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  “No, Carter. Please don’t. Just take me home.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Please! I’ve been through hell. I don’t need everyone knowing about it.”

  “Even if I don’t call it in, you have to go to the hospital,” he says with a heavy sigh.

  “No, I’m okay.”

  “You’re not okay, Libby. I can smell him on you!”

  “He didn’t hurt me.”

  “Libby.”

  “Carter, I swear I’m okay. Just, don’t make me face my mother or grandfather like this…” I beg him.

  Finally, I hear his heavy sigh as he relents. After helping me redress, he lifts me in his arms and carries me out to his car.

  “Your car…” I start.

  “You should’ve called me, Libby! You were at the bank when they robbed it last night, weren’t you?” he asks when he sets me down in the passenger seat.

  “Yes,” I answer. “They’re long gone by now.”

  And, thankfully, Carter doesn’t ask me any more questions about Hendrix Blake ever again.

  Part II

  “After”

  Chapter 21

  Libby

  The present

  We’ve been on the highway, going west toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, for what I’m guessing is five or six hours, only stopping once in a small town to fill up the gas tank. I banged on the windows at the few people standing around outside, but it didn’t do any good. No one noticed.

  “Want some peanuts?” Hendrix asks cheerfully from the driver’s seat, holding up the bag as he eyes me in the rearview.

  “Screw you,” I hiss at him, my arms crossed angrily over my chest. “Are you going to even apologize for how you left me?”

  “Are you going to apologize for nearly having my ass locked up, along with Van and Sawyer’s?”

  “That was all your father,” I tell him.

  “No shit,” he replies.

  “You’ve talked to him since he got out of prison?” I ask, since James Blake’s deal went through. Even though the feds didn’t catch the guys, their disappearance after the robbery was enough to prove they were the thieves, and enough to require the feds to honor their deal with Blake.

  “I have,” Hendrix says.

  “Is he still alive?”

  “What do you think?” he asks while keeping his eyes on the road.

  I glance out the window at the trees flying by, hoping the answer is yes, but not sure I really want to know. “I still don’t know what your plan is here. Is this my payback? Haven’t you already hurt me enough?”

  “Hurt you? I never hurt you. I trusted you. I gave you every chance to tell me the truth and you didn’t!”

  “You fucked me without a condom and left me there! What did you think was going to happen after doing something that careless, Hendrix? You knew that was my worst nightmare!”

  “I wanted you to worry for a few weeks about whether I knocked you up or not, but there was never an actual possibility of it happening,” he says, meeting my eyes again. “I didn’t finish.”

  “Didn’t finish what?” I ask in confusion.

  “I didn’t come inside you,” he explains.

  “Is that how you remember it?” I ask sarcastically. “But that’s not what happened.”

  “I just wanted you to think I was fucking you over like you fucked me over,” he says. “You really thought I was that evil, to try to knock you up and leave you with your worst fear?”

  “You’re lying,” I tell him. “You were angry, and you wanted to hurt me.”

  “I was angry, but I couldn’t hurt you like that. I was careful.”

  “Careful? Really?” I ask.

  “Really.”

  “Then how the hell did I end up pregnant with your daughter?”

  The limo swerves severely to the right, crossing the middle line before Hendrix corrects it, thankfully not hitting any cars.

  “Back the fuck up. Your kid? She’s mine?” Hendrix asks while slowing down enough to pull over to the side of the road.

  “Who else’s did you think she was? Did you see her?”

  “Yes, but…I thought…I thought she was Carter’s,” he says when he twists around to face me, his face the palest shade I’ve ever seen.

  “Does she look anything like him? Or me? No! Because she’s the spitting image of you, unfortunately.”

  “How can she be mine? She’s so little…”

  “Oh my god! For a bank robber, you sure are shit at math! And you don’t know anything about kids, do you?” I ask. “Abigail just turned two a few months ago. I carried her for nine months. It’s been three years since the day you left me hanging from the basement ceiling, when Carter found me.”

  “Her name’s Abigail?” Hendrix asks. “And she’s mine?”

  “You may be her father, but Carter is her daddy, the only one she’ll ever know,” I tell him. “He’s the one who has been there for us every single day since I found out. And if it weren’t for him keeping my secret, pretending you kidnapped me at the bank and I escaped, you would’ve ruined my life!”

  “Jesus,” Hendrix mutters. “Now I have even more reasons to change your mind…”

  “Change my mind about what?” I ask.

  “About me. I wanted to ask you to bring her and come with me. Now, I’ll have to insist.”

  I let loose a bark of non-humorous laughter. “I’ve heard that one before, and it is never gonna happen. We’re not going anywhere with you!”

  Turning around in his seat to face me, Hendrix says, “How many times do I have to remind you, sweetheart? I always get what I want, and right now, you don’t have a choice in the matter, do you?”

  Chapter 22

  Hendrix

  I’m a father.

  A fucking father!

  “Tell me about her,” I say to Libby when I finally pull away from the side of the road to keep driving up into the mountains.

