Page 40 of Redemption

Phoenix lifts her up and carries her, laughing, back to the VIP room. Her man slinks up and kisses her temple. “Do I need to go and check on her?”

“Yeah, baby, you do. I’ll be here when you’re done.”

Chapter 15

Griffin’s Beach

Lex

Lex sits outside her house the morning after Heidi’s bachelorette party. She expected there to be comments, but the way Tess and Goldie attacked her cut deep. Deeper than she thought possible.

Colt has the kids for another few hours, so she just has to find something to pass the time until then. It’s been months since she moved into her own place, and while it’s gotten easier to deal with, her pain without her husband hasn’t lessened much. And it only gets worse when he has the kids.

A familiar blue sedan pulls into her driveway, and she considers locking herself inside. At the end of the day, she knows there’s no hiding from this. Even if she wants to, so she takes a deep breath and braces herself for an attack.

“Hey,” Tess says, her long, dark hair pulled back away from her face to showcase the sharp angles that make her so damn beautiful. God, she wants to hate her.

“Hey.”

The woman walks up to her, stopping at the foot of the porch. “I came to apologize for last night.”

“It’s fine.”

“You’ve gotten so used to saying that, haven’t you?”

Shrugging, she purses her lips. “Saying what I really feel doesn’t do any good, so yeah, kind of.”

“Lex, what happened?”

Like she plans to tell her. “The same thing that happens to all couples.”

“Which is?”

“The club.”

“See, that’s what I don’t understand. You are the club. I fought like hell for you, and you were part of the reason I left Jennings. How he treated you wasn’t the way a man should treat any woman. How can the club get in the way when it’s a part of you?”

Licking her lips, she rests her chin on her hand. “Because it’s not my club. Not anymore. The club became more important than me, but worse, it became more important than our kids. I will never let them go through the same childhood I did.”

“Then talk to him, sweetheart.”

“You think I didn’t try?” she asks with a laugh. “That I didn’t do everything I could short of driving out to Black Valley and dragging him back home by his hair? I tried, Tess. I tried every day for a year. And you know what he did?Hestopped trying.Hegave up. It was only a matter of time until I was forced to realize that I was fighting for something that wasn’t mine anymore.”

Her eyes stare at her hard, and she knows she’s trying to read between the lines. “And you didn’t talk to anyone in the club about this? To get them to step in and try and help?”

“Yes, I did. My dad basically told me to fuck off, and Psycho didn’t want to do anything. But would you want someone to force Jennings to come home to you when it was clear he didn’t want to be there? To have someone else manipulate the situation so you have him home, but he’s still not yours anymore? Is that what you’d want?”

“No, but-”

“I fought until I was bloody and bruised. It’s not easy for me. And I don’t think it ever will be, but I wouldn’t have survived staying in the situation I was in. It was killing me. I don’t expect you to understand it, but it’s the truth. I was dying. The person I became was someone I couldn’t even look at in the mirror anymore.”

Moving towards her, Tess sits next to her on the stairs. “Do you really believe he cheated?”

“I was sent a butt naked picture of him along with a sonogram in the lovely care package from hell she sent me. At this point, it’s not really a matter of whether he did or he didn’t. He put himself in the position for me to doubt him. To doubt us. That’s the moment I knew we were broken, and I had to stop trying to put the broken glass together because I was bleeding out. And the worst part is that no one saw it, and if they did, they didn’t care.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t ask. You assumed.”

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