Once Upon A Half-Time: A Sports Romance - Sosie Frost Page 0,253

He swallowed a profanity. I wished he’d just curse at me, talk to me.

I wished he’d let me explain.

Maddox was a force of utter destruction to those who challenged him. This time, he aimed that rage at himself. He chugged the half-empty bottle of whiskey from the bathroom counter and threw the bottle once he finished. The glass shattered against the wall. The amber liquid dripped onto the carpet.

“Nolan was going to kill you!” I stood in front of the door, slamming it closed when he tried to get past. “You don’t understand. I had to do it!”

He grunted, his voice rough with whiskey. “You had to frame me for arson?”

“I had no idea they’d convict you. I thought they’d only hold you for a day.”

“For Christ’s sake, Josie. Without your call, they didn’t have enough evidence to hold me for an hour. You caused this fucking disaster!”

“I was at dinner that night with Nolan. He threatened you. He knew how much you meant to me, and he was using you against me.” Every word clawed from my unwilling chest. “Don’t you see? He was the reason I broke up with you a year ago. He made me leave you or he said he’d hurt you. It wasn’t because I stopped loving—”

He sneered, baring his teeth. “Did you think that little of me or that much of him? Why the fuck didn’t you just tell me?”

“Because you would have gone after him. You’d have murdered him first.”

“Damn right.” He swore. “I would have protected you from him.”

“He was serious about it, Maddox.”

The bag dropped at his feet. “So was I! About everything! You told me you loved me. You wanted to marry me.”

“I know.”

“You wanted to start a family!”

“I did!”

Maddox dragged a hand through his hair. “But you didn’t trust me enough to tell me I was in danger? That a fucking scrawny ass momma’s boy talked a little tough to you?”

“It’s Nolan Rhys. He had the means to hurt you then, and he’s still threatening you now. He’s been controlling me and every decision I’ve made for a year. I couldn’t risk him hurting you!”

“All you had to do was tell me the truth.”

“It wasn’t that simple—”

“You put me in jail, Josie!”

“I never thought you’d be put away.”

“Oh, well. I feel much better then.”

“Nolan was going to kill you that night. I couldn’t go to the police and tell them to drag the mayor in for questioning. Even before I knew that Chief Craig was—”

“A bastard looking to lock me in chains?”

I couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t listening. He didn’t understand.

I was losing him.

“Nolan couldn’t touch you if you were in jail.”

Maddox’s laugh was hard, humorless. “No. He couldn’t. But a lot of other people could.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You have no idea what you did to me.” He unzipped his jacket, practically tearing the shirt from his abs. He flashed a scar on his side. “That was from the first week at state. It was an orientation of sorts.” He pointed to the second scar, a white, jagged mark on his pec. “I looked at the wrong guys in the cafeteria and got jumped in the yard.”

“I didn’t—”

He held up his left wrist. “This was broken during a fight in the showers.” His scowl grew, dark and menacing. “You don’t want to know what they planned to do…and you sure as hell don’t want to see how bad I bloodied the bastard who tried it.”

My stomach twisted into knots, and that was fine. I no longer had a heart to take up room inside me. “If I knew that would have happened—”

“You didn’t have to know! What you did is unforgivable. You said you loved me. You said you wanted to be with me. And fuck…you didn’t even come to see me in prison? Didn’t write? Didn’t call? I thought you believed I was guilty—”

“And as long as I stayed away, I could pretend you were guilty. I could do my own investigation unhindered.”

“Bullshit.”

“I wanted to prove Nolan was the arsonist and put him in jail. I was close, Maddox. So close. I know he caused the fire that night—”

“For fuck’s sake, Josie, it wasn’t Nolan!”

I quieted. Maddox looked at me in a way he never had before.

Frustrated. Angry. Like no longer recognized me as the woman he loved.

“Nolan isn’t the arsonist. Your shop was on fire when you got there. He didn’t have time to order anyone to throw a match—much less start an electrical fire—before it burned to the