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)
More anguish. And guilt. Yeah, he was punishing himself. Clear as day.
Oh, how badly I wanted to get out of bed and crawl into his lap. I wanted to tell him I forgave him.
“There are no words,” I said, my voice scratchy and weak. “Absolutely no words for me to explain how sorry I am that that happened to you. How fucking horrific that is.”
My skin crawled with the knowledge of what he’d had. What he’d lost. It was impossible for me to fully comprehend in this moment, with so much heavy shit happening in a concentrated amount of time.
“But I am sorry,” I told him quietly. “So fucking sorry that happened to you. And now that I know, I can understand a lot of you. I can understand why you chose to live the life you lived. Why you wanted distance between us. Fuck, I can even understand your initial reaction to the pregnancy.”
I stared at the broken man in the chair beside my bed, hanging on my every word, no longer intent on driving me away.
I sighed, frowning at the cast on my arm. “I can get all of that,” I continued. “For a week. Two, maybe. But it’s not going to work as a blanket excuse for you treating me the way you have for five fucking months.”
Kip winced, and the soft part of my heart hurt with the motion, immediately wanting to take the words back. But I also had a harder, calcified heart, one broken and ruined by men, that urged me on.
“I know our marriage vows were bullshit, that we didn’t mean them the same way most people mean them, so you were under no obligation to me.”
I twirled the simple gold ring on my left hand. I’d really wanted to forgo wedding rings, but it didn’t look good. And this thing was all about appearances.
“But I also thought we had… something,” I said weakly. “Something neither of us was willing to admit, but something that was there nonetheless.” I took a deep breath, not wanting to say what I had to say next. Wanting to let Kip off the hook.
It was oh so tempting.
“But you got to use your trauma as your own reasoning to check the fuck out,” I said finally. “To leave me to go through this alone. And I didn’t have that choice.”
I bit my lip, bracing myself for what I was about to reveal. “I used to have a husband who would push me down the stairs or punch me in the face when I lost our babies.”
Kip sucked in a harsh breath as if he were sucking all of the oxygen out of the room. His posture went stiff, and fury encapsuled his entire body.
I expected such a reaction.
He might not have lived up to the whole alpha male protective thing over the past several months, but the alpha male in him was awake with a vengeance.
I was surprised he didn’t stomp around the room breaking things.
“Yeah, you’re not the only one with a tragic past,” I told him with a sad smile. “I may have left mine behind on a whole other continent, but it followed me easily. And I didn’t get to escape it. Didn’t get to ignore it like you ignored me.”
I placed my good hand on my stomach. My chest was tight with worry even now. I squeezed my eyes shut for a second before opening them and focusing on Kip once more.
His gaze was glued to me. More torture. More anguish. More fury.
“Now, I’m sure you have had a lot of turmoil,” I said. “I’m not discounting that. But I don’t get to ignore it. I have to live in my body every damn day. I don’t get a fucking moment, not a second, to escape my worry that I’d go through another miscarriage and have to survive it. I’ve had to live with my abject terror. I didn’t get the luxury of checking out.”
Kip’s face was ashen. Guilt overcame me. But he deserved this. Because despite my sorrow for the man, I had been through my own kind of hell. In fact, I was still there, the flames hot and unyielding.
“So, I am infinitely sorry for what you went through, but that doesn’t give you a ‘get out of jail free card’ here,” I said gently. “You don’t get back in my life like that. Our arrangement, which you so deftly crafted, still stands.”
He stared at me, blinking rapidly, his expression tight, full of pain. Full of regret.
“I’m going to win you back,” he vowed after a few long moments where I guessed he was digesting everything I’d just said.
My stomach bottomed out with his words and the resolute tone in which he spoke them. It unnerved me.
“You can’t win me back,” I said, my voice even despite the swirling of my insides. “You never had me in the first place.”