Healing Max

(Max)

(A month before Aaron and Rylan’s wedding)

Years. Literal years of my life have all boiled down to this moment. A moment in an ugly situation that I never once thought I would be in. The reason I am here is even more impossible for me to wrap my head around.

Leita.

My beautiful wife.

The woman who cheated on me with my best friend while trying to pass yet another man’s baby off as mine. A baby that she knew I wanted more than anything. A baby that I now know was never mine.

My beautiful, cheating wife, Leita.

That bitch is sitting across the table from me with her lawyer beside her. Tears streak her face as she begs me not to go through with the divorce. A divorce that she gave me no choice but to file.

How the fuck did we even get to a place in our lives that this became a necessary step for me to take?

Oh, yeah, that’s right, the bitch cheated on me with multiple men. My best friend was only one of two men that my soon-to-be beautiful ex-wife was fucking behind my back. Turns out Jake, the bastard ex-best friend, was just another notch in her bedpost.

How did she go from the shy and quiet girl I met in college to the dirty whore that is sitting across from me now? Did it all start during that break we took from each other all those years ago? A break that she asked for.

“Max, baby, please don’t do this,” Leita sobs out.

She looks at me with those beautiful chestnut-colored eyes of hers, tears heavy on her lashes. In the past, I would have moved to do anything I could to make her tears stop. Right now, however, I’m feeling nothing but rage.

Her tears don’t move me anymore.

I stand up from my seat and stare at her for a moment before I spin on my heels and walk out of the room. My lawyer, well, my sister’s lawyer, calls after me, but I keep walking until I reach the elevator bank. I have no idea why I even entertained the idea of a face-to-face meeting with Leita.

My mind was made up the day I found her bouncing on my best friend’s dick in our living room on the couch I bought her. There was a brief time when I thought we could reconcile for the sake of our baby. Finding out the baby was never mine shredded that idea along with my heart.

That baby wasn’t even Jake’s.

I was almost willing to forgive her affair with him, but when I learned she had also slept with her boss, that almost became not a chance in hell. Since then, she has been blowing up my phone with sad, sobbing messages. She wasn’t sorry when she was fucking two other men, so she can sit and spin for all I care.

I was almost willing to raise my best friend’s baby, but there was no way I was going to help her raise her boss’s baby. All of that makes me wonder again where the girl I met all those years ago went and how she ended up the way she is today.

Lorelai catches up with me as the elevator doors open. There is a smile on her face, and it makes me want to know what put it there. Yet, at the same time, I am not really interested in anything other than getting the hell out of this building and as far away from Leita as possible.

“That woman is a mess. I gave her the revised divorce decree, the one you had already signed. She was not happy with it at all.”

“With what part?” I ask offhandedly, not really giving a damn.

“All of it. She is very adamant about not going through with this divorce. It is an excellent thing that before you two got married, you had the foresight to have her sign a prenuptial agreement.”

“That was my father’s idea. One that I am glad I listened to. Adultery was a deal breaker, and she gets nothing if that causes the divorce.”

“Your father is a wise man, and that prenup is ironclad.”

I glance over at her, then shake my head. “I want you to do everything you can to get it through her head that I am done with this marriage.”

“Well, we have her on adultery, and in New York law, that is a fault-based reason for divorce. That is also a misdemeanor in New York at this time. However, since you are not fighting for custody...”

She pauses when I snort back a laugh. “Since we have proof that the baby isn’t yours and since we also have Jake’s sworn affidavit about their relationship, there is nothing she can do to disprove her adultery.”

“I caught them in the act.”

“In a court of law, that is not something we can argue about. She can say it was a misunderstanding.”

I turn to face her and just stare at her in shock. “A misunderstanding? Walking into my home and finding my pregnant wife fucking my best friend is a misunderstanding?”

Lorelai pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “Not to me it isn’t, but to Leita it is. In her opinion, this was all a mistake, and talking to her would fix it. She thinks if you just give her a chance to explain and try to bond with the baby, then things will go back to how they were before you caught her with Jake. Her words, not mine.”

I am saved from saying anything further as the elevator doors open. The lobby is bustling with activity, and I step out into the thick of it with my lawyer hot on my heels. When we exit the building, I turn around to face her. I like Lorelai for her smart mouth and the fact that she always seems to know what I want before I do.

“I already rescheduled the meeting for Friday. You will talk to her and get your point across. She won’t stop trying to get you to rekindle your marriage until you tell her in no uncertain terms that you want out and away from her.” Lorelai states before she walks away.

Fucking fantastic.

I know she is right, but I don’t want to talk to my cheating wife. I want her to admit what she did and just sign the damn divorce papers already. She needs to let me go so I can move on with my life.

I growl in frustration as I walk away from the building. Today has been shitty so far, and it isn’t even noon yet. Fuck my life.

When I hop into my truck, I pull my cell phone out of my pocket to check my messages. There are two text messages and a voicemail. The two text messages are easy, and I return them quickly. It is the voicemail that I am hesitant to listen to.

The call log shows that my mother called, and that is likely her in the voicemail.

I have been avoiding her calls for weeks now. She means well, but I don’t need her coddling right now. All I need is to be left alone so that I can process the end of the future I have been working towards for years now.

