Page 66 of The Senator's Secret

JAKE: Dammit, please call me.

JAKE: Don’t do this, Grace.

The kicker was the next message. Guilt poured through me. But how could he accuse me of giving up on us when he never even gave us a chance to begin with?

JAKE: You promised you wouldn’t run.

JAKE: Gus says you’re not at the airport. Damn it, Grace. Don’t do anything stupid.

JAKE: Please, just come back to me. I’ll explain everything.

JAKE: Pick up the phone, Grace.

JAKE: Rick says they have a ping on your phone. Gus is coming for you. I promise I’ll never lie or withhold the truth from you again. Just come back to me.

JAKE: Don’t run.

Shit! I couldn’t wait around to find out how this drama would end, so I did what Jake just told me not to do—I ran. But not before I dropped my brand-new cell phone on the floor of a Walmart bathroom and stomped it beneath my sneaker-clad heel.

Then I walked away, leaving it behind.

I tucked my purchases in the trunk of the rental car and climbed in the driver seat, heading in the complete wrong direction from Jake, from the airport, from just about everything I knew. Instead, I headed south.

Eventually, I stopped to fill up the gas tank and grab some coffee. The idea of food turned my stomach, so I didn’t even try. I reprogrammed the GPS for a small town in East Texas and headed for friends who loved me so much they might as well have been family.

I stole away like a runaway.

“I KNOW YOU’RE AWAKE,” Angie says from the doorway. “You wanna talk about it?”

“No.” My voice is rough. It sounds harsh and unused.

“Well, good,” Angie’s aunt, Mable, says from the doorway, pushing past her. “That means there’s a juicy story behind it.”

“You wanna talk about the sexy senator who’s been calling the house every day?” Angie pushes.

“Also no.” God, please just make it all go away. When my heart stops hurting so badly, I’ll go back to my life and I’ll never let another man make me weak again.

“He’s real hot. Almost as good-looking as the congressman from here. You know the one?” Mable asks like we talk about how hot the man who broke my heart is every day. “The hottie with the one eye. I think he was a Navy SEAL too. Those Navy SEALs are crazy hot. I’d bag one.”

“Dammit, Mable!” Angie yells.

“What?” she asks like she’s not even bothered by her niece yelling at her. “Like you wouldn’t hit that.”

“I’m still here, ladies,” Cody says.

“Well, what in the hell for?” Mable gripes. “We have girl shit to talk about, and by the looks of her, it’s some heavy shit. Heeea-vy. Shit. I’d break out the tequila, but she’s had a box of tampons sitting unopened on the bathroom counter since she got here, so I’m thinking Aunt Flo went south for winter and she’s about as good and knocked up as you are.”

I feel my eyes pop open. No. It can’t be. I can’t be. I can’t be having the baby of the man who betrayed me. Life can’t be that unfair, can it?

“No,” I whisper. I count through the weeks in my head.

“See?” Mable tells Cody. “Heavy. Shit.”

“Maybe we should call the senator back,” he says. “I’m too pretty for prison.”

“That you are,” both women agree, rolling their eyes.

I burst into tears when I realize how far back I’ve counted.