Love Her or Lose Her (Hot & Hammered #2) - Tessa Bailey Page 0,6

beside her, panic beginning to creep into his usually stoic expression. For a brief moment in time, they locked eyes and she saw him. The Dominic who’d sworn to love her until the day she died. Sworn it until his voice went hoarse. She saw the man who’d indulged her with a smile when she insisted they match at prom. The man who’d asked her to marry him the day they graduated high school, kneeling on the football field with a modest ring pinched between his fingers, their bright future right there in his eyes.

And then he disappeared in the blink of an eye, a shutter slamming down into place, hiding his every emotion. She knew this man well. Too well.

“Go, then. No one’s stopping you.”

There must have been one tiny stitch holding her heart together, preventing it from breaking entirely. But it frayed and snapped at his words, leaving her reeling, hot moisture pressing behind her eyelids. Blindly, she packed a drawer’s worth of clothes and unplugged her cell-phone charger, grabbing her jar of Curlsmith Curl Conditioning Oil-In-Cream and a nighttime head scarf. Everything went into the suitcase, and she zipped it up with sickening finality.

The cool fall air kissed Rosie’s damp cheeks when she walked into the garage, and she realized she’d never closed the garage door. Made things easier, didn’t it? She tossed her suitcase into the trunk and climbed into the driver’s side, audible gasps escaping her mouth. Oh my God, I’m leaving Dominic. Oh my God, I just ended my marriage.

She’d almost backed out to the end of the driveway when Dominic appeared in the garage, still shirtless and more beautiful than any man had the right to be. Her headlights caused the cross around his neck to glint . . . and she noticed he was clutching the newspaper she’d kept hidden under the mattress. What? He wanted to talk now?

It’s too late.

“Rosie.”

Her heart seized as he shouted her name a second time, striding toward the car. No. No more. She couldn’t take any more. Before she could change her mind, she whipped the car into a K-turn and floored it down the residential street, Dominic’s voice booming through the dust she left behind.

Chapter Three

Dominic caught his reflection in the door of his truck as he slammed it. His face was unshaven, eyes and cheeks sunken in. Lines that hadn’t existed around his mouth before were prominent this morning, even partially hidden by bristling facial hair. All in all, he looked pretty decent, considering his fucking life was over.

He closed his eyes and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the cool metal of his truck, breathing in and out through his nose, trying to quell the incessant nausea. He’d started drinking on Tuesday night after Rosie left and now it was Friday. He’d remembered to send Stephen Castle, his friend and boss, a text before going on the kind of bender that would make a rock star proud.

I’m sick.

That’s all Dominic had had the presence of mind to type to Stephen—and it wasn’t a lie. He was sick. Just not with anything that could be cured.

Dominic heard the crunch of gravel behind him and braced for noise that would surely split his brain down the middle. “Jesus H. Christ,” Stephen said, his voice obnoxiously chipper for eight o’clock in the morning. Or any time of day, for that matter. His work ethic made him a great construction foreman, but Stephen’s smiling face was the last thing Dominic wanted to see right now. Unfortunately, he had a solid work ethic of his own and the guilt of missing two days on the job had him feeling like shit on top of everything else. “You still sick, buddy?” Stephen patted him on the shoulder. “Go home. I don’t need the whole crew catching the plague.”

Stephen turned Dominic by the shoulder, jerking back when he saw his face.

“What the hell did you catch? Malaria?”

“I don’t have time for this,” Dominic said, pressing a row of fingers to the center of his splitting forehead. “Don’t act like you don’t know Rosie is staying with Bethany.”

“I . . . Oh. Shit.” Stephen’s hand dropped away. “No, I didn’t know, man.”

Why did that piss Dominic off even more? Leaving her husband wasn’t a big enough event that this tiny-ass town with a rabid gossip mill didn’t know about it? Swallowing the acid in his mouth, Dominic moved to the back of the truck and hefted out his toolbox, just in