She studied me for a moment, agony bleeding from her. “It’s the one answer you wanted,” she said softly. “Now that you have it, do you wish you didn’t know?”
The muscle in my jaw ticked as I wavered. The absolute last thing I wanted in my mind was the thought of Madison and Beau together. But if I hadn’t known, I would’ve always wondered why. Would’ve always wondered what she was keeping from me.
“I wish you hadn’t fucked my brother.” Before she recovered from the low blow, I nodded past her. “You need to go.”
Her grief filled the air and ripped through my chest, but I turned for the house. Refusing to look back even as my soul continued to reach for her. Cry out for her.
Unable to watch Madison Black leave again.
I couldn’t breathe.
My lungs weren’t working.
It felt like I’d been pulled back to that day when I realized with absolute horror what Beau and I had done. Wanting to fall to the ground and lay my heart out in front of Hunter. Tell him I’d never deserved his.
And somehow, at the same time, I was angry. I was so angry and broken and hurting in ways I couldn’t begin to describe because Hunter was in love with someone else. He’d tried to plan a future with me when his heart was somewhere else.
Their shared, gutted look when Isabel had walked in last week combined with the outright devastation when Hunter realized she was gone was palpable. It was so much more than I had felt for Raf’s betrayal and our ended marriage.
And I was the cause of it.
Wanting to beg for forgiveness while also wanting to scream at him for making me the other woman was the worst kind of combination. It was unsettling and overpowering, and it felt like poison crawling through my veins.
I glanced in the rearview mirror at the sound of a fast-approaching engine as I started pulling through the four-way stop to turn toward my parents’ house. My foot quickly shifting back to the brake as a truck came racing up behind me and barely slowed as it turned in the direction opposite where I was headed.
Toward Blossom.
Hunter’s truck.
“Oh God,” I breathed and hurried to turn my SUV that way. Quickly catching up to him and whispering curses as my stomach twisted and clenched. “Don’t do this, don’t do this. Turn around.”
Guilt and fear burst from me as I followed him onto the bed and breakfast’s long drive. Nearly forgetting to put my car in park as I rushed out after him.
“Hunter, don’t. Please, don’t do this,” I begged as I tried to catch up to his long, furious strides. “Think about what it’ll do to Savannah.”
I tried grabbing his arm, but he shrugged me off as he climbed their porch in one step.
“Hunter, please.”
He pounded his fist on the door and cut a glare at me when I made it to his side and tried pulling him back.
“I can’t let you do this.”
“Last time you made a decision for me, it ended up destroying me,” he said in a low, terrifying tone before he gave up waiting and grabbed the handle of the door. Walking right in with me at his side.
Lips parted to try to stop him when Beau rounded a corner into the entryway.
Shock rippling across him when he saw Hunter there. “The fuck—” Everything about Beau fell and was replaced with dread when he noticed me beside Hunter.
Betrayal and wrath left Hunter on a huff at the silent but blatant admission. “Yeah,” he said through clenched teeth before swinging at Beau.
As always, Hunter moved fast.
Too fast.
Beau’s head snapped back, and then Hunter was on him again. Grabbing his shirt and landing another hit to his jaw before Beau attacked.
Slamming a fist into his stomach and another into his temple before bending and ramming his shoulder against Hunter’s chest. Sending him backward and nearly taking me with them as they crashed into the wall near the door.
“Stop!” I shouted when Beau grabbed Hunter’s shoulders and slammed him into the wall again before unleashing his rage on him.
Hunter was fast. But Beau was too strong. His hits too hard.
“Beau, stop,” I screamed, my heart lurching and my hand reaching out for Hunter when his head snapped back against the wall.
Beau grabbed my forearm and had me pinned to the wall with my arm twisted between us before I’d realized my mistake. “What’d you do, Madison?” he seethed, fear exploding from him as he gripped my jaw and sent ice racing through my veins. “The fuck did—”
I stumbled forward when Beau was tackled to the floor. Watching in horror and denial and screaming for them to stop as Hunter sat back and swung at Beau. “That’s for fucking my girl.”
Another swing as Hunter bit out, “That’s for touching her just now.”
Before he finished speaking, Beau got ahold of Hunter and threw his weight to the side. Slamming Hunter onto the hardwood and shoving his foot into Hunter’s chest before scrambling up and delivering a straight hit to his brother’s nose.
“Beau.”
Everything stopped as fast as it began at her arrival.
Hunter swayed where he was on his knees. His chest heaving as his narrowed eyes shifted from his brother to me.
Beau was in the middle of the entryway. All that rage vanishing from him the way it always had when Savannah had put herself in his path. On his knees and staring at the floor like a man who just lost everything.
I slowly looked at Savannah, my chest heaving at the denial and betrayal and shock on her face.
“Where are the kids?” Beau asked numbly.
“What’d you say?” Savannah asked, her wide stare on Hunter even though he was still watching me.
“Savannah, where are the kids?”
She didn’t even look at Beau when she repeated, “Hunter, what did you say?”
“Savannah,” Beau nearly begged as he sat back on his heels, “where are my kids?”
“I am not talking to you,” she cried out. “You know—you promised. And . . .” Her head shook roughly as she looked from him to me and landed on Hunter. “Someone tell me what Hunter said, and why.”
“It’s their story,” Hunter finally said as he stood, breaking the silence and lifting his shirt to wipe the blood that was dripping down his face.
Savannah’s chin shook as her gaze bounced from me to Beau.
“Savannah—”
“Madison,” Beau ground out, stopping me even though I’d only been about to apologize. For bringing all of this to her house. For what she was about to hear. For what we’d done.
“I know what I think I heard, and I need to be wrong. Do not make me ask you, Beau,” Savannah said, voice soft and wavering with emotion.
Beau looked up at her from where he stayed on his knees, fear and remorse dripping from him. “I—” One of his hands waved at me before falling to his chest.
The tension in the room became thick and unsteady. One word, one breath, and it would explode.
And I couldn’t move.
I was frozen in my pain and grief. Unable to fully focus on what was right in front of me, while also feeling like an outsider looking in. The entire room a train wreck I couldn’t look away from.
“Did you have sex with Madison,” Savannah began, her tone a warning despite the tremor there, “yes or no?”