Page 50 of Savage Promises (Quinlan Empire #2)

Lennox

T he weight of Shane’s footsteps in the hall has me wishing I wasn’t home. The sharp whack on my door makes me jump, but he doesn’t wait for me to answer. He storms inside and the charged air around him sizzles.

My husband looks wrecked and feral. His tie is askew, his hair disheveled, and his eyes... God, his eyes. They’re wild, blazing with anger, pain, and something else I can’t name.

In his hand, he’s holding what looks like legal papers.

“Shane,” I whisper, my heart stopping. “What’s wrong? It’s late and—”

“I cheated on you.”

The words slam into me like a freight train. My chest tightens, and for a moment, I can’t breathe.

No. No, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

God, how could I have been so wrong about him?

But the cold, detached, furious look on his face tells me otherwise.

“You...what?” My voice breaks.

“I cheated on you,” he repeats, slower this time, like he wants to hammer the words into my skull. He tosses the papers on the bed between us. “I want a divorce.”

My knees buckle, and I stare down at the papers. A check for twenty million dollars is clipped to the top. My name stares back at me in bold letters, legal and final.

Lennox Donnelly.

“Shane, please—”

“No,” he snaps, his voice sharp and unyielding. “It’s too late, Lennox. I tried. God knows I tried to give you everything. But you wouldn’t let me in. You kept those walls around your heart so high, so thick, I couldn’t climb them. I’m done.”

Tears blur my vision, but I force myself to look at him. “I didn’t mean—”

“You don’t think you deserve better,” he cuts me off again. “You’ve got this pathetic, twisted idea that you’re not worth it. That you don’t deserve happiness. And guess what? You’re right. Not because you’re not good enough, but because you refuse to accept it. That’s not who I want.”

The words cut me like daggers, each one sharper than the last.

“I know what happiness looks like,” he continues, his voice dropping.

“I’ve seen it. My parents. Ewan. Griffin.

Trace. They know what love is. They’ve got it.

But you?” He shakes his head, his jaw tight.

“You don’t. You don’t even want to try. And I’m not wasting my life waiting for you to figure it out. ”

I’m sobbing now, tears streaming down my face. I don’t wipe them away. I don’t even try to defend myself. What’s the point? He’s made up his mind.

“Sign the papers.” He jabs a finger at them on the bed. “The prenup terms have been honored. You keep everything you had before, plus you get to keep Luxe.”

My hands shake as I pick up this travesty and bring it to my dresser. My chest aches, like my heart is being crushed with a tight fist in the shadow of his hideous confession.

It’s all my fault. I approved Garrett’s stupid plan. Now it’s a snowball rolling down the hill, growing in size, creating an avalanche, one mistake piling upon another. We’ll both be crushed by its weight and torn to shreds by the sharp icy edges.

It’s done.

With trembling fingers, I scrawl my name on the dotted line, sealing the end of my marriage with one final stroke.

Shane watches, his face unreadable. When I drop the pen, he snatches the papers.

“I’m going to Waterford for two weeks,” he says, his tone colder than I’ve ever heard. “Hawk can stay, but you have to leave. I don’t want to see you here when I get back.”

His voice isn’t harsh, he sounds heartbroken , choked up. He can’t even face me. Or look at me.

Stunned, I whimper, “Shane, wait I—”

But he storms out of my bedroom, slamming the door behind him, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the silence.

The weight of it all crashes down on me.

My father’s failures, Garrett’s schemes, and my inability to see that I’m worthy of Shane.

I crumple to the floor where I stay for what feels like hours as fresh sobs break free over and over again.

Hawk jumps into my lap and curls up, his warm body pressing against mine.

He meows a sharp, angry sound, like he knows I should have fought harder.

But how could I? Shane was right. I’ve been holding back, too afraid to let myself believe in him, in us. And now it’s too late.

By sunrise, the tears have stopped, leaving behind an empty, hollow ache in my chest. Shane had it right all along.

A Quinlan can’t be with a Donnelly.

We tried, and we failed.

I stagger downstairs after I hear the front door slam. Duly signed divorce papers sit on the kitchen island, the ink of his signature still drying.

Just like that, it’s over.

Shane is gone. I have nothing left but my club and the shattered pieces of a life I wasn’t strong enough to hold on to.