Page 3 of The Comeback Road (Leaving #2)

Lexie

Luckily for me, Jace seemed to be out of the office, doing legwork and looking at some new residential opportunities around town.

And then he was blocked off for a lunch meeting.

The work he was doing at Magnolia’s house had started to spread around town, and he was getting good traction.

Even without my biased opinion, I had to admit that Jace and Dexter did some amazing work.

The time and attention to detail with which they tackled every job was absolutely mind-blowing, and I quickly found myself proud to be a part of their team.

Even if I didn’t really need a job, even if I was semi- retired, they didn’t need to know that. All they needed to know was that they were doing amazing work, and I was happy to be a part of that.

Speak of the devil. My other phone rang, and I thought about ignoring it. That was the exciting part about being practically retired—I could just ignore it.

The ringing continued, and since Jace was gone for the morning and Dexter was tucked safely away in his office, my curiosity got the better of me once I saw it was Luke.

“Cough twice if you need me to send the jet.”

“Not even a hello for your favorite person?”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. You used to be my favorite person before you decided to throw it all away and retire to some weird coastal town.” Even he couldn’t mask his irritation with me, but we’d worked together for so long that it didn’t bother me one bit.

“Somehow, I think you’ll survive.”

His sigh rang out, but only caused me to laugh.

“I take it that you aren’t calling me to catch up?” I knew the only reason he would be calling was because he needed something. Not that it bothered me. In fact, it made my ego grow just a little .

“You know me so well.” I heard the seriousness he was trying to play off, and instantly, my internal hackles rose.

“What is it?” I hissed out.

“We have a problem…” Before he could continue, I felt a hand lightly touch my shoulder.

But before my senses kicked in, my training did, and it was fully in the driver’s seat.

I reached around and grasped the wrist of whoever was behind me, applying pressure to the distal radius—which, at the right location and with just the right amount of pressure, could break it.

“What the fuck, Lexie?” Jace ground out from behind me. I immediately dropped the wrist in my hand— his wrist —and hung up the phone before swinging around.

“Shoot, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize it was you!” Fuck. I felt bad. Really, I did. My mind had been lost with what Luke was saying, and I reacted before I could assess whether there was actually a threat.

“Clearly. Where’d you learn that move?” He raised his brows at me.

“Overprotective mom, no dad, you get it.” I tried to explain away my behavior and added a giggle for good measure. “Weren’t you supposed to be gone all morning?”

Jace shot me a look like he didn’t exactly buy my story, but was going to let me get away with it. “My meeting went relatively smoothly.”

“Oh, yeah, the mysterious meeting that’s been on the schedule for two weeks that you refused to tell anyone a thing about.

” Usually, Jace added details about who he was seeing, the address, phone number to the Google calendar that held the company’s schedule, but he’d left that one mysteriously blank.

When Dexter asked him about it, he remained tight-lipped, but I couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes stayed glued to me during their exchange.

“Aren’t you going to ask me about it?” he inquired.

I also had to admit that I nagged him about it under the guise that I didn’t want to add something that I’d have to reschedule later, but he wouldn’t budge.

“I think I learned my lesson on that front,” I joked, but quickly realized that Jace seemed to be slowly closing the space between us.

“Ask me about my meeting, Lexie.” He licked his lips, and his eyes dropped to my mouth, which was having trouble forming words with the look he was giving me.

“Uh…I…Uhm…meeting?” Words were proving extremely hard at that exact moment.

“Yes, my meeting. Ask me about it.” He stepped closer, and I was pretty sure there was less than one inch between us. All I could focus on was the fact that his tongue was wetting his lips, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the movement.

“How was your meeting?” I whispered, unable to tear my gaze away from him.

“It was good. They finally found my wife and served her with divorce papers.”

I felt myself exhale. My mind went completely blank. What?

“What?” I finally said after a few seconds too long. My eyes traveled down, and I found his ring finger empty. My mouth dropped open in shock.

“It took longer than I wanted, but he informed me today that she has finally been served.”

“You’re getting divorced.”

“I am.”

I still couldn’t do much but look at him in shock.

“I’m going to kiss you now. You need to tell me if you don’t want this.”

I found myself nodding. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

His mouth descended on mine. I’d expected a sweet slow introduction, but I should have known that Jace would take what he wanted.

It was a hungry kiss, one that was months in the making.

He nipped my bottom lip to gain access, and once I opened, Jace plunged his tongue in and nipped mine with his teeth.

It was an earth-shattering kiss that didn’t even feel like a kiss—it felt like a claiming .

All thoughts of Luke and his phone call were forgotten.