Anger and betrayal blazed in Jaxon’s eyes like molten steel as he stepped further into the office, his bruised face transforming into something lethal. The sight of his pregnant fiancée in Wyatt’s arms had shattered every assumption about loyalty and love.

“I told you to stay away from her,” Jaxon declared and made the air electric with menace.

Wyatt didn’t release Addison immediately, his arms remaining around her waist with possessive certainty that challenged Jaxon’s territorial claim.

“But does she want me to stay away?” Wyatt asked with predatory calculation, his scarred features turning toward Addison. “Ask her, Jaxon. Ask her what she really wants.”

Both men’s attention focused on her with laser intensity, demanding answers she couldn’t give without destroying everything. The weight of their expectation crushed her ability to form coherent thoughts.

“Addison,” Jaxon pressed with desperate authority. “Tell him. Tell him you choose me.”

“Choose what your heart knows is true,” Wyatt countered with steel conviction. “Choose what we had before he manipulated you into replacing me.”

The words crashed over her like competing storms, each demand for loyalty tearing another piece from her fractured soul. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t process the impossible choice they were forcing her to make.

“I can’t,” she whispered, her voice breaking like crystal against stone.

“Can’t what?” Jaxon demanded with growing desperation.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she declared with voice that carried accumulated pain of loving two men who both deserved complete devotion.

Without another word, she ran. Her heels struck marble with desperate rhythm as she fled the office where impossible choices threatened to destroy her sanity.

Tears streamed down her face as she burst through the bathroom door, seeking sanctuary where neither man could follow with their territorial demands. The small space offered refuge from warfare that was tearing her apart.

She was betraying them both. Jaxon, who’d spent three years proving not every man abandoned what he loved, deserved better than a fiancée who melted at her ex-lover’s touch. Wyatt, who’d survived hell to return to her, deserved better than a woman who’d built a new life the moment she thought he was gone.

Both men loved her completely. Both would love her child with devoted protection. Both offered futures filled with security and passion. Both understood her, accepted her, promised happiness that felt genuine and lasting.

The choice should have been simple, but her heart refused to cooperate with logic.

Cold water stung her face as she tried to wash away evidence of her emotional collapse. The mirror reflected a woman drowning in love for two men who deserved better than her fractured loyalty.

“How could I do this to them?” she whispered to her reflection, guilt carving lines around eyes that had seen too much pain.

The door crashed open with violent force that shattered her temporary peace.

“Don’t you run from me,” Jaxon commanded, his voice carrying fury that made porcelain fixtures rattle.

Fresh blood trickled from a gash above his eyebrow where Wyatt’s fist had reopened old wounds. Purple bruising bloomed across his temple like evidence of continued warfare, his knuckles scraped raw from renewed violence.

“You fought him again,” she breathed with horror.

“What did you expect?” Jaxon exploded with territorial rage that filled the small space. “I found you kissing him! My pregnant fiancée kissing the man who destroyed your life!”

“I’m sorry—”

“My child is growing inside a woman who wishes she was carrying his baby instead,” Jaxon stated with devastating accuracy. “How’s that for pathetic?”

The words struck like physical blows, destroying her remaining composure completely.

“I can’t listen to this,” she declared, pushing past him with desperate strength.

“Run then!” he called after her with a voice that mixed rage and heartbreak. “Run to him! See how long he stays when reality gets complicated!”

Addison burst into the lobby, wiping tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. She needed space where neither man could find her, where territorial claims couldn’t reach her fractured heart.

The far corner offered refuge behind marble pillars where shadows provided privacy from watching eyes. She collapsed against the cold stone, her body shaking with grief that threatened to consume everything.

Bank employees noticed her distress but maintained respectful distance, understanding that whatever caused such tears was beyond their ability to comfort.

Her hands moved to her stomach where innocent life depended on her survival decisions. The baby responded with gentle movement, tiny reminder that she wasn’t completely alone in this nightmare.

“It’s just you and me, sweetheart,” she whispered against her palm. “Everyone else wants pieces of me, but you just want me to be okay.”

The baby’s presence anchored her against an emotional tsunami threatening to destroy her sanity. Whatever happened between Jaxon and Wyatt, whatever territorial war erupted around them, this child deserved protection from adult complications.

“I love you,” she breathed to the life growing within her. “No matter what happens, no matter who wins this war, I love you completely.”

Her child was the only pure thing in this chaos, the only relationship that didn’t demand impossible choices or territorial loyalty. In this corner of marble sanctuary, maternal love could flourish without betraying anyone except herself.