AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Before I can stop myself, I bend and pick them up, noting the time stamp on the top corner. These were taken a week ago. Mentally, I do the math, thinking through dates and times. I remember that day. It was the first day I felt crummy from my pregnancy, and my stomach wasn’t right. We had back-to-back traumas all day, and I remember forcing myself to eat because I was worried about my blood sugar getting too low again. I was working a shift that day, and Bennett was off.
I had texted him a picture of me eating a protein bar, and his response was, Good girl. I’ll reward you when you get home tonight. He did. He had dinner waiting for me, and then we took a bath together. Nothing was off about him. Not one thing.
My phone rings in the pocket of my track pants, and I bend down, sliding it out. It’s Bennett. Does he know about these pictures? He rarely, if ever, calls me when he’s on a shift. I send his call to voicemail, only to have it ring again in my palm and do the same. I need a minute or twenty, and I’m not picking up the phone and talking to him right now.
Because I’m holding pictures of him fucking another woman and I’m trying—I’m trying so damn hard—to find the loophole in this, but I’m coming up short. My heart sinks to the bottom of my soul where it fractures into a million tiny pieces of obliterated flesh. I yank my swim cap off and chuck it across the room. My knees hit the hardscape, my eyes scouring each horrifying image that’s played out before me.
“Sending him to voicemail. That’s cold. Cricket must have given him the pictures. It’ll be interesting to hear him try and talk his way out of this.”
The only thing I have to cling to is that Bennett wouldn’t do this. I couldn’t say that about Zane. Zane cheating wasn’t a farfetched notion for me—not to mention I caught him in the physical act. But Bennett? I just don’t see it. I think about him that night. Him every night we’re together. The things we’ve talked about and shared.
He wouldn’t cheat.
It’s not who he is.
More than that, I can’t imagine him doing anything to risk this baby.
Me aside, that is why we started this undeniably convenient arrangement in the first place. But…
I swallow past the rock stuck in my trachea, stifling the majority of the air from my lungs. My palms turn into sheets of sweat, and the pages become rumpled middle fingers pointed directly at me. The images all blur together. Her body. His body. The dark hotel room. The silk gold curtains surrounding the window, the shades partially closed. I know that hotel. It’s the Four Seasons in Boston. I’ve been to events there.
I look up at a supremely smug Cayden. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I’m sick and fucking tired of everyone always loving him.”
My lips twist. “You mean like his ex-wife?” I give him mockingly sad eyes. “Aw, poor Cayden. No one loves you. Tell it Dr. Phil or someone who pretends to give a shit.”
His eyes flare, and I know I’m onto something there.
“You love her, right? I mean, you were fucking her for a couple of years. But she obviously didn’t want you the same way you want her, which I get. Why would anyone pick you when they could have him?”
I stand, leaving the photos on the ground. I’ll deal with them in a minute.
“Or is it more than that? Are you so in love with him that you’d take any piece of him you could get? Are you trying to ruin his life because he’ll never love you back and neither will his wife?”
“Fuck you,” he snarls, and I laugh caustically because that’s about all I have left right now.
“Never.” I shrug. “Him on the other hand…”
Rage boils up his face, hardening his features and reddening his cheeks. I likely shouldn’t be taunting him like this. I’m alone in this building with a man twice my size and I’m pregnant. His hatred of all things Bennett puts me at a greater risk because he knows I’m pregnant with Bennett’s child. A child Bennett has wanted for a long time.
Provoking a hungry bear fresh from hibernation never turns out well for the unsuspecting tourist. Not to mention he said he’s been watching me for a while. That’s the creepiest thing ever. Every woman’s worst nightmare. I need him to leave, and I need him to leave now. I can deal with him after that.
“When my father died,” I tell him, “I watched from the back seat, stuck and unable to move. I saw the slow, agonizing pain of his death. I hope one day you feel something a million times worse than that.”
He chokes, not having expected that from me, and I’m not sure how much I mean it. I’m not one to wish death and pain on others—I’m a freaking trauma surgeon—but I hate this man with unparalleled vitriol.
“You can go now. You’ve done your worst.”
“Not yet, Katy. I’m not sure I’ve done my worst yet. I’ve always had a fondness for ruining all the things Bennett loves.”
He touches my hair, running his fingers down a thick lock of it, and I shiver at the cold malice in his eyes.
I give him a good, hard shove toward the exit, pushing all my weight into it and making him stumble a few steps, but unfortunately, he catches himself before he falls. For a second, he looks like he’s about to come at me, but I point to the cameras in the corner.
“I wouldn’t try it,” I warn, holding his gaze and refusing to flinch. “You lay a finger on me, and I’ll have you in jail for the rest of your life. That’s not a threat. It’s a promise. If you’ve done your stalkerish research, then you know exactly who I am and the pull I have in this city.”
For a moment, he blinks, stunned by that, and I wonder if he has or if he’s been so toxically focused on Bennett that he has no clue. I hope he doesn’t.
