Or the threats he made.
“Do we have an agreement?”
Like I had a choice. I already broke up with Maddox at his request, but Nolan wasn’t satisfied with me sleeping in an empty bed.
Not when he wanted to lie next to me.
“Why?” I whispered. “He’s nothing to you.”
“But he’s everything to you.”
“I won’t let you hurt him.”
“Then all you have to do is sign.” He toasted our deal once more. “Come on, Josie. To our business and our future. Drink up.”
Drinking gave me time to think of a plan, but every gulp dizzied me more.
I couldn’t do this.
“No.” I rose to my feet. My legs didn’t want to hold me upright. “You won’t get my shop. You won’t touch Maddox. And I swear to god, I’ll expose you for threatening him and propositioning me.”
“If you leave here tonight without me, he dies.”
“I’ll protect him.”
“Josie—”
I ignored his shout, stumbling from Jackson’s as I fought the wine’s hold and forced step after step towards my shop. The road blurred and shifted. I fell into Sweet Nibbles’ door. It swung wide open.
Unlocked?
Why?
I smelled the smoke, but my body felt too heavy to move. I crashed through the dining area, tripping over a chair. Then another. I blinked, and I was in the kitchen. Couldn’t remember getting there. I turned, and my toe caught on the stair case. I tripped. Hit my head. Or was I already in pain? How did I get upstairs?
The heat surrounded me. I coughed. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t hear anything over the crackling.
The walls groaned and splintered. The stairs creaked. It wasn’t safe.
But his arms grabbed me, held me, and he promised to help.
The world turned to smoke, and I woke in the hospital. Nothing made sense, and no words stuck in my mind. They told me I survived the fire. The shop was destroyed. Granddad was hurt.
The doctors injected me with something that made it even harder to think over the beeping machines and fretting nurses. The fire was only Nolan’s first retaliation. He wouldn’t stop until he destroyed everything I loved.
Maddox wasn’t safe. How could I protect a man everyone feared?
I needed a plan to separate Maddox from Nolan, to prevent Maddox from murdering Nolan before Nolan killed him.
But what could I do while I was trapped in the hospital?
Present Day
“Maddox, please listen to me!”
He didn’t, and I deserved the betrayed silence.
He packed his clothing and belongings into a duffle bag. The motel emptied of his things, but Chelsea’s still lined the counter. She left in a hurry when he burst through the door and didn’t even give me a second glance.
But I saw her and her badly blackened eye.
Maddox’s jaw flexed tight. He swallowed a profanity. I wished he’d just curse at me, talk to me.
I wished he’d let me explain.
Maddox was a force of utter destruction to those who challenged him. This time, he aimed that rage at himself. He chugged the half-empty bottle of whiskey from the bathroom counter and threw the bottle once he finished. The glass shattered against the wall. The amber liquid dripped onto the carpet.
“Nolan was going to kill you!” I stood in front of the door, slamming it closed when he tried to get past. “You don’t understand. I had to do it!”
He grunted, his voice rough with whiskey. “You had to frame me for arson?”
“I had no idea they’d convict you. I thought they’d only hold you for a day.”
“For Christ’s sake, Josie. Without your call, they didn’t have enough evidence to hold me for an hour. You caused this fucking disaster!”
“I was at dinner that night with Nolan. He threatened you. He knew how much you meant to me, and he was using you against me.” Every word clawed from my unwilling chest. “Don’t you see? He was the reason I broke up with you a year ago. He made me leave you or he said he’d hurt you. It wasn’t because I stopped loving—”
He sneered, baring his teeth. “Did you think that little of me or that much of him? Why the fuck didn’t you just tell me?”
“Because you would have gone after him. You’d have murdered him first.”
“Damn right.” He swore. “I would have protected you from him.”
“He was serious about it, Maddox.”
The bag dropped at his feet. “So was I! About everything! You told me you loved me. You wanted to marry me.”
“I know.”
“You wanted to start a family!”
“I did!”
Maddox dragged a hand through his hair. “But you didn’t trust me enough to tell me I was in danger? That a fucking scrawny ass momma’s boy talked a little tough to you?”