Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 57341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
“River’s wife,” Lindsey smugly retorted.
I opened my mouth to correct her, but Adelaide beat me to it. “Lie one more time, and I’ll knock your teeth down your fucking throat,” Adelaide snapped at her. Lindsey’s eyes widened at her words, fear flashing in them as her face paled. I smirked, my cock gaining interest in the confrontation now. It was so fucking hot when Adelaide made people afraid of her. “Now, who the fuck are you?” Adelaide repeated.
“River’s ex-wife,” Lindsey corrected herself. I wrapped my arm around Adelaide’s waist, leaning down to press my lips to her temple. She relaxed a little.
“River doesn’t want you here, and I sure as hell don’t, so turn the fuck around and go back to wherever the fuck you came from,” Adelaide told her.
“And who the fuck are you?” Lindsey demanded, surprising me with the curse word that came out of her mouth. The old Lindsey would have never even dreamed of speaking like that, and she had always hated that I did. It was one of the biggest causes of our fights. She wanted me to change, to be a gentler kind of man, and I refused to.
The woman I fell in love with wasn’t supposed to make me change my entire personality. She might change me just enough to make me a better man, but not an entirely different person. Lindsey wanted me to be someone new, someone that wasn’t me.
Someone Adelaide would never ask me to be. She took me as I was.
“Adelaide is my woman, and she’s the mother of both of my kids,” I told her, thinking of how much of a mother she was to Axel, even though she wasn’t even blood-related to him.
Lindsey looked down at Adelaide’s belly, and her face went pale again. Me never wanting kids had been one of the many reasons we’d divorced. We both had so many conflicting views after we signed our marriage certificate that our marriage hadn’t lasted very long at all. She wanted kids, a happy marriage with a house surrounded by a white picket fence, and nine-to-five jobs.
I was never that kind of man, and I never would be, though Adelaide had changed my mind about never wanting kids. I wanted a house full of kids with her, and I was already on the hunt for a house big enough for the number of kids that I wanted with her.
Another thing Lindsey could never wrap her head around was that I lived and breathed the club. I was an outlaw through and through. Adelaide understood that, and she took to her role well as my old lady. She was a fucking natural at it all, and my club loved her, fucking worshiped the ground that she walked on.
“River…” Lindsey spoke up, her voice trembling, and I saw her blink back tears. “I—I thought—”
“People change, Lindsey,” I informed her. “And you and I would never work out, even if I gave you everything you wanted because then, it would have just made me miserable. You could never embrace this life. You hated it way too much. You were demanding too much from me, and I couldn’t give you everything that you wanted.”
“I just wanted some of your time, River,” Lindsey choked out.
I shook my head at her. “I couldn’t give you as much as you wanted,” I reminded her. “You wanted all of it, and my life revolved around the club. Hell, it still does.”
Adelaide reached down and gently squeezed my hand before she went back to the table, where a small line was forming for food. I watched her as she smiled and laughed with the customers, her pretty face lighting up. “Her, River?” Lindsey asked, drawing my eyes back to her bitter face. “She’s nothing like the kind of women you normally settle for.”
I looked back over at Adelaide for a moment before I looked back down at Lindsey. “She’s everything I want in a woman and more, Lindsey. She’s fucking remarkable. She knows the club life, and she embraces it. The guys love her, and they worship the ground that she walks on. She understands the role I play as the president. She’s strong, and she doesn’t crumble under the pressure that’s put on her as my old lady.” I shook my head. “You could never be even half of the woman that Adelaide is in my eyes.”
Because Adelaide was my entire fucking world, and Lindsey had hardly even been part of it.
Lindsey shook her head and swiped at her cheeks as tears fell down her face. I just watched her, not feeling anything at how upset she was. “I had so much hope, River,” she said, her voice breaking.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “I don’t know why you did, Lindsey, because even if I wasn’t with Adelaide, I still wouldn’t take you back,” I bluntly told her.