Roundabout Road (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend Book 2) by Jevenna Willow Read Free Book Online

came full circle to what she’d wanted left behind.
    At least Jake didn’t drink himself to death; as her father
had in a roundabout way. No. He only ripped out her heart with his bare hands,
crushed it under a heavy boat, then kicked the remainder to the curb.
    “How dare me?” he sputtered. “How dare . . . me ?”
His gaze turned equally mutinous. “I dare because I can. I am not signing a
single one of your goddamn annulment papers, Mrs . Giotti. ” He was
sharpening his sword of words between thrusts, slipping in her name just to
make it sting so much more. “And that should be the end of it!”
    “Why?” she pleaded. “You and I weren’t meant for each
other. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck with me for some time to come. You might
find someone else, then you’ll have to come crawling to me . . .”
    The urgent look in his eyes clearly told her Jake
Giotti crawls for no one.
    “Why?” he sputtered. “Hell, Liddy! Because I want to
see you sweat it out, Sweetheart. You do know how to sweat, don’t you? And
meant for each other? Stingers were meant for bees. Politicians for Washington
. . .but you and me? Fuck, Liddy. We weren’t meant for each other. You and I
were an accident waiting for explosion.” He then looked her over, crown to heel,
his brows arching high.
    Liddy had to take a deep breath, heaving a full chest
right in his face.
    “You know what, Jake?” she told him, placing both
hands flat on the diner’s table.
    “No. I don’t know what, so tell me.” He suddenly
smiled over the distance separating them, goading her.
    “I hate you!”
    His smile fell. “That makes two of us, Sweetheart, because
I certainly hate myself, too.”
    Oh, this stupid, stupid man! Wasn’t he aware locking horns with a woman he hadn’t
seen in ten long years was a fool’s move to make?
    “I really, really hate you!” Liddy spat out.
    She could feel her face paling; felt the blood flow
cut off, since most of it had scrambled to her heart as a defensive mechanism.
    They stared at each other for another ten seconds. The
first to pull away was going to be the loser in a war neither of them ever
wanted. Whoever blinked, whoever backed down from the ensuing argument would
not be getting their way. Not this morning.
    Perhaps not at all.
    Yet they both knew this was bound to happen—the moment
they married.
    Liddy wrenched her gaze from his. She couldn’t stand
looking at her soon-to-be ex-husband longer than necessary. Jake was too smug,
too arrogant, too disastrous to her well-being.
    He’d always been too smug, too arrogant, and too
disastrous to her well-being. Why ever did she consciously think things would
change after a few years of absence?
    Mr. Giotti sat back in the booth, accepting his victory;
but he conceded to winning the war. Their sudden sparring looked to be leaving
a very bitter taste within his mouth.
    Liddy knew she’d lost, so she stood and was about to
walk away as the heavy tears fell down her cheeks. She also knew he needed a
good swift kick to the side of his head, her foot itching to do just that.
    “God, I hate you!” she repeated, mumbling the words.
    With any hope, she could make her escape as a clean
getaway before unable to do so; unscathed and slightly intact. At least any
further humiliation added to an already perfectly ruined day couldn’t happen.
    However, his next words stopped her cold. They stopped
her hasty exit, too.
    “Darlin’, you should not be putting thought to hating
God right now. You should be asking for His help, and doing some bloody hard
thinking on bruised knees to how it is you’re going to file for divorce. I
figure it should take a good long time . . . if I choose to drag my feet on the
matter. Or, choose to disappear for ten years without fucking telling anyone of
my whereabouts!” He pounded his fist on the table then glared at her. “By then,
I am quite certain lover boy will have found himself someone else to
cuddle up to—and you, my dear,