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I hit the grass and look up, my self-loathing hitting a new high when I see the tears on his face.

I’ve never seen my old chief lose his cool. Art always has his head firmly on his shoulders. He’s the kind of man the younger men at the department in Atlanta looked to as a pillar of strength in times of trouble.

But now, he’s anything but cool and looks so much older than I remember him looking.

Art is sixteen years older than Wendy—they married when she was twenty and Art was thirty-six. Wendy said she hadn’t felt the age difference then, but ten years later—when she was thirty and Art forty-six—things began to change.

She’s a fresh-faced blonde with a turned-up nose and freckles, the sort who never seems to age. As the years passed, she started to look more than sixteen years younger than her husband. Sometimes she’d even get mistaken for his daughter when they were out together.

It got to her.

She started wondering what it would be like to be with someone her own age and then flirting with me not long after.

I wasn’t as close with Art as I was with some of the other guys at my old department, but I respected him.

So, I ignored Wendy’s flirtation…at first.

But as time passed, I couldn’t deny I was drawn to her in a way I’d never been drawn to a woman before. Wendy wasn’t simply beautiful, she was funny and sweet and impulsive and, of course, forbidden.

That played a part in it. I can admit that now. The rush of sneaking around behind Art’s back and plotting how and when we were going to steal time together heightened everything, making it easier to justify what I was doing, to call it love and believe we had no choice but to betray Art.

Wendy and I planned to move to Bliss River together, but the day after my going away party at my old station, while I was packing up a few last-minute things at my apartment, Wendy texted that she’d had a change of heart.

She’d decided to stay with Art and make things work. She said she couldn’t see throwing away almost eleven years of marriage on something she knew wouldn’t last the year.

I’d been devastated, and certain I’d never care about anyone the way I cared about her.

But that was before Maddie taught me what love really feels like.

Before she made me realize what a monumental asshole I was back then.

Before Maddie, I wouldn’t have understood why Art has tears streaming down his face as he delivers his beating. Now, I know. He loves Wendy the way I love Maddie. She’s the most important thing in his life, his reason for getting out of bed in the morning. Wendy is his home, his safe place, and I helped rip that away from him.

I don’t know how he found out about the affair, but I’m ashamed to my core for the part I played in breaking his heart.

I’m also prepared to let him beat me unconscious if that’s what he needs to do to feel even a little bit better.

Fortunately—or unfortunately, I can’t decide whether I’m glad to be rescued or not—Jake and Brandon rush up behind Art as he’s winding up for his next punch, grabbing him by the elbows and pulling him away.

“Settle down!” Jake wraps one thick arm around Art’s chest, holding tight when he tries to lunge for me again. “I understand where you’re coming from, but getting arrested isn’t going to make anything better,” he says, making my gut clench as I realize Art must have already told Jake about the affair.

I struggle off the ground, swiping at the blood dripping into my eye from a cut above my eyebrow. “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice as bruised sounding as my face feels.

“Fuck you,” Art growls with a sniff. He’s clearly trying to pull himself together, but his voice is still shaky. “I can’t believe I ever called you a brother. I can’t believe I was sad to see your sorry ass leave Atlanta.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeat, my chest tightening as I look up, wincing at the disgust on my brother’s face.

He looks like he hates me nearly as much as Art does.

Even Brandon—Brandon, the newbie, who has a pretty bad case of hero worship when it comes to both me and Jake—is looking at me like I’m a cockroach that crawled out from beneath the fridge in the break room.

“I screwed up,” I continue, searching for the right words, though I doubt anything I can say will make this better. “I was a fucking piece of shit, and I hate that I did this to you. If I could go back and undo it I would, I swear I would. I never meant to hurt you. I respected you so much, Art, I swear—”


Tags: Lili Valente Hometown Heat Romance