not meant for me.
Still, I repeated, “Savannah, where are the kids?”
Her voice hitched around the words as she ignored my plea. “Hunter, what did you say?”
“Savannah.” Her name wrenched from me as I sat back to finally look at her. The world trembled beneath me seeing the pain she was trying so hard to conceal. “Where are my kids?”
“I am not talking to you,” she shouted, whirling on me. Betrayal and accusation bleeding from her. “You know—you promised. And . . .” Her head moved in rough shakes as she looked away, her eyes darting between the three of us. “Someone tell me what Hunter said and why.”
Piercing silence once again filled the entryway as she waited. As my life with her flashed before my eyes. As I struggled to hold onto it when I knew I couldn’t.
The ice-cold fear gripping my heart told me as much.
Hunter stood, wiping at the blood on his face as he said, “It’s their story.”
Savannah’s eyes met mine again. Anguish churning in their depths and a plea for me to tell her this was all a mistake. That she’d heard wrong.
“Savannah—”
“Madison,” I said in warning, stopping whatever she’d been about to say.
She’d done enough. She’d said more than enough.
Savannah blinked quickly when her eyes glazed over with tears, refusing to let them fall. Her voice soft and cutting straight to my heart when she said, “I know what I think I heard, and I need to be wrong. Do not make me ask you, Beau.”
My lungs ached and begged for air as I watched her.
Studied her.
Took her in like I had every day for most of my life and prayed it wouldn’t be the last.
“I—” I lifted one of my arms, gesturing toward Madison before my hand fell roughly to my chest. To the excruciating pain there.
How do you tell your wife that you betrayed her, even unknowingly? How do you tell the woman you would rip out your heart for that you’ve hurt her in unforgivable ways? How do you destroy her?