Symphony of Love
Copyright© 2025 by TabooTalesIn
Chapter 2
Romantic Sex Story: Chapter 2 - Jacob, a quiet accountant, faces an impossible choice when his daughter Emily pleads with him to save her kidnapped pop idol, Victoria Earnhart. Torn between the life he left behind and the love he has for his daughter, Jacob must confront old ghosts and deadly enemies.
Caution: This Romantic Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Romantic Fiction
The cold hit her first.
It wasn’t like the sharp, clean chill of a walk-in freezer at a fancy restaurant or the brisk air of a New York City morning in the fall. This was a heavy, wet cold that felt like it was crawling up from the concrete floor itself, sinking its teeth into her ankles and working its way up her legs. It was a dead cold, the kind you find in places that have been left to rot.
Victoria shivered, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. The chaos was a blurry nightmare now shouts, the pop-pop-pop of gunfire that still made her ears ring but the slam of the thick metal door was crystal clear. It was a sound of absolute finality, a period at the end of a sentence she never wanted to write. As the echo faded, a different, deeper chill settled in her gut. It was the icy grip of dread.
“So, this is it,” she thought, the words forming silently in her mind. There was no movie-style revelation, no dramatic gasp. Just a quiet, heavy certainty that dropped into her stomach like a stone. “This is how it ends.”
She took a shaky breath, the air fogging in front of her face. “All that work,” she whispered out loud, her voice a dry rasp. “All those number-one hits, the sold-out arenas, the flashing cameras ... all for this.”
Her eyes scanned the room, a forgotten office in what felt like the heart of a giant, decaying warehouse. A clunky desk made of cheap particle board was pushed against the far wall, its fake wood grain peeling away like a bad sunburn. The air was thick and smelled of things that shouldn’t be mixed: stale cigarette smoke, damp earth, and a sharp, metallic tang like old blood or rust. Hanging from a chewed-up cord in the middle of the ceiling was a single, naked lightbulb. It cast a sick, yellow glare on everything, making the grimy walls look jaundiced and ill. The bulb hummed, a low, constant buzz that vibrated right at the edge of her hearing.
“A soundtrack for my grand finale,” she thought with a humorless, internal laugh.
She took a hesitant step, her designer heels now scuffed and ruined scraping against the gritty concrete. She peered at the desk. It was covered in a thick layer of dust, but she could make out dark, ring shaped stains from long forgotten coffee cups. A single, rusty paperclip lay near the edge, a tiny, insignificant fossil from another time. This used to be a place where people worked, where phones rang, where life happened. Now, it was just her cage.
“Hello?” she called out, though she knew it was useless. Her voice sounded small and thin, swallowed by the oppressive silence. The only answer was the incessant hum of the lightbulb and the slow, rhythmic drip ... drip ... drip of water from a dark corner of the room. Each drop landed with a tiny splash, a sound that felt like a clock ticking down the last few seconds of her life.
The leader’s name was Jazz. She’d heard one of his men say it, a short, sharp word that didn’t fit the man at all. He had looked at her as his men pushed her into the room, and the look had frozen the blood in her veins. It wasn’t the way a kidnapper was supposed to look at their prize. There was no greed in his eyes, no flicker of twisted desire. There was just ... hate. A pure, bottomless hatred that felt disturbingly personal.
As they dragged her from her tour bus, he had been ranting, his voice a low, controlled snarl. He spoke of injustice.
“Injustice?” The word echoed in her mind, a bitter, hollow joke. “What injustice?” she mumbled to the empty room.
Her whole life was about creating joy. She wrote songs people fell in love to, songs they screamed at the top of their lungs on road trips. She wrote about the sting of a first breakup and the quiet strength of getting back up again, songs that made people feel seen, feel like they weren’t alone in the world.
And the money ... dear God, the money. Just last month, she’d sat at her own kitchen table and signed a check that would build a whole new wing for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. She pictured the oversized novelty check from the press conference, her smile feeling genuine and bright.
She thought of the ‘Earnhart Promise,’ the charity she’d started in her parents’ memory. It sent kids from tough neighborhoods to music school and funded women’s shelters from coast to coast. Her business manager had practically begged her not to give so much away. “Victoria, you’re hemorrhaging profits,” he’d said, his face pale.
“I tried to help,” she thought, a fresh wave of despair washing over her. “I used the money to try and fix the things he’s so angry about.” She had poured millions into mending the very world this man, Jazz, claimed she was helping to break.
