Page 38 of Bad Boy Husband

JAMESON

The minute I turned into my driveway and the house came into view, I knew I was too late. There were no lights on inside, no warm flicker coming from the kitchen, and no welcoming glow emanating from the front porch like there had been ever since Sadie had moved in.

My muscles had been knotted since Collins had walked into my office, but the knots twisted themselves into more elaborate knots as I parked.

A fear that was both ice cold and flaming hot sat at the base of my chest, but I climbed out and strode into the house, praying that I would at least have the opportunity to state my case.

The weight of the silence inside was heavy and suffocating, the quiet so intense that it was deafening. I dropped my keys into the bowl by the front door, the clatter piercing the absolute silence like a gunshot.

“Sadie?” I called, but there was no answer.

No Winkle or Hooch either.

Eventually, I strode through the dark house to the living room, and that was where I found her. Sitting rigidly on the edge of the couch, she stared straight ahead. The TV was off. There was no phone in her hand.

Hooch sat next to her leg with his back as straight as an arrow.

Winkle was curled up beside her, but his eyes were open and his ears were pricked.

Sadie was still in the clothes she’d worn to the shelter this morning, her hands clasped tightly in her lap like she was holding herself together by the seams.

My chest tightened. “Hey. Are you okay?”

Her eyes lifted to mine as I approached, but they didn’t soften. “Carson called me today.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “Did he?”

She nodded once. “What’s going on between you and Collins, Jameson?”

The air in the room shifted, seeming to grow thicker and sharper. I held her gaze. “Nothing. There is absolutely nothing going on between us and there never has been.”

“Funny.” Sadie tilted her head, studying me like I was a riddle she couldn’t solve. “When I called her earlier, that’s exactly what she said at first, but then she finally broke down and admitted that you two have been seeing each other since we were all in Dallas together that weekend.”

My jaw clenched, my throat threatening to squeeze shut. “That’s a fucking lie.”

“It didn’t sound like one,” she said quietly. “In fact, she seemed pretty broken up about it. She apologized and told me how you promised her you would break it off with me, but that she never would’ve gotten involved with you if she’d known you and I were considering getting married.”

“Of course she did,” I snapped. “I didn’t touch her that weekend and I haven’t touched her since, Sadie.

When would I even have had the time when I’ve been with you every free minute I’ve had?

Besides, you and I lived together in that pool house when I was in Dallas.

Did you ever see her coming in or out? Hear anything in the night? ”

Sadie flinched, just slightly, but it was there. “I didn’t hear anything or see her, but that hardly means she wasn’t there. Our bedrooms were on opposite sides of the house, Jameson.”

“So, you, what? You just believe her?”

“Is it really that unbelievable that you’d fall back into old habits?” she shot back instead of responding. “What Trent said that night, your reputation. Hell, I’ve read the stories in tabloids. I’ve seen pictures of the girls. The drinking.”

“That was years ago,” I said, my tone sharper than I’d intended for it to be. “I’m not that guy anymore, Sadie. We’ve covered this.”

“Then why does it suddenly feel yet again like I have no idea who I’m even marrying?” she asked, her voice cracking around the edges. “I had to hear about all of this from Carson , but you don’t seem particularly surprised. Why is that?”

I stepped forward, but she leaned back instinctively. That stung more than I wanted to admit. “You do know me. Better than anyone. Which is why I’m asking you straight, who do you want to believe? Me, or them?”

She didn’t answer immediately. As she stared back at me, I could even see the war in her eyes, the fear and the flicker of doubt. She hadn’t given me an answer because she was genuinely uncertain about what—and who—to believe.

“The reason I’m not surprised is because she came to my office today,” I explained, my voice quieter now.

Gentler. “She said she had pictures of our “ wild night ” together.” I put that part of the sentence in air quotes and breathed out harshly.

“When I pointed out that we’d never had a wild night together, she told me the truth was irrelevant because those pictures made it look like we did. ”

“Where were they taken?”

“At a bar. Trent asked me to meet him there, but he never showed. Collins did instead. She came onto me, but I turned her down. That was the end of it.”

“What did she want today?” she asked, her voice shaky. “Why did she come to your office?”

“To tell me that if I ended things with you, she’d keep quiet.

