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In their silence, I could finally hear my own power.
They’d been manipulating me all this time, keeping secrets from me. Greyson claimed they had good reasons to keep my past from me. He thought that if I didn’t remember on my own, I’d never truly get my memories back. I would just have a shadow of memory, created from whatever they told me.
But I could manipulate them just as easily.
I didn’t think Greyson meant it when he called me their queen. Not yet. But maybe one day…
“I'm going to make breakfast,” Carter said abruptly, standing up. He had the most reason to hate Greyson.
“Kennedy, please sit down,” Sebastian said. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“I probably should have gone to the hospital,” I snapped at him. “But you all don’t want to let me out of your sight, do you?”
“Kennedy, you’re being ridiculous,” Sebastian said firmly. “If you needed to go to the hospital, we would have brought the hospital to you. We want to protect you. You have to believe that.”
It was true, that was something I couldn’t really argue.
I was exasperated with them all though, and when Greyson opened his mouth, I knew he was going to feed me more lines. And so would the rest of them.
I stormed off in Carter’s wake, proud of myself that I didn’t collapse.
I wasn’t done arguing with him. He couldn’t get away from me just by marching off to the kitchen, even if he made my favorite chocolate chip pancakes.
Though it wouldn’t hurt.
When I walked into the kitchen, Carter’s broad shoulders were toward me, and he didn’t turn around. He was rummaging through the cabinets, though he didn’t seem to find whatever he was looking for. Sanity? Normal, non-psychopathic-alpha-male masculinity? Baking powder? Whatever it was, it did not materialize.
My mind buzzed with all the different things I could say to him. But what came out of my mouth was just, “Are you all right?”
Because he didn’t look all right. There was so much tension in his shoulders and how he carried himself right now.
“Yes.”
A long, pregnant silence followed. He reached the end of that cabinet, and moved on to the next one, never looking at me.
He was such a great conversationalist.
I was about to give up on him and go back to the living room. Greyson would feed me a bunch of lies and manipulative nonsense, but at least he’d be cute about it.
But as soon as I made a move to leave, he blurted out, “I’m glad it was Sebastian.”
My mind was still very much focused on how Sebastian had burnt down my apartment, causing the loss of all my worldly goods. So, I just stared at him for a few seconds, lost and confused–my normal state of being around these men.
He still didn’t turn around. His broad shoulders and tight ass, while very cute, did not provide any answers.
“Why?” I demanded. “Because I’m pissed at you too.”
Now he finally turned around, confusion written across his handsome face. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m mad at you too,” I reminded him. “You let me sit in a hospital with no memories, no family, no sense of who I was...I thought no one loved me. I thought I had been a terrible person. Someone who wasn’t worthy of love...”
My voice cracked. I hadn’t realized how much I was still carrying the pain of that day until I could hear it in my voice. The pain of slowly trying to figure out, not just who I was and what I liked, but if I could be worthy of having people close to me when no one had ever claimed me.
He rushed to me and wrapped me in his arms. “Oh, Kennedy. You were always worthy. We never meant for you to feel that way.” He looked stricken. “Everyone fell in love with you in that hospital...not just Carrie. People rallied around you. They thought you were great, because you are. There’s no one like you.”
It was a lot of words for Carter, and he said them with conviction.
“That doesn’t mean I believed it,” I said, my voice thick with tears. It was like getting almost hit by that car had taken downall my defenses, and I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. “Not when nobody ever came for me. Who has that happen to them? Who goes unclaimed?”
