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)
“Kenna, all I want…all I’ve ever wanted was to really know you. Hearing all of this, it explains so much.”
“Right.” She nodded, not sure what it was explaining, but hoped he didn’t think her even more of a weird misfit because of her poor little rich girl mommy and daddy issues.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing.
“A couple of years after my mother’s death, my brothers started drifting back into the fold. Gideon had moved to South Africa after art school, but he and I began communicating regularly. I moved here to study and live when I was twenty-one. It made me feel closer to my mother. It’s not rational, I know…but I just felt like this was where I belonged.
“After that we started a group chat with Nox and Cade too. I think we all missed how close we used to be as kids and wanted to reconnect again. We had separate lives and were living on different continents, but it was nice to be in contact with them again.
“The boys were all working through their own crap, but little by little we were able to find one another again. Even my father mellowed with age. He wants to spend time with us. Get to know us. He’s made mistakes, but he’s still dad and he’s trying. Gideon, Cade, they’ve managed to find happiness, patch up their broken parts.
“And, when I met you, I was so hopeful. I thought I was doing the same, you know? Fixing what was broken. But on the night you left, you told m-me that I b-broke you…” A sob constricted her throat and she struggled past it and continued. “Instead of fixing myself, I broke you. And I’ll never, ever forgive myself for that, Smith.”
Chapter
Twenty
Christ.
Smith flinched at the heart-wrenching admission. He hadn’t known the words he’d flung at her so impulsively all those weeks ago would hit quite so hard.
He’d said them out of anger, pain, frustration, and even meant them. But if he’d known then what he knew now, he would have picked his words more carefully. Because he’d inadvertently chosen the perfect words with which to punish her.
“Kenna, the things I said that night were…” He shook his head as he considered what to say. He needed to take more care with his words around her and think where and how they would land. “Cruel. I said a lot of really cruel shit. That awful comment I made about you being the last woman on earth I’d ever want to have a child with…”
She paled, her eyes gleaming with tears of remembered pain and his heart just about broke at the sight of them.
“It was so fucking unforgivable. I wanted to inflict the maximum amount of damage. I wanted you to understand that there was nothing left between us. I chose to go scorched earth with you because I thought it was the easiest, fastest way to end things. It was a disgraceful way to speak to you. Shameful and disrespectful and showed none of the regard and deference due to you as my wife. You didn’t deserve it. And I’m so fucking sorry.
“I can’t say I never meant to hurt you, because that would be a lie. I wanted to hurt you, so I spewed out all of that poison. And then I walked out believing that you were bulletproof, and that nothing I had said would even leave a dent.
“It was only later, halfway to Riversend, that reaction set in. For the first time, I actually heard what I’d said to you. My own words kept echoing around my head. Over and over again. The ugliness of them. The cruelty. And I don’t remember much after that. I pulled over somewhere, I know that much. And threw up on the side of the road.”
A small, painful sob shuddered through her body and she retreated even further into herself.
“You only said those things because I let you believe that I was thick-skinned, unfeeling, and uncaring,” she whispered.
“Don’t you dare take the blame for my dickholeishness, Kenna. Let me have this one.”
He was gratified when his silly words teased a rusty, wet giggle from her.
“But you’re Mr. Nice Guy, Smith,” she croaked, her voice still thick with tears. “Nobody would believe for a second that you’re a dickhole. Better to leave me as the villain of the piece. More plausible.”
“You saying I don’t have it in me to be a villain, sweetheart?” he asked in mock outrage. “I’ll have you know I can brood and glower and snap and snarl with the best of them.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed,” she said quietly.
God, he had really fucking done a number on her. Smith, along with the rest of the glowering, glaring, snapping, and snarling men in her life.
“And I’ve noticed that you’re more of a Miss Nice Girl than you believe, Kenna.”