“Is she in there?” I asked, angry that Sadie had turned my staff against me so easily.

Barbara scowled at me and shook her head. “No, sir. She’s gone. I’m finished packing up all her things, although she asked that I not send her the clothes she left behind. She didn’t want the things you had bought her. She had to take some of it because you’ve been her life for the past five years. But she wanted her pictures and some of the things she brought with her. I told her I would ship them to her mother’s. The things she left are still in her closet. I figured you could decide what you wanted done with them.”

My breath stopped and my chest tightened. “She’s gone?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

Barbara nodded. “Yes, sir.” She didn’t elaborate. She nodded again and walked past me as if she couldn’t get away from me fast enough.

I stared at the room, unable to move. She was gone. She’d left. She hadn’t begged me to forgive her or made up excuses and lies. Last night she’d begged me to let her explain, but when I had yelled at her to shut up, she had, and she’d not said another word.

Not wanting to walk into the room I’d shared with Sadie, but knowing I had to face it, I moved toward it, preparing myself for her to be gone. The room felt cold as I entered it. Like any warmth or heat it had once had was gone.

I let my gaze travel over the room. The pictures of us were all gone, as were the pictures Sadie had of Jessica and Sam. The walls felt bare now.

The table on her side of the bed was now bare. Her lip gloss she kept by the bed and the book she had been reading were gone. The photo of the two of us on the night of our engagement party was also missing.

Had she taken that?

I knew opening her closet was going to rip me wide open. Her smell would be there still. Was I ready to face that? No. I wasn’t. I headed to the master bathroom instead. Seeing all her lotions and perfumes and random jewelry no longer scattering the marble counter made the room seem dull and lifeless.

I’d made love to her on the counter so many times. Memories flashed in my head, making the pain so severe I had to bend over to get through it. My knees started to give out and I turned and walked away. I had to get out of there. I could smell her as I passed the closet, and I inhaled deeply.

How was I going to live my life without that smell again? Without hearing her cry out my name and cling to me while I filled her? What I’d had with Sadie wasn’t something a man can forget. Pushing open her closet door, I stood there and let the scent of her engulf me. The purses I had bought her still lined the shelves, along with every pair of designer heels I had ever bought her. The outfits she’d worn to concerts, music awards shows, and to all the events we had attended still hung in the bags they were stored in. The only things missing were the Sadie clothes. The things that made her my Sadie. Her jeans, shorts, and T-shirts. She hadn’t taken the expensive clothing. She’d left all that. Did she even have a purse now? Did she have enough clothes?

Was she going back to her mom? In Sea Breeze? Where would she work? She had a degree in education that she hadn’t used yet because we didn’t have time for her to get tied down to a job. She had gone on tours with me and when I had to travel she went too. Would she teach school now?

She would need money. Fuck!

I turned to look at the drawers that I knew held all her jewelry. Maybe she had taken that. She could sell it and live for years. I stalked over and jerked open the top drawer to see it completely full. I knew without looking that the others would be just as full. Reaching down, I picked up the five-carat diamond I had put on her finger when I asked her to spend forever with me. She’d cried and nodded before throwing herself into my arms.

Now it was nestled safely in this drawer. No longer on her slender finger, telling the world she was mine. She wasn’t mine now.

Giving in to the devastation, I fell to my knees and dropped my head into my hands as the sobs broke through me.

I’d lost my world.

Sadie

Sam was cuddled up at my side, sound asleep, as I sat on the sofa in my mother’s house, which was bought and paid for by Jax Stone. It was a small three-bedroom house in a nice, safe neighborhood in Sea Breeze. I hadn’t allowed him to put her in anything bigger than this. There was no point. It was just her and Sam. She kept the third bedroom fixed up for the times Jax and I visited her, although we rarely stayed the night here.

I had left my phone with Barbara. It was one more thing that Jax Stone had given me. I wasn’t keeping a phone he paid for. I would call Amanda tomorrow when I was strong enough. Right now I needed to just let Sam distract me. He had shown me how he could write his ABC’s, and he had sung the national anthem for me. We had colored several pages from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coloring book that I had sent him last week in the mail.

He had asked several times when Jax was coming. It had been like a knife to the heart every time he said his name. Jessica had explained to him the first few times that we wouldn’t be seeing Jax anymore, but he had been concerned and kept asking me. He loved Jax.

I finally forced myself to look at my little brother and explain that Jax and I had broken up and weren’t friends anymore. Then I had eased that blow by telling him that it meant I was moving into this house with him and Mommy. He had been upset over not seeing Jax and he kept bringing him up. But he was very excited about me staying here with them.

“I need to get him in bed. He has to be up bright and early for school,” Jessica said as she walked up to scoop him into her arms.

“Okay. Thanks for letting him stay up and keep my mind off things. I missed him.”

She smiled. “He’s the best medicine around,” she said, kissing his forehead before walking back to the hallway that led to the bedrooms.

Sam’s entrance into the world had been dramatic and destructive, but my mother had gotten it together and gotten medical help, thanks to Jax. She had become the mother I had never had. When I saw her with Sam, it warmed me. I loved seeing them both happy.

