Chapter 325 - 0325: That Goddamn Bastard

Chapter 325: Chapter 0325: That Goddamn Bastard

Graham’s Point Of View

My right hand gripped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles had turned bone-white, the leather casing creaking in protest under pressure that could have crushed stone. My chest felt like an active volcanic site... hot, pressurized, sulfurous gas rising into my throat until I could barely draw a clean breath through my nose.

Each inhale burned. Each exhale shuddered. The car’s engine continued its smooth, expensive, rhythmic hum, but inside my skull, everything had dissolved into chaotic static.

I shoved the car door open by two inches, my foot sliding toward the gravel shoulder, muscles coiling like springs. I was going to cross that manicured grass. I was going to tear his hands off her. I was going to look my wife in the eyes, grab her arm, and drag her out of this disgusting, sunlit nightmare. The plan crystallized in my mind with perfect, violent clarity.

But before my heel could plant firmly on the asphalt, Jaxx moved.

His large, tan arm slid around the damp white towel at her waist, his long fingers digging into her hip with an aggressive, casual familiarity that made the blood roar in my ears. The intimacy of that gesture... so natural, so practiced, sent ice through my veins. He yanked her forward. Not gently. Not with any pretense of restraint. He pulled her flush against his massive, unbuttoned frame, her bare, damp shoulder colliding with his chest.

He looked down at her, his eyes dark slits, that wicked, proprietary smirk carving deep lines into his jaw. The expression on his face spoke of ownership, of history, of things I didn’t want to acknowledge. "What?" his gravelly voice floated across the lawn, dripping with agonizingly smug sweetness. "Miss me already, Bambina?"

My entire body went rigid. My foot froze on the edge of the door sill, suspended in a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity.

Bambina.

The word hit my brain like a physical brick. My eyes widened until the corners burned, until tears threatened at the edges.

Wait... Bambina?

The name echoed in the empty caverns of my memory, dragging up old, dusty ghosts from ten years ago. High school. The dark corners of the library. The whispered rumors about the rogue Moretti boy sneaking into the back parking lot with someone.

I had heard him use that exact word once... just once through a cracked locker door, his voice low and dangerous as he talked to a girl tucked behind the shadow of the gym stairs. But I had never seen her face. I’d never known her name. I’d never cared enough to find out.

My stomach did a violent, sickening flip. No. No, this is impossible. The denial screamed through my thoughts even as the truth settled like lead in my gut. It couldn’t be her. It couldn’t have been Elena back then. I knew her first. I was the one who was supposed to have her. I was the Sinclair. That made her mine. It had always made her mine. That’s what I’d told myself, what I’d believed with absolute certainty.

But what if I’d been wrong all along?

Across the lawn, Elena let out a soft, exasperated sound and smacked his upper arm with the flat of her hand... a sharp slap that carried clearly through the quiet estate. "Shut up," she said, her voice carrying a playful warmth I hadn’t heard in years. Her cheeks flushed a deep, radiant pink that I hadn’t seen on her face in the past two years.

When had she last looked at me with that kind of color in her cheeks? When had she last smiled at me like that?

"I don’t miss you. You’ve been gone for five minutes and you’re already being a nuisance."

Jaxx’s smirk only deepened, his head tilting down until his lips were brushing the shell of her ear. The gesture was intimate, practiced, comfortable. "Of course. I can see it right on your face, princess. You already miss me to bits, lovey. Just admit it."

"I don’t," she muttered, though she didn’t pull away. She made no move to create distance. Instead, her fingers actually curled into the dark linen of his shirt, tightening with a possessiveness that made my chest ache.

"Admit it," Jaxx growled playfully, his hands sliding lower down her spine, pressing her hips firmly against the wooden doorframe, trapping her towel between their bodies with raw pressure that made my gorge rise. "Admit it right now before I completely forget we are standing out here in the open where the neighbors can see us."

Elena let out a sharp, breathless gasp, her bare shoulders arching slightly into his touch. Her body responded to him with an ease that spoke of familiarity, of countless other moments just like this one. "You stupid, arrogant menace."

"Only for you, princess," he murmured, and the tenderness in those words... the genuine affection beneath the playfulness cut deeper than any insult could have.

And then he kissed her.

It wasn’t a sweet, comforting kiss between old friends. It was explicit. Feral. Passionate. Raw and unfiltered and real. Right there on the porch, under the bright morning sun, Jaxx buried his mouth against hers with a deep, consuming hunger that made my lungs collapse entirely.

His tongue parted her lips instantly, his hand sliding up the bare skin of her back, his fingers tangling into the damp, messy curls at the nape of her neck to tilt her head back. He kissed her like a man who had every right to do so, like a man who had done it a thousand times before.

Elena didn’t fight him. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t even hesitate. With a low whimper... a sound that should have always been mine, that I’d once always drawn from her lips, she broke through the distance and shattered my heart into a million jagged pieces.

Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. She pulled herself up onto her toes, her whole body molding against his, opening up to him completely, responding to the brutal rhythm of his mouth with a desperate, reckless longing of her own.

I couldn’t stand it. The sight pierced me like a physical blade twisting into my liver. My strength evaporated into pure, hollow despair, and I slammed my forehead down onto the cold leather of the steering wheel, eyes squeezed shut as the tears I’d been holding back for two weeks finally spilled over my lashes. The dam had broken at last.

