Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
“Fuck, Kenna…now isn’t the time for this conversation, okay? Why don’t we just get through this dinner and talk when we get home?”
“No. Tell me now.”
This time his eyes sparked with anger.
“Fine, you want the truth? I don’t see any longevity in this relationship. I haven’t in a while.”
“Because of the miscarriage?” she asked, stricken.
“Yes.” He inhaled deeply, angrily. “But not for the reasons you’re thinking. The loss of the baby was hard, but—”
She was quick to correct him. “It wasn’t a—”
“That!” The sharp interruption startled her. He stabbed a finger toward her, the movement uncharacteristically aggressive and full of suppressed rage. “Right fucking there. That is what I mean. Your pathological inability to acknowledge the loss. I fucking grieved for that baby. I know you did too. I wanted to comfort you and be comforted by you, but your stubborn refusal to even admit what we’d lost made it hard to connect with you. You’re closed off, hard to talk to, and you refuse to share anything that you’re feeling with me.”
“I never expected you to stay,” she blurted. Her words clearly confused him and he stared at her for a long moment while he tried to work it out.
“What?”
“After the miscarriage.”
He looked outraged, offended…hurt. “Seriously, Kenna? What kind of arsehole do you think I am?”
“No that’s not… It’s not that I think you’re… It’s—” She shook her head, impatient with herself.
Use your words, McKenna!
“It was the only reason you married me. The baby.”
He blinked. Stared. Blinked again. While the silence stretched on into eternity.
“It wasn’t the only reason,” he finally said, after long fraught moments of nothing. “We had—have—chemistry. We are intellectually and financially compatible. We’re…”
“You didn’t love me,” she interrupted quietly.
“What I felt for you was…” He shrugged a little helplessly. “It was complicated. But come on, Kenna. It’s not like you loved me. Did you?”
Now it was her turn to hesitate, because she wasn’t sure how she felt about him. She hadn’t allowed herself the luxury of falling for him. Even though she easily could have. He was… Well, simply put, he was lovely. And in those first four months, when they’d been flirty, lighthearted, and easy in each other’s company, when all that had been between them was sex, laughter, fun, he had felt like someone she could let herself like.
Even love.
Kenny had felt light in those first few giddy months with him. Unburdened. Free. Maybe even happy.
She’d expected the passion between them to burn out very quickly. Instead it had grown and grown and weeks had turned into months. And their fling had become something perilously close to a relationship.
She had only just begun to explore her complicated and confusing feelings when they’d gotten careless. A forgotten condom. A first for him, if he was to be believed, and she did believe him because she’d forgotten as well. And she was usually extremely diligent about checking.
Frankly, Kenny was surprised that that was the first time they’d forgotten a condom. They’d been so combustible back then and burned out of control every single time they’d made love.
One forgotten condom resulting in an unexpected but not wholly unwanted pregnancy, and Kenny had found herself plunged into uncertainty. About him, about them. The flirty lightheartedness had completely and almost instantly disappeared from their burgeoning relationship.
As had the carefree, explosive sex.
All that had remained was tension, unease, awkwardness, and an inability to communicate. And a few sexual encounters which—while good—had never gotten close to matching their pre-pregnancy encounters.
Although, Kenny knew she was largely to blame for the latter. She tended to close herself off when she had more to lose. And with Smith she feared the losses would be catastrophic and leave her broken beyond repair.
“Did you?” he prompted when she remained silent.
His voice was harsh, laced with contempt and cynicism. And when she still couldn’t find a response to the question about whether she had—or did—love him, he swore viciously beneath his breath and then sneered at her.
“I can’t live like this anymore,” he decided, frost on the edges of each word. “I can’t live with you anymore. I can’t talk to you, Kenna. You give me absolutely nothing to work with. You’re too terrified of relinquishing an ounce of that control.”
She floundered, searching for something to say, something to fix this. Because now that her worst fears were coming to fruition, now that the moment that she’d been expecting for a year and a half was finally here, Kenny found that she wasn’t ready for it. She wasn’t ready to give him up.
She tried for a rational voice, hoping to instill some calm into this emotionally fraught moment. Even though she felt far from it. The panic clawing its way from her stomach up into her throat, was a living thing, fighting to find its way out by any means possible.