Holden's Resurrection (Gemini Group Book 6)

talked to him. He found the pictures. They’re of me and Charleigh. Like I said, they’re taken out of context.”
Holden was at a loss for words and the oxygen in his lungs seized.
“How in the fuck are there pictures of you and Leigh-Leigh?”
“This is the part you’re not gonna want to talk about.”
“And what part is that, Chasin? The part where you were fucking—”
“Don’t go there, brother. You know that never happened so don’t say shit just because you’re mad at yourself for the epic fuck-up you instigated.”
Good Christ.
He hated it, but Chasin was right. Everything that had happened all started because he’d fucked up.
“Then what don’t I want to talk about?”
It was a stupid question, considering Holden didn’t want to talk about any of it.
Chasin leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees, and speared Holden with fiery regard.
“I suppose you don’t want to talk about any of it, but particularly the reason why I was visiting Charleigh.”
“Christ, Chasin, cut to it.”
“Those pictures were taken a few hours before Paul and Charleigh’s wedding. She called me and asked to meet her at Red Wing Park. She was having second thoughts. Or maybe she was having third and fourth thoughts.” Chasin paused and Holden didn’t like the way his chest tightened. “Charleigh admitted that even though you’d broken it off with her that the two of you had slept together on more than one occasion in the five months you’d been apart. And she was worried that the baby she was carrying might be yours.”
There it was. That constant ache of wanting made itself known, and Holden felt his feet itching to run. The child who had plagued his thoughts for years, the child he wished was his.
“Yet she married him,” Holden spat.
The remark was wholly unfair. Holden knew Faith was Paul’s, and the snide comment against Charleigh was uncalled for. But to this day, hearing about Charleigh marrying Paul burned.
“Don’t go there. The whole situation was as fucked as it could’ve been. You left her without an explanation. You were with her for years, brother, and one morning, you wake up, pack your shit, and tell her it’s over. You were miserable, wouldn’t talk to us about why you’d left her. You crashed at my place, Nixon’s, and Weston’s. Then for five months, you strung her along. You fucked her when you wanted but refused to talk to her otherwise.”
“And during all of that, with my head as fucked-up as it was, I didn’t fuck anyone else. She did,” Holden lamely defended.
He knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on; he’d screwed Charleigh over. He’d done everything Chasin accused him of doing and then some. There was more he’d done, hurtful, mean things he’d said in his quest to make Charleigh hate him. He had needed her gone, and he was too weak to let her go. So he’d set about making her hate him. And Paul was right there, ready to pick up the pieces.
It didn’t work.
Nothing ever worked.
Not even when she married someone else did Holden stop loving her.
“Why was she at the bar that night with Alison?” Chasin asked.
Hell to the no. Holden wasn’t going there. That might have been the single biggest screw-up of his life. He’d said horrible things to Charleigh that had driven her to seek out Nixon’s then-girlfriend, Alison, who was a conniving bitch. Charleigh got trashed, and by the time Holden had found her to apologize for what he’d said, he saw her and Paul stumbling out of a cab and into her place.
Five hours later Holden watched Paul exit the apartment that at one time he’d shared with Charleigh. His friend—his teammate—had fucked his woman in his own goddamned bed. Though it wasn’t his bed and Charleigh wasn’t his woman by then—he’d thrown it all away.
“Tell me about the pictures.” Holden changed the subject.
With a long-suffering sigh, Chasin answered. “We were sitting on a park bench and Charleigh was crying. One picture is of her head leaning on my shoulder. There’s another of me hugging her, and right before we parted ways, I kissed her on the forehead. All innocent and taken out of context. I was consoling a friend who in a few hours was marrying a man she didn’t love while leaving the man who she did behind.”
Holden knew Chasin was telling the truth. Unlike Paul, Chasin would never touch Charleigh. They’d been close friends. Hell, Charleigh had been close to his whole team. She was friendly and likable. Never nagged or bitched, was always up for a good time. She could hang with the guys and drink beer or sit with the women and gab with them. Everything about Charlotte Axelson was perfect. His Leigh-Leigh, the only woman he’d ever love.
But she wasn’t his—she was Charleigh Towler—Paul’s widow.
“And now, the Towlers are using those to what, prove Charleigh’s an unfit parent?”
Paul’s mom and sister, the White Trash Twins, as Paul not-so-lovingly had called them.
“They’re using the pictures to try to claim the money he left her and Faith. They’re using her move to Maryland to prove she’s unfit,” Chasin explained.
“That’s absurd.”
From everything Holden had seen, Charleigh was a good mother. She loved her daughter and had worked hard to provide a nice home for the two of them. Before they’d moved to Maryland, Charleigh had a nice two-bedroom condo in a decent part of Virginia Beach. She’d had a good job that paid well. All of which she’d given up to move to Maryland after Holden had been shot.
Now she and Faith lived in an okay apartment above a real estate office three blocks from the Gemini Group office. Gone was her view of the beach, her friends, her job, Faith’s school. Charleigh had given up everything and uprooted her family to be closer to him.
All because he’d been shot. A reminder that life was short. Though Holden didn’t think she needed to be reminded. She lived with the knowledge every day. Her husband had been