He accused her of being a traitor to the poor, a puppet of the rich. His words swirled in her head, a poisonous, confusing fog. She couldn’t connect the dots. His rage felt like it belonged to a different universe, one that had nothing to do with her. And she wasn’t the only one.
A sharp, stabbing guilt pierced through her fear. Her crew the band, the dancers, the kid who ran the soundboard they were all here somewhere in this concrete maze. Her best friend, Litty, her tour manager, who was tougher and more loyal than anyone she knew, was here too.
“They’re here because of me,” she thought, the guilt so strong it felt like a punch to the gut. “This is my fault. They’re in my world, so they’re in danger.”
The pain sharpened, twisting into a hot, raw grief when she thought of Ruben and Erato. Her bodyguards. But they were more than that; they were like family. Ruben, with his deep, booming laugh, who always made sure to have the specific brand of black licorice she loved. Erato, quiet and watchful, who had taught her how to throw a proper punch and watched over her with the protective grumpiness of an older brother. They were her brothers. And she had watched them die. The image was seared into her mind: Ruben, using his own body as a shield to cover her, the dark red flowers blooming across the front of his shirt. Erato, reaching for his weapon, falling before he even had a chance to fight back. The memory was a fresh, bleeding wound.
But there was a terror that went even deeper than her grief and her fear for her team. It was a terror so huge it threatened to swallow her whole.
Ellie.
Her sister. Her little sister. Twelve years old, with bright, curious eyes and a gap between her two front teeth that made her whistle when she got excited. Ellie, who was at home, waiting for her. Years ago, a drunk driver had stolen their parents, and Victoria had stepped in. She’d traded the red carpet for parent teacher conferences and after parties for bedtime stories. She had fought tooth and nail with lawyers and relatives who wanted to split them up.She had won.
She’d looked into her little sister’s tear streaked face and made a promise. “I’m not going anywhere. You and me, kid. We’re a team. You’re never going to be alone again.”
Now, the thought of breaking that promise was a physical agony. If she died here, Ellie would be an orphan all over again. Who would braid her hair for picture day? Who would remember to cut the crusts off her sandwiches? Who would crawl into bed with her during thunderstorms?
The thought of Ellie, alone and scared in the world, was a pain worse than any bullet or knife. It was an agony that ripped at her soul. “Please,” she whispered to the cold, empty room. “Not Ellie. My Ellie.”
A loud, metallic scrape cut through the hum of the lightbulb. The sound of a heavy bolt sliding back.
Victoria’s breath hitched. She scrambled away from the noise, pressing herself into the corner where the two cold, concrete walls met. She hugged her knees to her chest, trying to become invisible.
The door creaked open, and a man slid into the room. He was thin and wiry, with greasy brown hair plastered to his head. He moved with a quiet, creepy smoothness, like a rat sniffing for scraps. In his hands, he held a plastic bowl filled with a lumpy, gray mush that looked like old oatmeal. He placed it on the corner of the dusty desk, the plastic making a soft thump against the particle board.
Then, he turned to her. And he smiled.
A chill, colder than the concrete floor, snaked up Victoria’s spine. It was a smile with no warmth, no kindness. It was all teeth, a twisted, hungry expression that didn’t reach his flat, dead eyes. It was the smile of a wolf.
“I like all your songs,” he said, his voice was thin and raspy, like dry leaves skittering across pavement. He leaned against the desk, crossing his bony arms. “My name is Ash. I’m your biggest fan.”
Victoria said nothing. She stared at a long crack in the floor, her heart pounding against her ribs like a trapped bird trying to break free. She didn’t need to look up to know where his eyes were. She could feel his gaze crawling over her body like a spider. He wasn’t looking at her face. He was looking at the tear in the front of her silver dress, where the curve of her breast was visible. He was looking at her legs. The body that had been celebrated on magazine covers, the muscles toned from years of dancing on stage, now felt like a curse. A target. A wave of sickness washed over her, and she wished she could just melt into the floor.
“Do you want anything?” Ash asked, his voice dropping to a slimy, confidential whisper. “Like, a cigarette? A joint? Maybe a drink? I can get you whatever you want. I’m the guy who gets things.”
She remained frozen, her body as rigid as a statue. She focused on breathing in the stale, cold air, trying to find an anchor in the swirling sea of her fear. Her silence seemed to bother him. He pushed himself off the desk, and the friendly fan act vanished.
