Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Kip’s face stayed cold, expressionless. “Did you plan this?” He gestured to my flat stomach violently.
So much so, I almost flinched.
Almost.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked him.
“No, I’m not fuckin’ kidding you,” he snarled. “You need to get married for a Green Card, fine. We need to live together for appearances, I don’t give a fuck. Then I get inside that cunt because I need to fuck, and that’s good.” He stepped forward.
On reflex, I retreated, and I fucking hated myself for doing so.
“You tell me I don’t need to wrap it,” he continued in that quiet tone. “Goes against everything I’ve practiced, but I don’t think you have a reason to lie, and I’m too caught up by that fuckin’ pussy, so I believe you. So stupid. So fucking stupid.” He hit his forehead with the back of his hand. Violently.
My body wanted to shake from fear, my senses hurtling back years to when a man did scare me, when a man hurt me—but I tilted my chin up to let him know I wasn't scared. Or let him think I wasn’t scared.
“And what, pray tell, do you think my reason would be for getting pregnant on purpose?” I asked him, letting my irritation gain a foothold. It helped quell the fear.
“You think I want to trap you?” I continued. “You? The construction worker who drinks too much, who lived in pretty much squalor, who luckily doesn’t have venereal diseases, and whose only redeeming quality is that he can eat pussy like a champ?” I pressed the back of my hand to my own forehead. “Yes, that’s exactly it. I’m ruining my body, changing my future, and ensuring my mid-to-late thirties will be filled with dirty diapers and a screaming infant and not one second to go to the bathroom by myself. Yes, I did this on fucking purpose!”
I was yelling now.
It felt good.
It felt even better to see that I’d caused a slight chink in Kip’s scary badass armor. A good thing too.
But even chinked, it was still formidable.
He was quiet for a long time. As if he was weighing my words, testing them for truth.
“I’m not going to be a father,” he murmured.
“Well, you should’ve thought of that before you blew, like, hundreds of loads into me,” I returned. Not exactly classy, but fuck it, I wasn’t some debutante.
“You said you couldn’t get pregnant! You fucking lied!” he roared in my face. Yes, roared. Like a dragon or something.
I’d been yelled at plenty of times by an angry man. But never roared at like this. Not with this force of anger.
Kip seemed… unhinged. His eyes were wide, his cheeks were ruddy red, and his body was trembling with rage. His fists were clenched at his sides, and he barely looked like he was stopping himself from… hitting me?
No.
I’d thought a lot of things about Kip since I met him and then married him, most of which were negative. But I’d never thought he would ever physically lay hands on a woman. I’d figured that was a watertight theory. But it seemed like it was leaking right now.
I was frozen in place. I was the girl married to a monster once more, silently submitting, waiting for his judgment without fighting.
Kip stared at me a long time with that wild, terrifying gaze, not moving a muscle, breathing heavily.
“Fuck this,” he muttered before turning around and walking away.
The door slammed behind him.
Then I flinched.
kip
I wasn’t surprised when my best friend sat next to me on the barstool.
Fiona had likely told Nora before she even told me. Chicks did shit like that. Therefore, Nora probably told Rowan at some point. And likely, after the episode at the beach house, Fiona probably got on the phone with Nora, recounted the whole thing, and made me look like the piece of shit I was.
Either Fiona was at Nora’s place or Nora was at our place.
Fuck, our place. It wasn’t that.
If anything, it was my place. I fucking owned it.
I’d been drinking here since I left. Pretty fucking cliché. Man loses it after he finds out his fake wife is pregnant and goes to get wasted.
Well, the fake wife part wasn’t cliché, but the rest was.
Me screaming at her. Me feeling so out of control I was afraid of what I might do. Not to her. Never to fucking her. But I wanted to tear that house apart with my goddamn hands.
Fiona had stared at me like I was going to tear her apart. Like she expected it. Like she’d experienced it before. I’d never forget the fear in her eyes for as long as I fucking lived.
“Another,” I said, pushing my glass forward.
I was on Jameson.
Not my usual drink.
Not in a while, anyway. Jameson and I had been the best of friends for a while, when I was drinking myself into a hole, trying to find the courage to eat a bullet.