Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 102929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
“You did leave! Let’s not forget that!”
Vindictively, he replied, “Yeah… and it didn’t take you long to find comfort in my brother’s arms, did it?”
“That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair, sweetheart.”
“News flash,” I reminded him. “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t left me.”
“You don’t think I know that! You don’t think I have to live with this! Do you think it’s been easy for me to leave you? That I haven’t been thinking about you every moment of every day…? I left because I couldn’t stay. It was all too much, Isla. But how about you ask me why I came back?” he finally confessed. “I came back because I can’t live without you. You mean everything to me. You’re mine. No matter what, you always will be. All I’ve wanted to do is protect you and keep you safe. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to make you turn to my brother, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life. Do you have any idea how hard it is to know that? How hard that is to accept?”
My lips trembled. It was on the tip of my tongue.
“What do you want me to say?” He coaxed. “What do you need to hear, Isla? You want to know the truth. I’ll tell you the truth…” Without thinking twice about it, he spoke with conviction, “I love you. I’ve always loved you, and I won’t ever stop. Do you understand me? I’m in love with you! That’s why I came back…”
Tears brimmed my eyes. My heart ached, pouring out for all to see.
His expression suddenly turned heated as he called out, “Are you really going to stand there, though, and pretend you two haven’t been—”
“Yeah, Julius,” I interrupted. “And you were gone all those times too.”
“I was working, Isla, like I’ve been for the past month and a half. I wasn’t fucking around on you.”
Kraven abruptly intervened, “She didn’t cheat on you, Julius, so stop acting like she did. You weren’t together. You haven’t been together. She’s not yours… You just think she is…”
Realizing he didn’t know the truth, Julius broke his illusion into a million pieces, enjoying every last second of it as he brutally ripped the rug out from under him before I could chime in.
Crudely, he lit the flame. “I was her first, Kraven. She became mine the night before I left, you fuck.”
My heart exploded.
What did I do? How do I fix it? Where do we go from here?
Kraven jerked back, glancing over at me with an expression I couldn’t read. “Is that true?”
I swallowed hard, shivering.
“Is. It. True?”
“I… I…”
I was backed into a corner. In less than a second, my world as I knew it suddenly came crashing down on me. All the blood drained from my face as I stood there frozen.
Immobile.
Shocked and nervous.
His reaction triggered something inside me. Our eyes never wavered from one another as I grasped the reality of the future. For a minute, my pain broke through the uncontrollable emotions.
I strained, locking up, staying firmly rooted to the place I stood with the wind knocked out of me. I felt like I’d just been punched in the stomach.
My heart.
My mind.
My love…
Was broken.
Snapping like the strings of Julius’s violin. They were both yanking every sentiment from my body, every last emotion as if it belonged to them.
I might have been standing there with them, but my mind was somewhere else entirely.
“Isla,” Julius stressed, “tell him the truth!”
I gasped, placing my hand over my mouth, not wanting to be heard.
The truth blatantly slapped me in the face again. I couldn’t stop my feet from moving, following the sound of his voice.
Three steps.
Two.
One.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to do, about to feel—sucking all the air from my lungs, taking my heart and shattering it into a million pieces.
It was this raw, excruciating torture.
I was so confused.
Torn between two brothers.
As much as I urged myself not to leave, to run, it willed me to stay in place. I needed to remain strong.
When I came face-to-face with Julius, I mocked, “What truth is that? Huh? The truth that you left me… the truth that I’ve slept with both of you now…”
Julius’s gaze widened as I stepped away, looking back and forth between them for a moment before I added…
* * *
“Or how about the truth that I’m pregnant and I don’t know which brother I’m pregnant by.”
Chapter
Fifty-Four
Kraven
The ticking time bomb that we lived inside didn’t just explode that time.
No, it blew everything we thought we knew out of the water.
“I…” Isla stuttered, shaking her head.
“You took a test?” Julius asked, looking only at her.
His composure was steady.
Calm.
Unlike mine, I was dying inside.
“Has it been confirmed by a doctor?” he asked, remaining in control.