I’m not sure why, but she seems to be determined to wreck this.

Us. As for Carson, he’s got to be playing his own game.

I don’t know what angle he’s working, but he’s not doing this for your benefit.

If he called you about this, he’s in on it with her. ”

Sadie blinked fast, like she was trying to hold back tears. “If that’s true, about the bar, you should’ve told me. You would have.”

“No, Sades. Look, truth be told, the whole interaction felt suspicious at the time, but once Trent texted that he wasn’t going to make it, I got out of there and I came home to you.

I forgot all about even running into Collins.

That’s how little she means to me. Less than a minute after she left, I didn’t even remember she’d been there at all. ”

Sadie stared at me for a long moment, silence blooming in the space between us. She shook her head before lowering her face into her hands.

“I don’t know what to believe right now,” she whispered. “Do you think Trent had anything to do with this?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “It sure as hell seems like it, but I haven’t spoken to him since he left the city.

I haven’t seen him since the family dinner.

It’s also not really like him to send other people to do his dirty work.

We already know how he feels about us being together.

It just doesn’t feel like he’d send Collins to flirt with me, get pictures, and then ask Carson to call and tell you about it.

But she wasn’t there by accident, and the only person who knew I would be there was Trent. ”

She looked at me like she wanted to believe me. Hell, maybe she even did, but wanting and being able to were two different things. With my reputation, plus some lies and a few old truths about who I’d been before, I could see why this wasn’t easy for her.

It was exactly what I’d been afraid of earlier. She blinked a few more times, looking so hopeless and profoundly sad that something cracked deep in my chest.

“You know, you’ve never really told me why you want to marry me . I know that you could’ve chosen anyone, Jameson. Anyone. So why me? I don’t have anything to offer you. I’m broke. My own family doesn’t see the use in keeping me around.”

“Why you specifically?” I nodded once, my jaw tight.

“I want to marry you because I love you, Sadie. I know I’ve never said it before, but it’s true.

It’s not about what you can offer me. It’s not about money, or our inheritances, my seat on the board, or even our families’ expectations. With you, it’s because I love you.”

She blinked rapidly, far too many times for it to mean anything good.

Then she started shaking her head. A moment later, a sound came out of her that was almost a laugh, but it was too bitter.

“I don’t know what to think anymore. I keep trying to keep up, trying to trust you, trying to believe we’re in this together, but then something always happens and all I can focus on is that the last time I let myself fall for you, you left. ”

I took a step toward her. “Sadie?—”

“I was in love with you that summer,” she said, her eyes shining with tears in the dark. “Hopelessly. Completely. I was so in love with you and you broke my heart.”

Old, remembered pain tore through me, slicing me up inside because this wasn’t just old pain anymore. It was new pain now too. Current pain, being inflicted because of a mistake I’d made when I was kid.

My chest throbbed. “I know.”

“And now?” She waved a hand between us. “You’re doing it again . You’re breaking my heart again, Jameson.”

God, I couldn’t breathe.

“I didn’t mean to,” I said hoarsely. “Damn it, Sadie, I didn’t touch her. I don’t want her. I haven’t stopped wanting you since the day I first noticed that you were a woman.”

At a loss about how to make her believe me now when I’d broken her trust—and her heart—before, I could only watch as she started moving. I didn’t know how to fix this, but it felt like someone had plunged a spear through my heart when she picked up a bag from beside the couch.

Like she’d already decided what she was going to do long before I’d even gotten home. My eyelids slammed shut.

“I just, I need some time,” she murmured. “Can, uh, can Hooch and Winkle stay here for a bit? I’ll come back for them.”

“Yeah,” I said, even though everything inside me was screaming no . “Of course.”

I couldn’t watch as she left, so I kept my eyes firmly shut when I heard her footsteps retreating.

She walked toward the door and every fiber of my body wanted to follow, but I couldn’t.

A few seconds later, the front door shut with a soft, final click, and I just stood there in my perfect, spotless house that suddenly felt like a mausoleum.

A show home. A place that was cold and hollow, echoing with everything I hadn’t said soon enough. All the regrets of a boy who hadn’t known that the consequences of his mistakes would follow him into his thirties.