“Look, bitch,” he snapped. The change was so fast it was like a switch had been flipped. “This is your last chance. You want something, you tell me. All you gotta do is be nice to me. All you gotta do is suck my cock.”
The crude words hit her like a slap. They shattered the terrified silence in her head and replaced it with a hot, clean rage. This pathetic, sniveling creature thought he could buy her, threaten her, and reduce her to this. The fear was still there, a cold knot in her stomach, but the anger was bigger. It was a tidal wave of pure fury. She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. Her eyes, the bright blue that sold millions of albums, were now as hard and cold as chips of ice.
In one fluid motion, she shot to her feet, grabbed the bowl of gray sludge from the desk, and hurled it into his face.
Splat!
The lukewarm, greasy mush covered his cheeks and dripped from his chin. He just stood there for a second, his dead eyes wide with shock. A piece of what looked like a boiled potato slid slowly down his nose.
“Get out, you asshole!” Victoria screamed, her voice raw and powerful, the voice that could fill a stadium. “Get away from me before I rip your fucking eyes out!”
His shock twisted into an ugly sneer. “Oh, come on, you fucking whore,” he spat, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “I’ve seen the magazines. I’ve read the blogs. A new boyfriend every month. You’re just a slut like all the others. A spoiled cunt who needs to be taught a lesson.”
He started toward her, that predatory smile returning, uglier and more determined than before. Victoria stumbled backward until her shoulders hit the cold wall.
“Don’t,” she warned, her voice trembling but fierce. “Don’t you come any closer.”
He lunged. He was surprisingly fast. His fingers, like claws, dug into her upper arm. The sour smell of his unwashed body and the foul stench of the stew filled her nose, and she gagged. Adrenaline flooded her veins. She swung her free hand, making a fist, and punched him as hard as she could on the jaw.
It was a solid hit. He grunted, his head snapping to the side, but his grip only tightened. Fueled by a sick rage, he yanked her forward, trying to smash his mouth onto hers. She twisted her head away, and his wet, sloppy kiss landed on her cheek. With her free hand, she raked her nails perfectly manicured just yesterday for a photoshoot down the side of his face. She felt the skin tear.
He roared, a sound of pure pain and fury, and slapped her hard across the face.
A flash of white light exploded behind her eyes. Her head whipped back and hit the concrete wall with a sickening thud. The room spun, and she slid down to the gritty floor in a heap.
“Fucking bitch!” Ash screamed, touching the bleeding scratches on his cheek. His eyes were wild, bulging with a crazy light. “I will fuck you to death! You will wish you were never born!”
He stood over her, his shadow swallowing her. His hands moved to the buckle of his belt. A scream built in Victoria’s throat, a raw, helpless shriek of pure terror.
CRACK!
The gunshot was a deafening explosion in the small room. It was so loud it felt like a physical blow, a punch to her eardrums.
Ash screamed a high, piercing shriek that was nothing like his earlier roar. He grabbed the side of his head, his whole body convulsing. He stumbled backward and collapsed, writhing on the floor. Blood, shockingly red against his pale skin, gushed from between his fingers, pouring from the mangled ruin of his ear.
Victoria stared, her own scream caught in her throat. She was frozen, watching in horror.
Standing in the doorway, a dark shape against the dim hallway light, was a man. A thin curl of smoke drifted from the barrel of the pistol in his hand. It was Jazz.
He lowered the gun slowly, his movements calm and precise. He stepped into the room, his boots silent on the concrete, and walked toward the whimpering, bleeding man on the ground. He knelt beside Ash, his posture so relaxed it looked like he was about to comfort a child who’d fallen off his bike.
“You are supposed to hate her,” Jazz said, his voice a low, venomous whisper that cut through the ringing in Victoria’s ears. “When you look at her, your skin is supposed to crawl with disgust. She is not for you. She is not for us. She is an object of contempt, a symbol of the filth we are here to burn away. She is not worth our touch. Even if she offered herself to you, naked and begging on the floor, you are supposed to spit on her.”
The hatred in his voice was so raw and powerful it felt like a physical force in the room. Victoria could feel it aimed directly at her, a wave of pure loathing that was somehow more terrifying than Ash’s pathetic, violent lust.
“Yes, Jazz,” Ash whimpered, his body shaking uncontrollably. “I’m sorry, Jazz.”
