Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
I flinched at the acrimony in his voice.
He’d never, never spoken to me like that before. His tone with me was always soft, teasing, playful, sensual. Never had he spoken so harshly.
I felt it. Everywhere.
Or I imagined I would, after the shock wore off.
“You got out early,” I commented, my voice sounding vaguely detached. Kane had been gone for five months. Five months, three days and about twelve hours if you wanted to get technical.
Therefore, he should’ve still had about five months, twenty-six days and twelve hours left of his sentence.
It was a fairly benign if not logical observation, but it was obviously not the right thing to say.
“Oh, I’m sorry I got out early. Is that the reason why you weren’t there waiting for me?” he asked. No, growled. “If I’d been inside for a year, without a word from you, without knowing if you were alive or fuckin’ dead, let alone pregnant, you’d be there waiting for me, right? Like you promised?”
He was yelling now. Roaring, to be honest.
The force of his anger was a tsunami, washing over me. Yet somehow, I remained standing. I could feel my hands shaking, though. I wasn’t afraid. Not quite. I was unable to fathom that Kane was here. That Kane was able to yell at me like that.
The sun, as if to match his mood, suddenly disappeared, storm clouds darkening the afternoon and booming thunder making me jump.
“I can’t fucking believe this!” he yelled, rivaling the thunder for volume.
Rain started falling softly behind him.
“You don’t get to yell at me,” I replied quietly. I wanted to yell back. But I didn’t have the energy.
“You disappeared after I was put in prison, not a fucking word!” he screamed, both hands on his hips as he paced up and down my front porch. The rain began coming down harder. “And I thought that was bad enough, considering what I thought we had, but for the first time in my life, I actually could not conceive of the worst-case scenario. Because never in my wildest fuckin’ dreams would I have imagined the woman I loved would’ve not only abandoned me but neglected to tell me about our goddamn baby!”
He’d stopped pacing, leaning toward me to roar. In my face.
He was out of control. I could feel his frantic energy, taste the electricity of his fury crackling around me.
Kane was livid. Perhaps even dangerous. His fists were balled at his sides, veins of his forearms spiderwebbing down his arms. His nostrils were flared, eyes wide, pupils dilated, and his whole form was shaking with fury.
But I wasn’t scared. He wouldn’t hurt me. Not physically, at least.
He looked me up and down with absolute disgust. “Unless it’s not mine.”
If he’d hit me, it would’ve hurt less.
“It’s yours,” I said in a small voice.
“And that makes it so much fuckin’ worse,” he hissed, huffing out a long exhale through his nostrils.
I chewed on the inside of my mouth until I tasted blood.
“You’re entitled to your feelings,” I told him, keeping my voice even.
“Entitled to my fucking feelings?” His eyes bulged. “Yeah, I’m entitled to them. But that’s not the response I want from you. That response isn’t you. What I want is an explanation for this shit even though there isn’t a sufficient explanation for trying to hide my child from me, for robbing me of watching you grow…” My heart panged, just a tad at the way his voice cracked abruptly.
His furious veneer wavered, gifting me with a glimpse of the man beneath the anger. The man who was sleepy in the morning, who was soulful in the moonlight, who had a soft side that hadn’t hardened no matter how many times he’d thrown himself off cliffs, raced motorcycles or jumped out of planes.
Right then, he was … hurt.
My insides were shredding, and hot shame poured over me.
“Were you going to hide the baby from me after it was born?” he asked, quieter now. “Were you going to keep my kid from me?”
My heartbeat thrashed in my throat, and I had the vague feeling I might vomit up my insides.
“You didn’t want it,” I replied, putting my hands over my stomach protectively.
A gesture that Kane instantly caught and made him stiffen, likely because he thought I was protecting the baby from him.
“I didn’t want it?” he repeated quietly. “I didn’t fucking know it existed!” He was back to roaring again, gesturing violently toward my stomach.
I recoiled, though I hated myself for it.
“Don’t you dare fucking back away from me like I’m going to hurt you,” he snarled, getting in my face. “You know I’m not going to hurt you. I’d never harm a hair on your fuckin’ head.”
I bit my lip harder, the metallic taste of blood grounding me.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I muttered, mostly to myself. “I tried to tell you. I mean, I did tell you, but you didn’t want to see me.”