"That bastard," I choked out, the words tasting like copper and bile in my throat. My hands gripped the wheel until my knuckles went white. "That goddamn bastard."

I looked up again, drawn by a sick, masochistic curiosity, hoping... praying, that she had shoved him away. That this was some terrible misunderstanding. But he was still kissing her. His large hands moved over her hips now, holding the towel in place but shaping her body through the fabric, his mouth sliding down to bite gently at her lower lip before returning to deep, wet drafts that looked like they were stealing the soul straight out of her lungs.

Each second felt like an eternity. The most painful part wasn’t even his touch; it was watching her. Watching her fingers dig into his hair with desperate need, watching her chest heave against his, seeing the absolute, unadulterated surrender in the way she clung to him. She had once looked at me like that, clung ot me like her lifeline. Now? She was giving it to this bastard.

Jaxx finally pulled away with a sharp, ragged breath, his forehead resting against hers for three agonizing seconds. The intimacy of that small gesture cut deeper than the kiss itself. "Be good," he whispered, his voice rough and ruined, carrying across the quiet morning air.

He kissed her forehead once, a lingering, protective pressure that spoke of familiarity and possession, then turned and walked down the stone steps toward his sleek, black sports car parked in the driveway.

Elena stayed on the porch, her hand resting against her swollen, reddened lips, watching him with a dazed, confused sort of affection that made my stomach turn. She actually waved at him as he opened his car door... like a lovesick teenager.

Before he climbed in, Jaxx paused, looking back over the roof of the vehicle with a wicked, teasing glint in his dark eyes. A smirk played at the corners of his mouth. "I want to see you in that black outfit I got you when I get back," he called out loudly, his voice carrying enough that I could hear every syllable from my hiding spot. "I’ll relish taking it off later tonight."

Elena’s entire face burst into a furious crimson blush. She grabbed the edge of the door, her fingers twitching as if she didn’t know whether to hide or throw something at him. "Go away, you absolute pervert!" she shrieked, though there was a soft, breathless giggle bubbling under her words... the kind of laugh I hadn’t heard from her in years.

Jaxx let out a rich, booming chuckle that echoed off the white brick walls of the condo, closed the door with a solid thud, and threw the car into reverse. The tires crunched loudly against the gravel as he tore out of the driveway, the exhaust notes roaring through the quiet estate as he drove completely out of sight. Even his departure was confident, theatrical.

Elena stood there in the doorway for another full minute, her eyes fixed on the empty road where his car had vanished, a soft, lingering smile resting on her face. She looked peaceful. Content. Happy in a way I’d never managed to make her.

I watched it all from the shadows of my sedan, my chest feeling completely hollowed out, like an empty grave. The bouquet of blue delphiniums on the passenger seat... her favorite flowers, or at least what used to be her favorite, looked incredibly stupid now. Pathetic, even. The Belgian chocolates felt like a joke. But the initial shock was fast hardening into something cold, stiff, and dangerous. Anger was easier to bear than heartbreak.

"No matter what happens," I whispered into the quiet car, my jaw locking into a tight, straight line as I wiped the moisture from my cheeks with the back of my sleeve, "she is coming back with me. She’s my wife. She belongs to the Sinclair name." The words sounded hollow even to my own ears, but I clung to them like a lifeline.

The moment her white towel disappeared back inside the house and the heavy mahogany door clicked shut, I moved. I grabbed the massive bouquet of flowers in one hand and the wicker basket of chocolates in the other, forcing my trembling fingers to steady.

My legs felt stiff, moving like wooden stilts as I marched across the manicured grass, my leather shoes heavy against the stone steps. Each step required conscious effort, as if I were walking through deep water.

I reached the porch. The air still smelled faintly of his cedarwood cologne and the damp scent of her shower... an intimate combination that made my throat tighten. My heart was pounding a frantic, irregular rhythm against my ribs as I lifted my hand and knocked hard against the wood. Knock. Knock. Knock. The sound echoed louder than I’d intended.

Almost immediately, the lock turned. The door swung open, the cool air from the interior hitting my face like a slap.

"Jaxx, did you change your mi... " Elena started, her voice bright and eager, her hair still wrapped in a smaller towel as she peered out with an expectant smile.

But she stopped dead in her tracks the exact second her eyes hit my face.

The color completely drained from her skin, leaving her looking white as a sheet. Her breath caught in a sharp, audible gasp, her wide eyes darting from my face down to the blue flowers in my hand, then back up, a mixture of pure shock, confusion, and sudden anger washing over her features. For a moment, neither of us moved. The silence stretched between us like a chasm.

"Graham," she whispered, my name barely a breath on her lips. She said it like I was a ghost. Like I was the last person on earth she expected, or wanted to see.

Before I could even open my mouth, before I could explain or plead or demand, her instincts kicked in. She grabbed the edge of the heavy door and slammed it forward, trying to shut it right in my face with surprising force.

But I was faster. I shoved my polished leather shoe into the gap, the wood biting into the leather with a loud, dull crack, and pressed my entire weight against the frame, forcing the door back open by a foot. The flowers crushed slightly against my chest.

"Elena, please," I rasped, my voice thick with two weeks of exhaustion and the raw pain of what I’d just witnessed, "I don’t want to fight." I looked through the opening, my eyes begging her, searching her face for any trace of the woman I’d married. "I just want us to talk."