  She lets out a heavy sigh that I watch in the rearview. Jesus, she’s so fucking gorgeous. I don’t know if it’s the dress with all of her blonde hair up off her neck or what, but Libby’s even more beautiful than the day I left her behind. Wedding Day Barbie is a good look for her, but I still miss Waitress Barbie’s sexy summer outfits.

  “What do you want to know?” she eventually asks.

  “Everything.”

  “First, why don’t you tell me where we’re going? Every law enforcement agency in the country will be looking for me soon, and you’re a wanted man.”

  “Not if they think you’re just a runaway bride,” I point out.

  “I would never leave Abigail. Carter knows that!” she declares.

  “I don’t ever want to hear his fucking name come out of your mouth again,” I tell her through clenched teeth. I already hated that bastard, but knowing he’s been living with my girl, sharing a bed with her and raising my kid…now, I want to kill him.

  “Carter was there for me after you bolted! He helped me pick up the pieces, telling everyone the baby was his and going to all of my doctor’s appointments after I found out I was pregnant. Carter was in the delivery room, holding my hand when our daughter took her first breath!”

  “Shut. Up.”

  “You don’t get to tell me to shut up!” she shouts. “You left us, and I hate you for it! I’ve spent every day of the last three years hating you!”

  “I wasn’t very fond of you either, those first few weeks after I realized you had lied to me from the first day we met!” I yell back at her. “But you don’t hate me, Libby. You loved me. Isn’t that what you said before I left you?”

  “Any feelings I had for you are long, long gone!”

  “So now you love…that asshole?” I ask, unable to use his name.

  “Carter is my best friend and he loves me more than you ever could,” she tells me.

  “But do you love him?”

  “Yes.”

  Fuck. She loves him.

  Still, one
day not that long ago, she loved me too. If I could just get the stubborn woman to give me another chance, I think I can remind her she loved me more.

  “You know, there’s one thing I never understood,” Libby says, breaking the silence about half an hour later.

  “What’s that?” I ask, glad to talk about anything other than the asshole she’s spent the last three years with because I left her.

  “Why did you do it, Hendrix? Why were you stupid enough to go into the bank robbing business in the first place? Because of your father? For the rush, the excitement? What was it that made you do something so idiotic?”

  Hell, it took me a long time to figure that question out for myself. I’m still not entirely sure. But Libby deserves an explanation for why I almost ruined her life.

  “There wasn’t ever a good reason,” I admit to her and myself. “There were just a lot of stupid reasons. When I was eighteen, I started robbing banks because I thought money could buy me happiness. If I had enough of it, maybe it would eliminate the sadness I felt after losing my mother, and the despair of having to visit my father in prison. He raised me to believe that having millions of dollars was the key to happiness.”

  “Was he right? Are you happy?” Libby asks.

  “No, he was wrong. There’s no amount of money that can buy happiness,” I tell her, withholding the fact that I don’t think it will hurt to have a few million lying around when you do finally find the things that make life worth living.

  I want a life with Libby and my daughter.

  Now, I just have to figure out how to get her to forgive me.

  And how to finally allow myself to trust her.

  Chapter 23

  Libby

  As soon as Hendrix opens the limo door, my arms are swinging.

  Not that it does any good.

  Hendrix is a foot taller and weighs about a hundred more pounds than me. He simply grabs my wrists and locks them both by my sides.

  “Help!” I scream at the top of my lungs.

  Pressing my back against the side of the limo, he lowers his face to mine, nearly rubbing our noses together. “Scream as loud as you want, Libby. No one will hear you up here. The closest neighbor is fifteen miles away, and if you try to run, you’ll freeze to death or get eaten by a bear before you make it.”

  “Bears?” I scoff. “Whatever.”

  “This is bear country. You can barely step outside without running into one,” he claims. “Now, our honeymoon suite awaits,” he says before he sweeps me up in his arms and starts marching toward the cabin.

  “Put me down!” I yell at him while kicking my legs.

  “Not until we cross the threshold…”

  “What is wrong with you?” I ask. “We’re not married! You stole me from the man I wanted to marry! I hate your fucking guts!”

  “Is that right?” he asks when he walks inside the cabin and tosses me down on a big, brown leather chair. Standing above me, arms crossed over his chest, he says, “You truly despise me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can’t stand the sight of me?”

  “Nope.”

  “Don’t give a single shit about me?” he asks while removing his suit jacket and tossing it down on the floor.

  “Not a single shit!” I yell at him.

  “You want me dead?” Now he unbuttons the top two buttons at the collar of his white dress shirt.

  “Hell yes,” I answer.

  “Then prove it.” Hendrix reaches behind his back and removes a semi-automatic handgun.

  “What are you doing? Are you insane?” I ask him, unable to believe he would hold me here at gunpoint.

  Instead of pointing the gun at me, though, he comes over and lays the weapon down on the side table right next to the chair I’m sitting in.

  “You know I have the car keys. The only way you’re leaving here and making it home alive is by taking them from my cold, dead body. So, I’m going to give you a chance to do just that.”

  “What are you talking about?” I huff because he sounds like a crazy person.