Jazz stared down at Ash, his pale eyes cold and analytical, as if he were examining an insect. Ash trembled under his gaze. “I’m sorry, Jazz,” he repeated, his voice choked with fear and blood. “I loathe her. I loathe Victoria Earnhart.”
“That’s my boy,” Jazz said. He patted Ash’s head, his fingers briefly tangling in the man’s greasy hair. The gesture was so fatherly, so bizarrely gentle after such violence, that it made Victoria’s blood run cold.
Jazz stood and turned his attention to her. She was still crumpled on the floor against the wall, her mind struggling to catch up with what had just happened.
“What do you want?” she pleaded, her voice a ragged whisper. “Please ... at least let my team go. They’re innocent. They don’t deserve this.”
A strange, thin smile touched Jazz’s lips. It was a smile of deep satisfaction, as if her words had just proven a point he was trying to make. “So you know,” he said softly, taking a step closer. “Even you, in your cage of ignorance, know that they don’t deserve a fate like yours. A fate reserved for destroyers.”
He squatted down, bringing his face level with hers. His eyes were like chips of ice. “You destroyed people’s lives. You laughed at women after you stole their husbands and left their families in ruins. You pissed on the graves of men who sacrificed their lives for this country, men whose memories you desecrated with your degenerate lifestyle.”
As Jazz spoke, his voice a mesmerizing, hateful lullaby, Victoria’s mind reeled. What the hell is he talking about? It was a waterfall of insane accusations, none of which made any sense. Steal husbands? Piss on graves? It was the rambling of a lunatic. He had to be deeply, profoundly mentally ill, living in a reality he’d built entirely in his own head. That made him even more terrifying. You could reason with a man who wanted money. You couldn’t reason with a man who had cast you as the lead villain in his own private hell.
“Please,” she whispered, tears finally breaking free and tracing paths through the dirt on her bruised cheek. She had to try to find something real, something that mattered. “Please, let me go. I have a little sister. She’s only twelve. She needs me.”
At the mention of her sister, Ellie, Jazz’s expression shifted. The cold hatred melted away, replaced by something that looked terrifyingly like glee. He laughed. It wasn’t a loud laugh, just a soft, chilling chuckle that seemed to suck all the air out of the room.
“Your little sister,” he mused, as if savoring a fine wine. He stood up, towering over her. “Don’t you worry about her. After we’re finished with you, after we’ve made our point and cleansed this world of your particular poison, we’ll be paying her a visit.”
Victoria’s world stopped. The blood drained from her face, and her heart felt like it had turned to ice.
“We can’t have the rot spreading, can we?” Jazz continued, his voice casual, conversational. “We can’t let her grow up to destroy people’s lives, just like her big sister. It will be an act of mercy, really. A kindness.”
He turned and walked toward the door. “Get him up,” he said to another man who had appeared in the doorway. The newcomer hoisted the still bleeding, whimpering Ash to his feet and dragged him out.
Jazz paused in the doorway and looked back at her one last time. “Dawn is coming, Victoria,” he said. “And with it, redemption.”
Then he was gone. The heavy door slammed shut, and the bolt slid home with a sound of absolute, soul crushing finality.
Victoria was alone again on the floor, in the buzzing, yellow light of the cold, dead room. The threat to her own life was a distant fear now, a background noise. All she could see was Ellie’s bright, smiling face. All she could hear was Jazz’s chilling promise. She curled into a tight ball on the gritty concrete, her body shaking with sobs that made no sound. Her face pressed against the cold floor, she cried, praying to a God she wasn’t sure she believed in anymore, praying for a miracle to save her from this waking nightmare, to save her little sister from the monster.
The first thing Marcy noticed was the light. Sharp, clean stripes of morning sun cut through the gaps in the hotel room’s automatic blinds, painting bars across the king-sized bed, the plush carpet, and the naked man sleeping beside her.
She was naked, too. The expensive Egyptian cotton sheet was cool against her skin, pooled around her waist like spilled milk.
Beside her, Henry Davenport lay flat on his back, a solid slab of well-fed muscle. His chest rose and fell in the steady, untroubled rhythm of a man who’d never had a real worry in his life. His mouth was slightly open, and a soft, wet snore escaped his lips with every exhale.
“So. That’s done,” she thought.
