Twenty-Four Hours (Shattered Boundaries Book 1)

by Anthony, Carolyn

  Jake backed her up against the wall, so angry that everything blurred in front of him.

  “What about you, Eve? Is this your excuse to go find someone else? Are you going to let someone besides me touch you, be inside you, love you as I have?” He put both hands on either side of her head. If he didn’t love her so fucking much, he’d hate her. How could she take herself out of his life when he needed her the most? The answer to that question was a hard reality—because she knew that while they may need each other, Maddie needed him more. Her wet eyes reflected a deep sadness and his fucking chest concaved, the muscles spasming.

  “You know what you are to me. I’ll never love another man the way I love you. Ever. I’ve come to accept that. What I won’t do is stop my life. Again. The reality is I am stronger now. I don’t need you to keep me steady. Maddelyn does.”

  He pinned her body to the wall with his. “Know this, Eve. When this is all settled, when Maddie’s straight, when she’s healthy, I’m coming for you. I don’t give a shit who’s in your life. I’m coming.”

  This was why he didn’t want to tell her about Maddie. She always thought of him before herself and if that meant she had to extract herself from his life for him to exclusively focus on his daughter, she wouldn’t hesitate.

  He pounded his fist into the door beside her head. “I love you, Eve.”

  She didn’t flinch. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes but didn’t fall. “And I love you, but we can’t change the past—a past that gifted you with two beautiful daughters. I can’t change that you chose someone else, built a life with her, and you can’t change that I waited and married the wrong man. Life happened.” She peered down at her phone, hit a few buttons and turned it to him. “You once sent me this text.”

  How do I tell you that I love you, when you were never mine? How do I tell you?

  She glanced at the phone before meeting his eyes again. “That was the first time you ever said that you loved me. Did you know that? The thing is, you’ve never been mine either, Jake, and yet, in my heart, it’s only ever been you for me.” Eve reached over and turned the handle on the door. “I’ll pray for Maddelyn. That she’s in this much pain breaks my heart in ways I can’t express. Now that I know where you’re really needed...I can let you go.”

  Kissing him hard on the lips, she spun around, walked out the door and shut it softly behind her.

  Unable to process what had just happened, he stood staring at the closed door for a minute or two. Once the shock subsided, he flung the door open and bent over the railing overlooking the parking lot outside their room.

  Eve sat in her car, hands over her face clearly sobbing.

  He couldn’t let her leave this way. “Eve!” he shouted over the railing.

  Her head shot up, determined eyes met his, she instantly threw the car into reverse and drove out of the parking lot.

  Jake fought the urge to race after her. The irony that he was the one left watching her drive away this time wasn’t lost on him. A wave of emotion swept over him as he walked back into the room. The door quietly shut behind him and he leaned back against it, sliding down to the floor. Resting his arms on his knees, he lowered his head, completely unfamiliar with the rib-crushing ache about to cave in his chest.

  Destroyed.

  He’d lost his light. Eve loved him with everything she had—unconditionally and without restraint. He wouldn’t be able to hold her, kiss her, hear her three in the morning bed voice when the nightmares kicked in. Her smile and laugh that turned his world upside down, which he’d hoped to have every day was—gone. A text message interrupted his thoughts. He jumped up, raced over to the counter and quickly grabbed his phone.

  Before he even hit unlock, his heart contracted as the message highlighted his lock screen. Maddelyn.

  Daddy, you’ll be home for tomorrow, right?

  He could read the anxiety behind the text. Wouldn’t be anywhere else, baby girl. Be home tonight. I love you, Mads.

  Maddelyn was unraveling and Eve had released him from everything outside of her. She’d loved him enough to see what needed to be done and let him go to take care of his daughter. As he hit send, a disconcerting sense of relief washed over him.

