Free Biker Billionaire #1: A Wild Ride by Jasinda Wilder Page B

and well-behaved, and the TV would be new, but the same. And the dog would be the same, nice and calm and practical, and John, too, through it all, would be nice, and calm, and pleasant, and he’d have his hair, thinning maybe, gray maybe, and he’d be still trim and slim and we’d have sex every Saturday, maybe Sunday morning every once in a while.
    I nearly vomited.  
    John carefully pulled the car to a stop at a red light, and I was shaking, my stomach in my throat, and I couldn’t help seeing John as he’d been in ten years, in my mind: the same, just older. And me, the same, just older. Unexcited. And our life: predictable and pleasant.
    I pulled the ring off my finger and tossed it on the dash, grabbed my clutch purse, my precious Coach bag, the one nice thing I own, and I got out of the car, in the pouring, sluicing rain. In my heels. I ran out into traffic as the light turned green, and cars honked, and John yelled calmly for me to come back.  
    I swear to fucking god, John is the only man capable of yelling calmly .  
    I just gave him the finger, thumb out, Detroit-style. I kept running, made it to the sidewalk, and kept going, running blind through the cold, pelting rain. Something snapped beneath my feet, and I stumbled, tripped, and fell to the ground, slapping the rough concrete with my hands, ripping my dress. I whimpered and sat down on my butt, splashing into a puddle. I looked at my hands and saw that I’d cut up the heels of my hands on the sidewalk, and my knees were bleeding. My heel had snapped, causing to me to trip. My Coach purse, my two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar Coach purse, was lying submerged in a puddle on the grass next to the sidewalk, a muddy bog. Rain beat down on my head, my hands and knees throbbed, and my left wrist started to ache, and my purse was ruined and all my things in it wet, which meant my cell phone was ruined, my uninsured, one-year-old iPhone. I heard a car pull up next to me and a window hum open a few inches.
    “Get in,   Leo,” John said. “You’re hurt and wet. Get in, and I’ll take you home. I don’t know what got into you. You’ll catch pneumonia.”
    I stood up, expecting John to be next to me, helping me. Was he? Nope. He was sitting in the car, rummaging in the back seat for a towel to lay down on his leather upholstery. He had shoved the door open from the inside.
    I stared, open-mouthed. He couldn’t even get out of the car to help me? Nice.  
    “What are you waiting for?” John asked. “Get in! My leather is getting wet.”
    I laughed, shaking my head. “You are unbelievable.”
    I kicked off my heels and left them in the puddle. I bent down to pick up my purse, slipped in the mud, and fell again, splashing mud all over my face and the rest of my dress, which was now completely soaked and sticking to my skin. I choked back a sob as I stood up, wobbling, clutching my purse under an arm and holding my now-throbbing wrist.
    “Leona, don’t be an idiot. Get in.”
    I started walking, refusing to let the tears burning my eyes fall. Not in front of John. He’d just hand me a tissue and wait for me stop crying, like he always did.
    “Fuck off, John. We’re done.”
    “Where are you going to go? We’re five miles from home, it’s raining, you’re hurt, and you’re walking in the wrong direction.” John wasn’t pleading, or getting out to beg me, or force me to do the sensible thing; he trundled next to me in his little VW Golf and spoke to me, calmly, through the cracked window. Cracked, so rain wouldn’t ruin his leather.
    I turned to him, not stopping my barefoot slapping across the sidewalk. “What do you care? Go away and leave me the fuck alone !”  
    “You don’t need to curse at me, Leona. Fine, then. Have it your way.”
    Did I mention I thought I might be pregnant? And he just drove away, leaving me there.  
    Dick.
    I stomped through the puddles and the mud, getting wetter and wetter, my curly hair flattened against my scalp,