able to count on him—always there, always ready, always right beside me.
I already missed that stupid smirk and the way he made me feel when he looked at me. I was going to cry because the first thing in my life that’d really felt real had been fake all along. I was going to cry because I knew, and I wasn’t just being dramatic, that there would never be another Jaxon for me again.
The kind of chemistry I’d had with him had been once in a lifetime, and so had the safety and comfort offered by my marriage to Will.
And it was all gone.
Just gone.
As intangible and irreplaceable as a single puff of smoke in the wind.
Both times without even having had the opportunity to say goodbye.
I must’ve done something really terrible in a previous life or something to have deserved this.
Just yesterday, I’d believed it when Big Mac had said the universe had pushed us together. I’d believed that maybe it really had been fate that wanted us to be together, and that maybe that meant it would all work out.
What a crock of shit. I knew better than that. Honestly.
I let myself fall to pieces before reminding myself that I couldn’t sit here like this for days. I had a plane to catch, and it was probably about time for me to start getting ready to catch it. Little by little, I focused on putting the salvageable parts of myself back together and eventually found the strength to get up off the damn floor.
I showered but felt like every one of the warm drops was slicing straight through my being. Not only was every one of those aches in my body now nothing of a painful reminder of what I’d lost and would never have again, but I could still feel him deep inside me with every move I made. Even though he’d known—he had to have already fucking known—that he’d be gone without the courtesy of even a goodbye by the time I felt it.
God. He must be having such a good fucking laugh at my expense right now. I fell for everything he’d laid out for me. Hook. Line. And fucking sinker.
Feeling sick to my stomach after I got out of the shower, I was hunched over while I packed my things in here. If I could avoid it, I didn’t want to revisit any part of this bungalow once I was done in it for the last time.
The shower was the last time I wanted to see this fucking bathroom, where just last night he’d confirmed that he had the symbol for following his heart tattooed right over it.
Yeah. Right. What fucking heart?
Where had he followed it to anyway? The next hotel, an attendant on one of his flights, a fucking member of the staff of this very resort? With looks and a personality like his, he could get any woman he wanted and he knew it. Probably just another reason why he decided to dump poor Lindsay without a goddamn word when he was done with me.
Was I that worthless I didn’t even deserve a conversation from either of these men? I didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was seriously stacking up against the accuracy of my beliefs.
As I moved back into the bedroom and dropped my vanity bag on the bed, I swiped my clothes from the shelves with complete disregard for the state they would be packed in, then stopped dead in my tracks when I saw something lying on top of my suitcase.
It was a wooden, carved-out frame that looked like something one could buy in the market here. In it was a photograph of the two of us looking so damn happy I could puke now when I looked at it.
Why? Why would you do this to me? I mentally yelled at him, feeling like a thousand red-hot needles stabbed into my heart as I stared. You sadistic fucking son of a bitch!
Both of us looked so genuinely happy in that picture that I had to just blink at it for a minute. The man was a damn good actor. I had to give him that. To be able to fake that look that well, he deserved a fucking award.
I, of course, wouldn’t be giving him jack shit ever again. On the other hand, he didn’t really deserve anything from me either.
I had half a mind to smash the frame and text him a picture of me hurling