  Jake couldn’t give Eve the life she deserved right now. Not when his focus had to be on his girls and her career was just starting. It wasn’t fair to ask her to wait for him—again. Knowing her as well as he did, he knew he couldn’t call her. Couldn’t check on her. She’d need no contact in order to deal with the loss of them and to focus on her work. While the pain of not having her to talk to, to hold, to love was beyond fucked up...he was proud of her and thankful to her. She’d made the hard decision where he couldn’t for once.

  If he knew one thing about Eve, it was that she loved totally, selflessly and unconditionally. She wouldn’t get over him easily or quickly. He wasn’t being a dick, it was just fact when it came to Eve. He would have to hold on to her devotion and memories of the year, the past twenty hours until he could get back to her. Her vulnerability, kindness, and genuine care for other people made him violent when he thought about her in New York on her own. Eve would be like Christmas morning to most men. The fact that she didn’t realize how truly amazing she was made her even more attractive and that made him want to lock her in a fucking room. Cave man? Yeah, whatever. It was truth.

  In order to give them the chance they’d lost decades ago, however, he had to let her go for now. But he would find her again. Knowing Eve, she would try to make it difficult. Change her number, the email account they shared, and try to stay off the social network radar. But she wouldn’t cut him off completely—she loved him too much. She would leave some avenue open just in case he needed her. That was Eve. She’d made a decision though, and he would respect it...until he took care of his daughter. Once he did, he would find her and he genuinely felt sorry for anyone who stood in his way when he did. No more waiting. A clean slate. She’d promised him a full day and night and he’d been cut short. Wasn’t havin’ it. They’d have the second chance they deserved.

  I’ll be back, baby...and you better be ready.

  20 hours

  FOREVER BOUND

  1

  They were the reason why stories of great tragedies withstood the ages...

  2 years later

  New York City

  It was just a goddamn corridor. So why the hell was Jake’s stomach knotted as if he was awaiting a fucking death sentence? He’d arrived at JFK later than expected and had checked into a hotel down the street…just in case. The constant chaos of New York City. He wanted everything going on in his line of sight, which being in a NYC clusterfuck of wall-to-wall people made a near impossibility.

  But this trip wasn’t about him and his comfort level.

  Besides shocking the shit out of Eve, he figured it was gonna take a hell of a lot more than him simply showing up in New York to get her to open the door, let alone convince her to hear him out. Everyone had a limit to the shit they’d endure for someone they loved, and he was well aware Eve had been hanging off the edge of that cliff for him way too long.

  For the first time in his damn life, he was nervous about seeing a woman. But this wasn’t just any woman. She was fucking his.

  Get your head right, asshole.

  It had been two years. She could’ve moved on, met someone else. While his gut said no, it wasn’t Eve’s nature, logic demanded he acknowledge the possibility. If so, he’d leave her in peace—she damn well deserved some after the shit he’d put her through since he’d first laid eyes on her, and particularly after the last three years.

  Eve had taken part of him with her when she’d ran out of that hotel room and insisted he not contact her. He’d respected that request—to an extent. Technically, he upheld his end.

  His boy, Raul, with whom he’d worked several ops, had retired on the East Coast in Manhattan w
here Eve was living. Jake had contacted Raul, who had agreed to stay on the stealth tip and keep an eye on her from time to time—make sure she was okay. If not for Raul’s intel, Jake wouldn’t have been able to get through the last twenty-four months with no contact. An invasive violation of her privacy? Yep. But what the fuck was he supposed to do? Let her traipse off to New York and not know where the fuck she was? If she was safe? Not his nature.

  Since Maddie was healthy and the kids had accepted the divorced, he was here to offer Eve what he never could before—a commitment. The first time he’d seen her, when she was too young to look at or think about in any way at all, he’d been drawn to her—to her innocence, her warmth...those unforgettable blue eyes. Even as a teenager, Eve had a warm, vivacious, and loving demeanor that drew people to her. The fact that the years he’d been absent had contaminated her life was like a knife deep in his back. He knew he was at least partially responsible for some of that damage.

