Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
He didn’t like the way his mother’s words made his skin feel too tight. “Charlotte’s uncle wasn’t directly after you.”
“Stop. Kyle, I love you but you’re not being fair to this young woman. You left her. You don’t get to come back into her life and start bossing her around. You left her and she built a new life and you’re not a part of it. That was your choice.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Yes, you did. You could have talked to her.”
Frustration welled inside him. “When should I have done that? Before Julia broke her arm? Or should I have waited until Julia shot her and we could have another talk in a hospital? You know it wasn’t the first time Julia put her in a hospital. It wasn’t even the first time she’d put a member of my family there.”
“You can’t be sure she caused Lucas’s accident.”
A few months back his youngest brother had a freak accident in a training gym. His leg had broken, but it could have been much worse. “He was the only one scheduled to use that machine at that time. It would have been easy for her to get that information, and you know damn well she was behind the fake social media account that outed Carys.”
It had been one of the first of Julia’s nasty pranks. He’d put it together during the long days spent in Wyoming. When he wasn’t working at Sandra’s bar, he was researching and mapping out all the ways he was fucked. He’d traced it back to eighteen months before when Carys’s relationship with Tristan Dean-Miles and Aidan O’Donnell had been “featured” on a gossip social media platform.
Then there had been Lucas’s accident. Kyle’s credit rating had been ruined in a way that didn’t make sense. His stepfather’s restaurant had a bunch of nasty reviews and was scheduled for several nuisance inspections.
Then MaeBe had been stabbed. At first they’d thought it was a random robbery, but he knew Julia had sent her boy toy to do the dirty work.
He should know. That used to be his job.
“I understand that this woman is dangerous,” his mother began.
“She’s deadly. She tried to kill MaeBe two seconds after I showed back up in her life.” That was where he’d made his mistake. He’d let a single conversation with a man push him into forgetting how deadly Julia was. He’d felt stupid after Brad Perry had told him he was an overly dramatic narcissist who didn’t think of anyone else.
All he did was think about MaeBe and his family.
“I understand that, too. But I know she should have a choice, and you’re not giving her one.”
“Apparently Taylor is,” he said, bitterness dripping. “I would bet Taylor talked her into it because she was perfectly reasonable this morning. She understood.”
His mother sighed, a weary sound. “That’s not good.”
“Her being reasonable isn’t good?”
“I’ve spent some time with MaeBe since you’ve been gone,” she admitted. “I wanted to see if I could salvage anything for you. She’s changed. What you did to her… Kyle, you let her believe you were dead. I know you told me and Sean, and I appreciate that, but it’s not the act of a loving partner. If she seemed reasonable to you this morning, it’s because she’s done fighting with you. She’s put you in a room and locked the door, and she’ll do what she needs to do the minute you’re gone.”
He’d felt that door between them. For a brief moment it had felt like MaeBe had unlocked it, peeked around and thought about throwing it open, but then he’d fucked up again. “Things will be fine once I take care of Julia. I’m going to make this up to her. I love her. I’ve made that plain.”
“I’m sure her father did, too. I’m sure she felt incredibly secure that she had a dad who loved her, and then the world changed and he was gone.” His mom proved she’d spent time with MaeBe because she didn’t tell that story to everyone. Most of the time she simply explained that her mom had passed and her dad didn’t live close. He did but she lied so she didn’t have to get into it. He would bet his mom had put her at ease and gotten the truth.
How many times had her dad made plans and then flaked out on her, choosing her stepmom each time. It might have been different if MaeBe had a part in forcing him to choose, but she’d never done anything but ask if she could have a relationship with him. “It’s not the same.”
“I bet it feels the same to her. I bet it was hard for her to trust you the first time around. When you think about it, faking your own death is kind of the ultimate rejection. She knows what it means to actually lose someone, someone who loved her, who didn’t want to leave her. And she knows what it means to be abandoned. Which camp do you think she puts you in?”