This was it. The first time she’d been with another man since she had stood across from a nervous, impossibly young Jacob and promised him forever. But the feeling blooming in her chest wasn’t a cheap thrill. It wasn’t the excitement of doing something forbidden or even the simple satisfaction of getting off. It was just a deep, hollow ache. A cold, dead weight that had nothing to do with the arm Henry had thrown over his eyes to block out the sun.
Last night had been ... an event. A performance. A business transaction. Henry, for all his loud-mouthed arrogance in the boardroom, knew what he was doing in bed. He had the body, the stamina from a personal trainer, and a playbook of moves he’d clearly used on dozens of other women. He’d gone through the motions with a grim, athletic determination. But it had been all mechanics, no feeling. There was no tenderness, no shared laughter, no moment of just looking into each other’s eyes. It was just friction and ego.
She’d played her part. She had gasped when she was supposed to gasp, arched her back at the right moments, and even faked the final, shuddering orgasm. It was a performance that had earned her a satisfied grunt from him before he rolled over and immediately started snoring. She had hit her marks, delivered her lines, and closed the deal. But as she had lain there in the dark, listening to his breathing even out, she had never felt more alone.
“It wasn’t him,” she thought, the truth a sharp pain in her chest. “It wasn’t Jacob.”
It wasn’t his calloused fingers gently tracing patterns on her back. It wasn’t the way he’d kiss that one spot behind her ear that always made her shiver. It wasn’t the easy, comfortable silence they could share, the private language built over a thousand nights tangled together. With Jacob, sex was a conversation. With Henry, it felt like a monologue, and he was the only one speaking.
“Did I really just do that? What the hell did I just do?”
She’d told Jacob. She had laid it all out for him with the cold, brutal logic of a corporate restructuring plan. “It’s not cheating,” she’d said, trying to convince herself as much as him. “It’s a recalibration. An evolution of our relationship.”
“What a crock of shit,” she thought now. The words felt like flimsy lies trying to cover up something that was fundamentally, soul deeply wrong.
She snatched her phone from the nightstand. Her hands trembled as she scrolled to Jacob’s contact photo. It was a picture their daughter, Emily, had taken last summer. He was laughing, the corners of his eyes crinkled, a smudge of charcoal on his cheek from the barbecue. The sight of his happy, unsuspecting face felt like a punch to the gut. She pressed the call button, her heart hammering against her ribs.
It rang once.
Twice.
Then, his voice, calm and familiar, filled her ear. “Hi, you’ve reached Jacob. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.”
“Is he mad?” she wondered, her thoughts spiraling into panic. “Of course he’s mad, you idiot. You told your husband you were going to fly to another city and sleep with your boss.” But she had expected him to answer. She had counted on the steady, reliable Jacob who always picked up, who always weathered her storms. The silence on his end was more terrifying than any angry words could ever be.
He had taken the entire week off from work a rare and precious thing so they could spend time together with Emily. A “family reset,” he’d called it. And she had looked him right in the eye and told him she was going away with Henry instead.
She scrolled past Jacob’s name and dialed her next safest harbor. Emily.
The phone answered on the second ring. “Hello, Mom.” Her daughter’s voice was flat, empty of its usual bubbly warmth.
“Hey, baby! How are you?” Marcy forced a breezy, cheerful tone into her voice, a desperate attempt to paint a picture of normalcy over the gaping hole of her guilt. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” Emily replied, her voice still cool and distant. “I’m at Grandma’s. Dad’s out.”
Grandma’s? Why is she at her grandmother’s? And Dad’s out? “Out where, honey? But he took the week off to be with us.”
A rustle came from the bed behind her. “Mornin’, gorgeous,” Henry’s voice, thick and gravelly with sleep, rumbled through the room. He stirred, rolling onto his side. Before Marcy could react, he wrapped a heavy arm around her bare waist, his hand closing over her breast with a sense of ownership.
Marcy gasped, a sound of pure, startled shock. She slapped his hand away, a gut reaction born of pure panic. “Stop! Not now!” she hissed, turning her back to him, trying to shield the phone, trying to shield her lie.
“Is Poop Face with you?”
Marcy froze, Poop Face. The silly, childish nickname Emily had given Henry months ago after he’d been rude to a waitress at the company Christmas party. How could she possibly know he’s here? The blood drained from her face.
“What? No, baby, of course not. I’m alone,” she lied, the words tasting like poison on her tongue. Her voice was shaky, unconvincing even to her own ears.