  “Ahhh, fuck,” he growled, sweeping a hand over his beard. Showing up here was ballsy. With their history, how could she trust him? He’d broken her heart for most of her life. First when he’d left for the Navy, telling her she was too young, which she damn well was at fifteen. She’d been seventeen when he’d come home on leave and she found out he’d slept with two of her friends.

  After that first tour at twenty-two, he’d come home looking for Eve. He’d tried to find her a few times during that two-week leave and when he couldn’t, he’d gone off the grid knowing he’d only fuck up her life. War, by nature, leaves a stain, an imprint, on even the hardest of men. The first kill or be killed situation had changed the boy to a warrior in less than a second and that was nothing she needed to be a part of.

  Death…Death was a dedicated chameleon. It either became a multi-faced phantom, etching the faces of lives taken somewhere deep in your psyche to haunt at will or it became your executioner.

  When Jake had faced that crossroad, looked that duplicitous motherfucker in the face for the first time, he’d had a flash of another face—Eve’s face. In that moment he’d made a choice. He’d chosen to uphold the oath he’d sworn to his SEAL brothers, to protect his nation, the innocent, and in doing so, he’d willingly become one of the haunted.

  Yeah, he’d looked for her and he could have tracked her down. To be honest, he knew she couldn’t deal with whatever it was he’d morphed into. Warrior? Protector? Killer? Monster? All labels described the same man—he’d changed in ways someone as loving and innocent as Eve couldn’t handle.

  One year bled into the next. Missions became his primary focus. Needing an outlet when he was stateside, something to decompress, anything to stop the movie reel of dead faces flashing through his head, he’d spent years fucking everything with a pussy and pulse. When one hot chick started blurring into the next he’d met Kelly, who, like Eve, was a good girl—wholesome. Different. At first, he’d dated Kelly along with the others. No commitments to anyone except to his team. The only time he felt alive was on assignment. Home became foreign territory.

  Until Kelly had gotten pregnant. Realizing he had to make a change with a baby on the way, he’d married Kelly, hoping marriage and starting a family would redefine his sense of home, give him an anchor, curb the guilt of not going out every tour, but it hadn’t. Warriors didn’t adapt to domesticity well, especially when they knew their absence in the field could lead to one of their brothers not making it back alive.

  Not long after he and Kelly had married, he’d run into Eve. Seeing him with a new wife on one arm and a newborn on the other—Jesus Christ—the annihilation on her face. Couldn’t keep the ultimate heartbreak out of her eyes.

  She’d been twenty at the time, and so fucking gorgeous in a little blue-green dress and cowboy boots. She’d grown into her body, her ebony hair hung mid-back and those eyes…those electric blue fucking eyes that had haunted him from day one. Seeing her that day...someone might as well have cracked open his chest cavity, yanked out his fucking heart and everything inside along with it.

  It was that moment he’d known he’d substituted the wrong woman for the one he’d always wanted, as fucked up as that was. But he’d had a newborn daughter and responsibilities. Eve had been kind and gracious to Kelly, but when she’d turned her gaze his way for the briefest of seconds—an Alaskan glacier didn’t get that fuckin’ cold.

  It was the last time he’d spoken to or seen her for sixteen years.

  When he’d tracked her down three years ago—because he just fucking had to, he couldn’t let her go—right and wrong didn’t matter. Moral fucking constructs didn’t mean dick to him after being out of her life for so long. Being in her presence was like the sun warmed his skin after almost two decades of solid ice.

  Then she’d walked out of his life at that hotel in Malibu, because it had been best for him. Despite living a life she’d thought would never include him, she’d never given up on him, which is why he was now stalking down this hallway, to see if she finally had.

  24 A. 24 B. Where the hell was this apartment? He rounded the corner, passing a few more doors before he saw it. 24 L. He stood there for a moment, contemplating how this would play out.

  Yeah, he’d be okay if she didn’t want anything to do with him, but he’d be empty, and he’d had enough emptiness to last a lifetime. Eve wasn’t his savior. There was no saving him. But to him she was light. Brought him as close to peace as he could get, and she unconditionally accepted the dark parts of him nobody else seemed able to.

