Broken (EBOOK)

He was forty years old.
He was single.
He was happy that way.
Sighing, he lifted his beer to his lips and internally shook his head at himself. He wasn’t actually happy. He was miserable and lonely. Oh, and he might as well add fucking pathetic to that tally.
Because the woman he was in love with was married.
To a perfectly nice man, who loved her and cared for her and treated her like the fucking queen she was.
But that didn’t help Luc or his loneliness problem.
So, he was sitting on his front porch drinking a beer, trying to forget the woman he’d fallen for two years before, only to find out she was married two weeks later. Lexi was with the legal department for the Baltimore Breakers, the NHL team he was the GM for. He’d fallen hard when witnessing her skills at contract negotiations, fallen harder when she’d proven to be whip-smart and hilarious in equal parts.
She was beautiful, smart, funny. She was everything he’d ever dreamed of.
And . . .
Then he’d met her husband while grabbing a beer with Lexi and some coworkers.
“Luc,” she’d said, smiling up at him, its intensity punching him right in the gut, “this is my husband, Caleb.”
Caleb?
What kind of name was that?
“Fucking hell,” Luc muttered, taking another sip of his beer, hating the other man, and yet respecting him, because there was love between them.
Deeply rooted love that spoke of a happy relationship.
Luc hated it.
Cue lonely, pathetic asshole.
Mainly because he was a glutton for punishment, or maybe he just couldn’t resist Lexi because he’d spent the last two years becoming friends with both Lexi and Caleb. Backyard barbeques? Yup. Holiday celebrations, exchanging birthday presents, baking flipping Christmas cookies together. Certainly. Random dinners and errands and meetups for drinks. Check, check, check.
See? He was a glutton for punishment.
But he’d gotten to spend time with the woman he loved, so much time, in fact, that they’d become best friends.
He was a forty-year-old man who was practically on the edge of exchanging BFF bracelets with a woman he was pathetically in love with and yet could do nothing about.
Part of him still hated Caleb, but he’d never mess with Lexi’s happy. Would never be that person who fucked up a good marriage.
So he contented himself with his single status, with their friendship.
With phone calls and board game nights, text chains that ran into the thousands of messages, GIF wars and bursting out into laughter at the worst moments.
Because he and Lexi just clicked.
Because everything with her was fucking perfect.
Except . . . that she was married.
Sighing, he stood up and turned toward his front door, was just reaching for the handle when he heard the screech of tires.
Spinning, he watched the car pull to a stop, the driver’s door open, and Lexi tumble out.
He was running before he realized he’d moved, reaching her in seconds.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, noting the tears, the reddened eyes, the mascara blackening the skin beneath her eyes. “Lexi, are you hurt?”
She nodded, threw herself into his arms.
“Where, honey?” he asked. “Where?”
Lexi tore herself away, and the pain in her gaze shredded his insides. “It’s Caleb.”