But Henry had heard. He snatched the phone from her hand with a startling, brutish speed. “Listen here, little girl,” he growled into the phone. “You don’t speak about me like that, you’ll call me Sir.”
There was another beat of heavy silence. Marcy held her breath, her entire world tilting on its axis.
And then she heard Emily’s voice, tinny but crystal clear through the phone’s speaker. “Oh, it’s Poop Face himself. Nice to finally hear from you.”
There was no fear in her daughter’s voice. No intimidation. Only a cool, cutting disdain that was more effective than any shouting could have been.
Henry’s face, usually a confident, tanned mask of corporate power, turned a blotchy, furious red. “You watch your mouth, you little brat,” he snarled, his voice tight with rage, “or your dad’s going to be in a lot of trouble when I’m done with him.”
Marcy’s jaw dropped. He’s threatening her twelve-year-old daughter. He’s threatening Jacob. This wasn’t the powerful, sophisticated man she had built up in her mind. This was a bully. A thug in a thousand-dollar suit.
Emily’s laugh crackled through the phone, a sound of pure, unadulterated amusement. “Bad move, Poop Face. A really, really bad move. Mom,” her voice shifted, suddenly becoming serious, “I’ll forgive you for betraying Dad, because you’re my mom, and you’re being an idiot. But you?” Her voice dropped back to that icy, contemptuous tone, aimed directly at Henry. “Never.”
Henry actually chuckled, a low, arrogant sound, but Marcy felt the floor drop out from under her. She knows. She knows everything. My own daughter knows.
She lunged and grabbed the phone back from him, her hands shaking so badly she could barely hold it. “Emily, baby, listen to me,” she pleaded, her voice a desperate, cracking whisper. “It’s not what you think. Your dad ... he’s lying to you. He’s trying to turn you against me. Please, baby, you have to believe me.”
“Tell Poop Face he’s got to issue a public apology to my Daddy, or I deal with him myself,” Emily said, her voice now dead serious, as cold and precise as a surgeon’s scalpel.
“Emily Rose, you stop this right now!” Marcy snapped, her voice rising, becoming shrill with panic and fury. “This is completely inappropriate! You will show me and you will show Henry some respect, or so help me, you are grounded for the rest of your life!” The words felt hollow and pathetic as soon as they left her mouth. She was threatening to ground a child who was talking like a hostage negotiator.
Emily laughed again, but this time it wasn’t amused. It was a sad, pitying sound. “You’re dumber than I thought, Mom.”
The words were a stiletto knife, plunged directly into the heart of Marcy’s pride. Dumb? She, Marcy Thompson, Vice President of Acquisitions, the woman who outmaneuvered sharks in boardrooms for nine-figure deals, was being called dumb by her own pre-teen daughter. The rage, hot and blinding, finally burned through the fear.
“Listen up, young lady!” she shrieked into the phone. “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but it’s over! You will lose that attitude, or you will regret it! Even your father doesn’t have the balls to talk to me like that!”
“Keep telling yourself that, Mom,” Emily said, her voice suddenly weary, as if she were talking to a toddler throwing a tantrum. Then, the line went dead.
Henry propped himself up on one elbow, a scowl on his face. “What the hell was that about?”
“I don’t know,” Marcy lied, her voice barely a whisper, though every instinct in her gut was screaming that a tidal wave was coming, and she had just watched it form on the horizon.
“Want me to call my guys?” Henry offered, a predatory smirk returning to his face. “We can have a little chat with your husband. Teach him some manners.”
“No,” Marcy said quickly, a flicker of protective instinct for Jacob flaring through her panic. “No. Jacob will come around. He’s just being dramatic. He always does.”
She was trying to sound confident, in control, but even she didn’t believe the words. Jacob wasn’t dramatic. He was a rock. And she had just taken a sledgehammer to him.
Marcy sat in a low, ridiculously comfortable wicker chair in the balcony, Emily knows everything. My daughter isn’t just smart; she’s a terrifyingly sharp little creature who saw the truth and passed judgment. And Jacob ... her husband he was an open book. An accountant. Predictable. Safe.
Wasn’t he?
The sharp, angry slide of the balcony door ripped her from her thoughts. Henry strode onto the balcony, his face a mask of thunderous rage, his tanned chest puffed out with fury.
“You dumb bitch,” he spat, the words hitting her like a physical slap.