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)
“You’re my wife,” he countered.
“For immigration reasons. Nothing else,” I shot back.
“Maybe at the beginning,” he agreed. His eyes ran down my body possessively. “But even if you won’t admit it out loud right now, you know we were more than that. Most especially when we created her.” He reached out as if he were going to caress my stomach but caught himself at the last moment.
My body tensed. I wasn’t sure if it was in relief or disappointment.
There was too much going on right now. I’d just been in a serious car accident, certain I was going to lose my baby. Then I didn’t lose my baby—yet—and my husband arrived and laid his whole heartbreaking past bare to me. Then I’d done the same. Well, I hadn’t exactly laid it bare. I’d shoved it into one compact sentence, but it got the message across.
This was enough physical and emotional turmoil to last a lifetime. And it had been crammed into a handful of hours.
Too much.
“You need to go,” I told him.
His determined look went nowhere. Neither did that edge of tender… longing.
I hated it. And I fucking hated that it made me feel things other than resentment and hatred. Damn baby hormones making me fond of my husband.
“Leave,” I gritted out.
He regarded me for another long handful of seconds before nodding and standing.
“Just to be clear, I’m leaving this room,” he said. “I’m not leaving the hospital. Not without you.” His eyes grazed over my stomach. “Both of you.”
sixteen
Those Fucking Men
kip
My ears were ringing when I walked down the halls of the hospital.
Fiona was okay. The baby was okay. Although I would only entirely believe that when I got to see it with my own eyes and hear the heartbeat. I made a mental note to figure out a way to arrange an ultrasound.
Then I was momentarily paralyzed with fear at the thought of seeing my child on the screen. My child. It would make it real. As if it hadn’t been real for Fiona since the moment she got the positive test.
She told me she hadn’t had a second to escape her body. Her trauma. Not only the trauma of losing children in the past but having a husband beat her after that. I couldn’t comprehend that. Couldn’t connect such a horrific detail with the woman I knew. But it was true. I could feel it, the pain in her words, in her eyes. It was all lodged in my throat, and I was unable to swallow it.
Fuck, I couldn’t imagine what she’d been going through. What she had no choice to go through while I checked the fuck out.
She did the right thing not letting me off the hook. I didn’t deserve to be.
Nor did her ex. The soon-to-be dead one.
I kept walking, despite how much I wanted to punch a wall or tear something apart.
That wasn’t productive, and I had shit to do.
Nora and Rowan were in the waiting room, as I’d expected. Nora’s face was cloaked in worry, also as I’d expected.
Rowan had his game face on, his arm around his wife.
Nora stood the second she saw me. “Is she okay?” she demanded, tone frantic.
I hadn’t intended on rushing her as I did. But all I could think about was what Fiona told me.
“My husband pushed me down the stairs after I lost our baby.”
I couldn’t believe I didn’t tear the room apart after I heard that. But that would only serve to turn me into a violent man, serve to prove that I was just like the guy who’d brutalized her. Who she was running from. Who, after all these years, was the reason she was terrified to go back home.
Yeah, my wife tumbling down the stairs after suffering a miscarriage was front and center in my mind when I walked up to Nora.
I wasn’t going to touch her, but I was aware that I was not myself. That I looked dangerous. Nora scuttled back a couple of steps before holding her ground. It was impressive. She wasn’t a coward.
“Did you know?” I bit out.
Rowan moved in front of his wife, his face fucking murderous.
“Step back,” he clipped. I could hear his frayed control, could sense he was seconds away from putting hands on me.
Nora rested her hand on his shoulder. “Rowan,” she said softly. “It’s okay.”
Rowan glared at me in warning a moment longer, a muscle in his jaw twitching. He wanted to hurt me for getting in his wife’s face. That’s how much this woman meant to him. He wouldn’t hesitate to beat the shit out of his best friend for her.
Granted, I knew there were also some other reasons for him wanting to beat me up that weren’t entirely because of me getting in Nora’s face.
He stepped back but lingered close to his wife, watching me as if I were unpredictable. Dangerous.