  “Shoot me, Libby.”

  “Shoot you? Holy shit, you are insane,” I mutter, wrapping my arms around myself because it’s freezing in here.

  “If you hate me so much and want me dead, shoot me, take the car keys, leave me here to die, and go back to the man you say you want to marry,” he explains while rolling up the cuffs of his shirt to his forearms.

  Wow, he’s actually serious.

  So, without another thought, I grab the gun and point it at him before he changes his mind. This may be the only chance I’ll get to go home. Carter must be worried sick, and since I gave up my career to care for her, Abigail has never gone more than a few hours without me.

  If I do this, if I pull the trigger, it’ll have to be a head shot or a chest shot because I don’t want to leave Hendrix bleeding out for hours, suffering. No matter how much I despise the bastard, I can’t do that to him. So, it’s shoot to kill or I’m trapped here with the jackass for who knows how long…

  “What are you waiting for? It’s an easy decision, right? Kill me, Libby, and go back to the man you say you want to marry,” Hendrix says, holding his arms out to the side. “Having all the money in the world is worthless if you don’t have the one person you love by your side to share it with you. You’re it for me, Libby. And if you don’t want to live this life with me, then pull the trigger now, because I can’t survive without my heart.”

  Any other time, any other place, and I might have melted into a puddle. But it’s now, in this moment, after Hendrix crushed my heart…so his declaration is too little too late.

  I want to go back, right this second, for Abigail and for my mom, grandfather, and Carter.

  But I won’t commit murder to do it.

  I release the clip, ripping it out of the bottom of the stupid gun, and then throw both pieces across the room.

  “You can’t do it,” Hendrix says. “I knew you would rather be my captive than kill me for your freedom.”

  “Don’t look so smug. I’m just not a murderer, okay?”

  “You still care about me,” he replies with a cocky grin.

  “No, I don’t,” I argue. “Have I thought about you over the years? Of course, every single time I look at Abigail. But I loathe you after what you did to me!”

  “Let me make it up to you,” he says in a rush before he suddenly drops to his knees in front of me. “Please, Libby. Give me a chance to make it up to you.”

  “Even if you had an eternity, you could never make up for the last three years without you,” I tell him honestly.

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t try,” Hendrix responds as his arms reach for either of the chair’s armrests to cage me in.

  No matter how much I try to avoid his piercing gaze, my eyes eventually land on his. And I hate how just looking at the asshole can still take my breath away.

  I was stupid enough to fall for him once. It won’t happen again.

  Those first few days without him, I was in agony. I kept hoping he would come back for me, so I wouldn’t leave town, not even when Carter insisted. He even transferred so we could stay in Charlotte.

  Then, a few weeks later, when I found out I was pregnant, it was like losing Hendrix all over again, knowing our baby wouldn’t have a father.

  I had finally given up on him coming back for me when I agreed to marry Carter. He’s the person who has cared for me and Abigail, and I made him a promise. So even if I were stupid enough to want to give Hendrix another chance and possibly end up going through the hell he’s already put me through again, I wouldn’t because I gave my word to Carter that I would be his wife. And I intend to keep that promise to him.

  “I’m not entirely sure what you expected to happen when you kidnapped me from my wedding, but there’s only one way this ends,” I tell Hendrix. “I’m going to marry Carter and spend the rest of my life with him.”

  “You’re still angry at me,” he says. “An
d I deserve it. But I don’t think he’ll ever make you happy. You know that yourself, Libby. It’s why you told me to take the long way to the church. Your heart doesn’t belong to him, and it never will.”

  “He makes me happy. I’m happy!” I insist.

  “Stop lying to yourself. I tried to tell myself the same thing for years, but it didn’t work. There’s only one way I can be happy, and that’s with you in my life.”

  “You destroyed me, and Carter put me back together. So, I’m as happy as I will ever be.”

  Hendrix

  God, she’s so fucking stubborn.

  But I’m a patient man. I waited weeks for Libby to kiss me, and even longer for her to sleep with me.

  I’ll spend the rest of my life waiting for her to change her mind.

  I can’t rush her, though. So, for now, I’ll drop it and give her a little space.

  “Do you want something to eat? I can make you something. The kitchen is stocked,” I tell Libby as I get to my feet and go over to start the fire to warm the cabin up.

  “Wow. You really planned all this out,” she grumbles.

  “Of course,” I answer, since I would never do anything without thinking it through. It took six months to come up with this plan to kidnap her. I wish I would’ve had more time before the wedding, but I didn’t. “Now, what do you want to eat?” I ask her again.

  “I’m not hungry,” she says, getting up and going over to look out the floor-to-ceiling window with an incredible view of the mountains. At least she’s smart enough not to try the door. “Can I call Carter?” Libby asks me, without turning around.

  “What do you think?” I raise an eyebrow, even though she isn’t looking at me.

  She mutters a curse under her breath.

  “Do you want me to help you out of your dress? There are some warmer clothes for you in the bedroom.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Really?” I reply. “There are about a hundred buttons down the back, and it’s going to be cold in here until I get the heat going.”