Love Her or Lose Her (Hot & Hammered #2) - Tessa Bailey Page 0,104

hours had officially passed since Rosie had walked away from him in front of their sold house. The more time slipped by, the less likely it was she could get right with his lie of omission. And the rage he’d been directing at the punching bag for the past hour was aimed at himself. There were no excuses to fuck up so spectacularly this time around—he’d learned the tools to communicate with Rosie and he hadn’t used them.

God, there was no worse fate than this. Losing her twice. The Groundhog Day from hell.

The first time Rosie had left him, he’d been devastated. His wife had left him. His pride as a man had been hurt on top of the loss. The loss of the only woman he’d ever love.

It was different this time. It wasn’t just the loss of his wife, this woman he’d sworn to love and cherish all the days of her life. It wasn’t just losing the woman with whom he shared a past. Those things were true as hell. But he’d also lost Rosie, the girl he’d just fallen in love with all over again. They were old love, committed love, and fresh, insatiable love all rolled into one.

And he was fucking aching for her.

He’d gone so long without sharing with Rosie. Talking to her. Listening to her. How had he survived? The sound of her voice fed his soul. He hungered for her nonstop. When she’d suggested therapy, he’d thought there was nothing in the world that could make him love Rosie any more than he already did. Turned out, he’d been wrong. The line that tied them together had been kinked in the middle, and now that their connection was flowing so free and easy, he was gasping for fucking air, trying to suck every nuance of her down.

When she told stories about her parents, her chin went up with pride. Early memories of Dominic and Rosie made her blush and duck her head. An adorable look of concentration came onto her face when they talked about anything restaurant related.

She’d unknotted his headphones this week. Twice. He’d watched her do it from the open door of their bedroom, holding his breath, loving her more with every pinch and pull of her nimble fingers. She’d given him a neck massage after a rough day on the job site—even started the shower for him. All these little things she’d started to do proved the progress had gone both ways. How had he managed to fuck this up?

Dominic reared back with his right fist and buried it in the punching bag. Again and again. This was the only way he could prevent himself from going to see her. Literally draining himself of enough energy to walk.

He would have continued whaling on the bag indefinitely, but he heard an oof—and found Stephen wincing on the other side.

“I’m fine,” Stephen wheezed. “I should have known better than to walk behind the bag while you were trying to kill it.”

“Time to hit the showers,” said another voice. Travis. “We need you at the job site.”

Dominic’s right eye started to throb. “Said I wasn’t coming in today.”

“Yeah,” Stephen said, tugging up his jeans and sniffing. “I’m pulling rank. Go clean yourself off and let’s head out.”

Dominic did his best to stare a hole into his boss. Why were these assholes getting in the way of his suffering? The sympathy in their expressions only reminded him of Rosie. Everything did. Breathing reminded him of his wife.

“Come on,” Travis said, stepping into Dominic’s line of vision. “If we don’t get this stonework around the fireplace finished today, we can’t put in the fixtures. And if we can’t install the fixtures, we’re looking at . . .”

Travis elbowed Stephen, prompting him to speak. “A two-week delay. Minimum.”

All of this sounded ridiculous to Dominic, but his head was having a hard time making sense of basic math right now, so what did he know? His sense of responsibility poked him in the gut until he had no choice but to gift both of his friends with a curse and stomp toward the locker room. He couldn’t wait until the next time one of them was having trouble with his woman and felt like shit—he was going to find a parade and make him march in it.

The difference was, their woman trouble would be temporary.

It was very likely that his was permanent.

He couldn’t help resenting them for that. Couldn’t help resenting the shower spray, the towel