I pulled the throw off the back of the sofa and wrapped myself up in it before leaning back and closing my eyes. I hadn’t slept last night, and the events of the last forty-eight hours were starting to weigh on me. I hadn’t turned on the television all day. I wasn’t sure when the news would hit that we were broken up. I figured it would be when a picture of him with someone new was plastered all over the media. I wasn’t ready to see that.

Jessica had understood that.

“How you feeling? Ready for bed?” she asked, walking back into the room.

I nodded and forced my eyes back open. “Yeah. I am.”

Jessica walked over and sank down beside me, then pulled me into her arms. “I hate seeing my girl so broken,” she whispered into my hair as I curled into her arms.

“Momma,” I said in a whisper. I hadn’t been going to tell her about the baby, but I needed someone to know.

“Yes, sweetheart,” she said, holding me close.

“I’m pregnant.”

She stopped petting my head, and I heard her inhale sharply, then exhale. “Does he know?”

I had been going to tell him. “I was surprising him with the news yesterday. I had it all planned out. I was going to have Barbara make us a picnic in the den downstairs where we have that amazing view at night of the lights outside on the hills. I had even set up candles everywhere that Barbara helped me light. I didn’t tell her what I was doing all this for. I wanted to tell him first. But then he didn’t come home or answer his phone. Three hours later I had blown out the candles and left the picnic downstairs and headed up to our room. That was where he found me.” I stopped and closed my eyes. I wasn’t ready to repeat what he had said.

“He yelled at me. Told me I was like all of ‘them’ and I used him to get things. Then he called me a liar and told me it was over before he left.”

Jessica’s body had gotten tense. I knew she was getting upset over this. “Did he explain why?”

I shook my head. “No. When I asked, he said I knew. Then he told me to shut up. He’s never told me to shut up. So I did.”

My mother’s arms tightened around me. “Oh, baby. I am so sorry. He’s going to regret this, though. You mark my words, he will regret this. It will haunt him and he will figure out he’s made a mistake and come back groveling. You make him beg at your feet for a long time before you give in. You hear me? Don’t forgive him easily for this. But do forgive him. Because he’s made a horrible mistake.”

Relationship advice was something I would never take to heart from my mother. Jessica wasn’t the smartest female when it came to men. Although, Sam had changed her on that, too. But still, she’d made so many mistakes in her life. I was one of her first mistakes.

“I can’t. I won’t ever trust a man that much again. Especially him,” I whispered.

Momma sighed and rested her chin on my head. “He’s really f**ked, then, isn’t he?” she said in a sad tone.

Jax

Sleep never came. All damn night. I had even gotten up and gone to another bedroom and tried to sleep in there. It didn’t work. All I could see was Sadie’s tearstained face as she begged me to tell her what was wrong. Never once had understanding flashed in her eyes. She had been so good at acting innocent.

How f**king long had my Sadie been a manipulative liar?

I made my way to the kitchen because I wasn’t eating in the dining room alone only to remember every good memory with Sadie I had in there. I would grab some food and then get out of this house. Barbara came walking out of the kitchen with a frown on her face. She didn’t smile when she saw me. Had the woman forgotten who she worked for?

“Excuse me, Master Jax,” she replied formally. “I need to finish cleaning up the picnic Sadie had prepared for you downstairs that you never showed up for.”

Picnic? “What?” I asked, annoyed by the fact that my staff was taking Sadie’s side after I’d been the one who was burned.

“The picnic she had prepared with candles and such for you the other night. She was so excited about it too. She’d spent days preparing for it. She wouldn’t tell me what it was about, though. I didn’t have to ask her, really. I already knew. The silly girl forgets I am aware of everything in this house. I know what’s in her trash can.”

Confused, I stood there as Barbara stalked past me, seeming even angrier than before.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I yelled, causing her back to snap straight before she turned around to shoot daggers at me with her eyes.

“I’m talking about the surprise Sadie had for you, sir.”

“What surprise?” I asked, furious that she was making me play this stupid game.

Barbara cocked one of her white eyebrows and tilted her head as she studied me. “It isn’t for me to tell you, sir. It was Sadie’s surprise. Not mine.”

Fuck this! I wasn’t living in a house with people who didn’t respect that fact that I signed their f**king paychecks. “You are aware you don’t work for Sadie, aren’t you, Barbara? You work for me.”

She frowned and then shrugged. “I’ve decided I’m not sure I want to work for you, sir. If you want to let me go, I will pack my bags and leave.”

The anger boiled over and I met her glare with one of my own. “Did you watch the news yesterday? Pick up a paper? Get on the f**king Internet at all?”

Barbara snarled, then looked disgusted with me. “Yes, sir, I did. And I am sure Sadie did as well. Yet she never called you. Even though her phone is here in the office, I am sure she could have found another phone to call you. The thing is, sir, she didn’t do that. My opinion on this is that if Sadie was guilty of what that photo is accusing her of and she was trying to manipulate you, then she’d have woven an excuse and called you, begging you to listen to her. She would have been willing to hear you yell at her and lash out at her if there was hope she could get you back.” Barbara paused and pointed a finger at me. “But she didn’t. Did she? She didn’t call you, not once. Because you told her to leave. You yelled at her and called her names I never in my life imagine that sweet girl has been called. You broke her. She won’t trust you again, and she would never give you another chance. So no, she wouldn’t call and try to explain. She doesn’t think you deserve an explanation.”