A future where Leita and I are living together in the house I planned to build for us and raising the family we both dreamed of since college. That future is now in flames, and there is no going back. I am grieving the loss of that dream and the loss of a child I wanted more than anything else.

I don’t want to talk to my mother about it. In fact, I don’t want to talk to anyone in my family about it at all. I have seen the pity in their eyes when they don’t think I am looking. That is not something I can handle right now.

So, instead of calling my mother back, I start my truck and drive back to my hotel. I refuse to stay in our old house. Leita moved out when I had her served with eviction papers. Now it is sitting empty, and I just can’t work up the courage to walk through the door again.

Once I get back to the hotel, I think about my future.

I have been debating on just buying some land in California, a large enough plot that I can build some storage buildings large enough to house and repair our construction equipment. With that idea in mind, I make a mental note to email the real estate agent that Quinn and Aaron use for their commercial properties. If I am going to be living in California permanently, it is time that I build my life back up.

Thanks to my father and that damn prenup, my cheating whore of a soon-to-be ex-wife will get none of my money or assets. The only thing she gets is a one-time payout of half a million dollars. Everything I have built over the years is mine, and there isn’t anything she can do about it.

I make a mental note to thank my father for his unsolicited advice all those years ago.

Fuck.

I need to get out of this hotel room and do something. Anything but sit here and dwell on shit that I can’t change. So, I leave the hotel and head to my favorite bar. I’ll text a few of my old friends once I am there.

All my friends from college are still here in New York. None of them really know what happened between me and Leita, well, except Jake. My lying ex-best friend.

I am not sure who I am angrier with at the moment, Jake the Snake or Leita the Whore. Jake and I have been friends since high school. Long before I ever saw Leita crossing the quad at school on our college campus.

There were red flags with Jake here and there over the years after I met Leita. I should have paid more attention to them instead of dismissing them as silly. Would that have even made a difference?

I doubt it, since Jake was not the only one sleeping with my wife. That little revelation rocked me to my core. My wife was so lonely that she sought comfort in other men. So, instead of talking to me about it, she spread her legs for my best friend and her boss.

That is something that pissed me off to no end. Every time she asked me to take off work to spend time with her, I did. Anytime she asked me for anything, I did my very best to give it to her.

Vacations, jewelry, designer dresses, and shoes.

I gave her everything her black heart desired to the best of my ability, all while running my business. A business that became more successful than I ever thought possible in such a short time. What did I get for my efforts?

Lied to and cheated on by the one person who I thought loved me as much as I loved her. Completely, wholeheartedly, and undeniably with everything I had in me. It made me feel like a failure and worthless.

I was not enough to satisfy my wife.

I was not good enough for her to be faithful.

How do I recover from that? When does the pain of betrayal stop and my ability to breathe again start? Do I even deserve to move on with anyone? What can I even give to anyone else?

At this point?

Nothing but a bank account and an overbearing family who likes to meddle.

As I sit waiting for my friends to arrive, the waitress tries to flirt with me, but I just give her my order and look out the window. Effectively dismissing her. Rude as hell normally, but I am in a foul mood today, and a flirty server is not something I am receptive to.

I sip my water and brood. Being back here in New York isn’t good for my mental health. If Leita doesn’t sign those papers on Friday, I am leaving after the meeting and getting the hell out of this place.

I can’t be here in the same city as those who caused me all this pain. Pain that turned me into someone I barely recognize anymore. I want my life back, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about getting it. Or what it will even look like.

As I am staring out the window, a woman passing by on the opposite side of the road catches my attention. Her flame-red hair causes my throat to go dry and my mind to flash to a forbidden face. A face I haven’t seen in months.

Heart-shaped face. Expressive emerald-green eyes. Full, pouty, kissable lips.

Forbidden fruit.

My sister’s best friend.

Shawna Sullivan.

My forbidden temptress.

The last time I saw her, she was looking at me as if she wanted to tell me something. That was outside Mercy General, where she worked. It was also the day that I told her we had made a mistake by sleeping together and it could never happen again.

How can I be so angry at my wife for cheating when there has always been that one woman with whom I might cheat on her with? That is why I tried to avoid being around Shawna for years. Guilt for thinking about what I have in the past about someone other than my wife.

I loved Leita, but I lusted for Shawna.

Knowing what I know now, I feel like an absolute jackass. While I lusted for her, she had a crush on me. I overheard that little tidbit during Annora and Quinn’s wedding reception.

My sister’s best friend has had a crush on me for years.

That blew my mind. Which led me to eventually drinking way too much and doing something that led to one of the most amazing nights, well more like weekends, of my life. It was also one that I regret happened.

Not that it happened, but the timing of it.

I have always been drawn to Shawna. Every time we were in the same room together, I felt like my body was thrumming with energy. Her sexy, throaty laugh always made my blood sing.

I ignored it and never once crossed any lines with her.

Until I did.

It started with a drunken kiss a few weeks after I moved to California. All that kiss did was make me want more. Her stopping the kiss from becoming more disappointed me.

I was a married man in her eyes, even if I was in the process of a divorce.

Then, after Annie’s wedding, we crossed the line completely.

(Welcome to Max and Shawna's story. My update schedule is every Friday. One chapter only. Yo can join my Facebook group, NorthRoseNovels, for update info and more.)