The Road to Rose Bend, Naima Simone [jenna bush book club .TXT] 📗

loosed just a little of it. The greedy part of her wanted him to let the leash off. To let go with her. “You go ahead.”

“I don’t mind.” She moved toward him. “Really, we can—”

“I can’t, Sydney.” The words, though quiet, cut through the room—through her—like a scalpel, halting her midstep. “I thought I could...but I can’t do this. Not right now. Not—” His lips clamped shut, and he lifted his arms, scrubbing his hands over his short hair.

“Cole,” she breathed.

You can’t what? Have sex with me tonight? Lie next to me? Can’t do this marriage?

Panic scoured her throat, and every breath felt abraded. No matter how she wanted the answers to those questions, she couldn’t shove them out. Because a smaller part of her didn’t want to hear them. Didn’t want the pain the answers would inflict.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped. “I’m so sorry. I need—” He glanced over his shoulder at the front door. Reminding her of a trapped animal desperately seeking escape.

“Go.”

His head whipped back around, and she almost softened at the obvious torment that darkened his gaze, drew his skin taut over sharp cheekbones, carved lines on either side of his flattened mouth. Almost. Because the pain tearing through her demanded she clutch the remaining shreds of her pride.

Rejected on her wedding night. Jesus.

“Sydney, I—”

“Don’t say it again,” she ordered. “Just go.”

He hesitated, and for a moment, she thought he would come to her, hold her. Tell her he had no intention of walking out that door. And fool that she was, she would allow him to.

But he didn’t approach her.

He wheeled around, jerked open the door and disappeared through it.

She still stood in the same spot moments later when his engine rumbled to life and headlights swept across the living room.

Only when she’d convinced herself that he wasn’t returning did she unglue her feet and move toward the bedroom.

Alone.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

COLE DELIVERED ONE last brutal blow to the punching bag. When it swung back in his direction, he caught it between his wrapped hands, leaning his sweaty forehead against the leather. Harsh air burst from his lungs, and his bare chest rose and fell on the labored breaths.

Tired.

He was so damn tired.

Sleep had been like a game of finding fucking Waldo. Elusive and with so many other thoughts crowding into his head he couldn’t locate it.

Pushing away from the bag, he strode on heavy legs to the weight bench and lowered to it, unwinding the black wrap from his hands. He’d been running, then working out in his garage, since the first hints of dawn. And yet none of the exercise had cleared his mind or eased the restless energy that crackled inside him like a live wire.

But staying inside this garage to punish his body wasn’t an option. At least not a long-term one.

Not when his new wife slept inside his house.

He flattened his hands over the black sweatpants covering his thighs, staring down at the concrete floor. He’d fucked up. No other way he could put it. He’d abandoned Sydney on their first night together as man and wife. Hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t wanted to. But as he stood in his living room, her wearing that beautiful yellow dress, her gorgeous, thick curls framing her lovely face and brushing her bare shoulders, he’d failed in battling back the grief, the guilt that had slowly been strangling him since the reception.

More accurately, since his mother-in-law had asked him about moving Sydney into the home he’d shared with Tonia. The home that stood silent with a fully furnished nursery that had never been used.

Panic had seized him by the throat, locked its jaw and refused to release him. And it’d been either escape or break down right there at Sydney’s feet.

So, he’d left. Even though he’d glimpsed the confusion, the hurt and finally the devastating resignation that entered her gaze. As if someone leaving her, disappointing her, didn’t come as a shock. As if, on some level, she’d expected it.

Maybe she had. But she hadn’t failed him. He’d failed her.

Still didn’t stop him from driving through Rose Bend, blowing past the town limits to the road and mountains beyond, only to return hours later and collapse at his wife’s and son’s graves. There, knees buried in grass, he apologized for marrying another woman. Told Tonia about Sydney and the situation with her ex-husband. Promised he’d love Tonia forever. Her and Mateo.

He hadn’t confessed that he desired Sydney. Desired, hell. He craved her. In the past two years, his dick had only throbbed for her. He couldn’t admit that. Not when guilt spilled through him unchecked, a landslide that buried his heart under its burden. Guilt because while he’d stared at Sydney last night, lust for her seething under the grief and panic, he couldn’t remember Tonia’s scent. Couldn’t recall the exact lilt of her laugh. Couldn’t evoke the timbre of her voice. He was losing all he had left of her, and that felt like the cruelest betrayal of her and their love.

But how could he explain all that to Sydney without sounding like a complete asshole? In the end, his silence had damned him as much as if he’d opened his mouth.

Now, he had to make amends. And if she didn’t want to hear his apology? If she didn’t want anything to do with him? Well, he couldn’t blame her.

Sighing, he rose from the bench and made his way into the silent house, heading directly for the bathroom and a much-needed shower. Thirty minutes later, clean and dressed in a white T-shirt and black jeans, he padded on bare feet to the kitchen. When he’d gone into the bedroom to grab clothes, the bed had been empty and freshly made. Or maybe it hadn’t been slept in at all.

What if she’d left him and returned to her place? Alarm had crackled inside him, sliding toward dread. He’d fucked up last night, but even as he’d driven back home, he’d feared her leaving him. He hadn’t