Filed to story: Sedona Preston and Logan Hayes Book PDF Free
“Just water, thanks.”
“Me too!” Nick piped up.
I headed toward the small cafe I’d spotted near the elevators, Nick chattering beside me about something Aunt Katherine had told him about tennis tournaments. I was only half-listening, my mind still on Sedona’s continued silence, when I rounded the corner and froze.
There, not twenty feet away, stood my wife.
She was at the discharge desk, speaking with a nurse. She looked terrible-her face was pale and drawn, dark circles under her eyes, her clothes hanging loosely on her too-thin frame. She was leaning heavily against the counter, as if standing required too much effort.
But what made my blood run cold wasn’t how sick she looked. It was the man standing beside her.
He was tall, probably six-two, with dark hair and sharp features that spoke of wealth and privilege. He had his arm around Sedona’s shoulders, supporting her weight, his other hand resting possessively on her lower back. The gesture was intimate, protective-the way a husband might touch his wife.
The way I should have been touching Sedona.
Jealousy, hot and vicious, surged through me. This was where she’d been? With him? While I’d been worried and confused and trying to figure out what I’d done wrong, she’d been here, letting some other man put his hands on her?
I was moving before I could think, crossing the space between us in long, angry strides. “Sedona.”
She turned, and I saw the exact moment she recognized me. Her eyes widened, then shuttered closed, her expression going carefully blank.
“Logan.” Her voice was flat, emotionless. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?” I grabbed her arm, pulling her away from the stranger. “I’ve been trying to reach you for two days. Two days, Sedona, and you couldn’t be bothered to respond to a single message. Is this why? Because you’ve been here with him?”
“Let go of me.” She tried to pull her arm free, but I tightened my grip.
“Not until you explain what the hell is going on. Who is this guy? Why are you at a hospital? Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”
Logan’s POV
“I said let go.” Her voice was harder now as she pulled harder against me and I saw something flicker in her eyes for just a second, and it wasn’t the quilt that I expected from staying out this long with contacting me, but genuine raw anger.
“You’re hurting me.”
“I’m hurting you? Are you serious right now? You disappear without a word, you ignore all my attempts to contact you, and I’m the one hurting you?”
The man beside her moved suddenly, his hand closing around my wrist with strength that I hadn’t expected as he calmly pulled my grip from her hand as he added. “She asked you to let go. I suggest you listen.”
I found myself shoved backward, humiliated by her boytoy in public. The stranger stepped between us, his posture protective, aggressive.
“Who the hell are you?” I demanded.
“None of your business.”
“It is my business when you’re putting your hands on my wife.” I tried to step around him to get to Sedona, but he blocked me, his expression cold and hostile.
“Your wife? That’s rich. You mean the woman you’ve been parading your mistress around in front of? The woman you’ve been emotionally abusing for months? That wife?”
“Mistress? Katherine isn’t my- Wait, how do you even know about Katherine?”
“Because Sedona told me everything. Every detail of how you’ve treated her, how your family has treated her. And frankly, you’re lucky I’m restraining myself right now, because what I really want to do is put you through that wall.”
The threat was delivered calmly, and something in his eyes told me he absolutely meant it and the only reason he wasn’t carrying out his threat was that we were in public and it wouldn’t look good on him. This wasn’t some random guy Sedona had picked up. This was someone who cared about her, someone who was willing to fight for her.
“Sedona, who is this?” I demanded, trying to see past him. “What’s going on?”
Before she could answer, I heard a small voice behind me. “Dad? What’s happening? Why are you yelling?”
I turned to find Nick standing a few feet away, his eyes wide and confused. He must have followed me from the cafe.
“Nick, go back to Aunt Katherine-“
But Nick wasn’t looking at me. His gaze had shifted as he recognized his mum, and his face lit up with recognition. “Mom! You’re here!”
He ran toward her, dodging around the stranger, and reached for Sedona’s hand. “Mom, are you okay? You look sick. Did you come here because you’re sick? Are you going to come home now?”
Sedona’s POV
Nick’s small hand wrapped around mine holding on tight in a way that I felt my heart was going to break just from the familiarity of it.
For a moment-I let myself imagine saying yes. Imagine going home with them, imagine pretending that everything was fine, that I could still be the mother Nick needed and the wife Logan wanted me to be.
But I couldn’t. Not anymore.
I looked down at my son, at his sweet face full of hope and confusion, and felt something inside me go cold and hard. This child, who I’d carried for thirty-two weeks, who I’d fought to keep alive through countless sickness and high risk emergencies, making me give up a lot for him. The same child who called me annoying and wanted his precious Aunt Katherine as his mother instead.
And now he wanted me to come home? Now he was ready to hold my hand and call me Mom?
No. I was done being the person everyone only wanted when it was convenient for them.
I pulled my hand away from his, the gesture sharp and deliberate. Nick looked up at me, shocked, hurt present in his eyes.
“Don’t call me that,” I said, my voice steady, harsher. I had never spoken like that to Nick before and I could see the confusion in his eyes.
“Mom?” Nick’s voice was small, timid.
“Don’t call me Mom. You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
“Sedona-” Logan started, but I turned my cold gaze on him, and he actually took a step back.
“You asked where I’ve been? What I’ve been doing? I’ve been with Cameron.” I gestured to my brother, who was watching Logan with barely concealed hostility.
“We’ve been together for the past few days. Every day, every night. Just the two of us. Just like you have been with Katherine, it was only fair, that I have time with someone else that wasn’t my family, just like you taught me, by doing so with Katherine.”