  At least at one point she had.

  If she threw him out, he’d deserve it. If she slammed the door in his face, he’d deserve that too, but fuck him, he wasn’t a man who gave up and he’d warned her. Shit, he’d told her he’d come for her. So he wasn’t going home without saying what needed to be said.

  It’d taken almost twenty-five fucking years, twenty if he only counted the years she’d actually been old enough to be involved with a man, but it was what it was. After he’d served in the SEALs, he’d become a government contractor, so Eve knew his life, what he did for a living and the risk involved. She knew all his baggage. If he got even a hint of feeling from her, game on, and he was a persuasive motherfucker when it came to something he wanted.

  He hoped they were something she still wanted as well.

  As he raised his fist to knock, a sweet melodic laughter drifted down the hallway from around the corner, freezing him up. His heart rate went supersonic. His stomach jack-knifed and he closed his eyes for a brief second, remembering the last time he’d heard that soft lilting sound. He’d know Eve’s voice anywhere.

  What he hadn’t counted on was the deep baritone that accompanied it.

  Blood surged and roared to life through his system. The urge to rip apart whoever the fuck was with her steamrolled him, but he locked that shit down quick—it wasn’t his right.

  The voices grew louder and echoed down the empty hallway. He moved a few doors down into the darkened entryway of another apartment that didn’t have its exterior light on. From this angle, he had a clear view of her door. Time to see what was what because the brutal reality was—Eve wasn’t his.

  Approaching footsteps cut off his internal bullshit and he easily blended into the shadows.

  “Two years went by too fast,” Eve commented as she stopped at her door.

  Jake watched her fish through her purse searching for her keys. Goddamn Eve. How many times had he told her she needed to have those fuckers out and ready? The woman had zero self-preservation skills.

  “Yeah.” Came the male reply. “Way too fast.”

  Jake assessed the man standing about a good foot and a half above Eve. Motherfucker was big. About six-four, blond and built like a goddamn WWE wrestler. What the fuck? How had Raul missed this? Didn’t matter. If the dude touched her in a way she wasn’t cool with, Jake would end him up close and personal right in front of her apartment door. Than
ks for playing, fucknut.

  “So, you leave on Monday?” The guy asked.

  Eve’s head lifted for a second, still fishing in that black hole of a purse. “Tuesday actually. The movers are coming to take the things I didn’t sell on Monday.”

  The dude leaned against the end of the entryway and took his damn time looking Eve up and down as she hunted.

  Jake took a long, deep breath until his lungs wouldn’t expand any farther, clamping down the flood of rage or jealousy or just straight-up motherfucking possession riding him hard.

  “I’m almost all packed. Ah! Got ‘em.” She palmed the keys and looked up at the guy. “Tonight was fun, Alex. Thank you.”

  This Alex fuck moved a bit closer to her and Jake’s fingernails dug deeper into his palms.

  “The entire time you’ve been here, Eve, you’ve never gone out. We’ve been trying to get you to come with us for a year. It was nice to have you along tonight. You need a life outside of work.”

  Eve shrugged. “I know. I’ll work on that when I get home, but this post-doc was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I was here to learn and...um, get some other things straightened out. Tonight was different. End of the program party and all. I just wish I could have gotten to know some of our colleagues better. Everyone was very approachable and kind. I’m sure I’ve given off a not so friendly vibe over the past two years.” She laughed nervously.

  The dude reached out slowly and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Eve...I know you’re leaving and I’m staying here, but I’d like to get to know you better.”

  Jake narrowed his eyes, studying Eve’s body language.

  Her shoulder blades pulled tight and she took a small retreating step backwards. With a nonchalant turn of her head, she broke contact.

  “Alex…you’re wonderful. Like you said, I’m leaving. You’re staying here, and we know very little about each other. Other than we make a wicked research team and both like our coffee black as sin.”