Page 33 of Honor ’N’ Duty

Laia’s arms dropped to her sides. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She stared at him, her brown eyes as wide as chocolate Moon Pies.

Christ, his skin was on fire. He had to get out of the kitchen, the walls of which were closing in on him, squeezing the life from his body and suffocating him. If he didn’t get a cold shower now, he’d die of heatstroke.

Chapter Ten

To say she was shocked was an understatement of monolithic proportions. Laia couldn’t move, could barely breathe even though her heart pounded fast and loud in her ears.

He had to be kidding if he thought he could drop a bomb like that and just walk away. He’d never stopped thinking about her. He wanted her. He’d always wanted her. Oh my God. How was that even possible?

They’d spent a grand total of about forty minutes in an elevator plus a few angry words at her wedding reception, followed by one sentence of condolences at Josh’s funeral.

Somehow the signal from her brain finally made it to her feet, and she raced after him through the living room, but he was already climbing the stairs. “Kade, wait.”

“Mommy,” Rosa said as she draped an arm over Smoke’s back. “We’re hungry. When can we eat?”

“Soon, sweetie,” she mumbled, staring at Kade’s back. “Kade, stop. We need to talk.”

His back stiffened. “I know you can hear me.” At the top of the stairs, he turned and disappeared. Damn him. Damn all men. The Sampson brothers anyway.

Numbly, and with her heart slowing only fractionally, she headed back to the kitchen.

“Mo-meee, I’m hungry,” Rosa wailed. She and Smoke were still cuddled up on the floor. The best thing to do would be to get her daughter fed and up to bed before she had a real crank-fest.

“Dinner will be ready in ten minutes,” Laia called out.

She went back into the kitchen. For a full minute, she stared at the three perfectly constructed quesadillas waiting to be heated.

Just because you said I do to my brother didn’t make that stop.

A man with Kade’s looks and personality could have any woman he wanted, and she’d assumed that once he found out she was engaged, he’d moved on. Had she known on the day of her wedding what she knew now, would she have done anything differently?

Perhaps not. Probably not. No. Admitting it sucked, but back then she’d been a different person, one incapable of standing alone on her own two feet.

Weeks before she’d ever met Kade, the wheels of fate had already been set in motion. Two pink lines on the pregnancy test wand and her life changed forever. More importantly, her life was no longer her own. From that moment on, she, and only she, was responsible for another human being—the tiny life growing inside her.

She turned on the faucet, splashed cold water on her face, then dried herself off with a towel.

Minutes before walking down the aisle, she’d nearly taken off and escaped down the beach. All because she’d looked into Kade’s eyes. Kade had said he’d wanted her. But would he have wanted Rosa, too? Rosa was another man’s child. His brother’s child. She couldn’t have taken that chance. Securing a future for her child was the only thing that had mattered. So she’d sacrificed her own happiness, her dreams, and agreed to a marriage that wound up failing miserably in so many ways she could never have imagined in her worst nightmares.

She drizzled oil into a pan and, when the oil was hot enough, placed one of the quesadillas in to heat. As she chopped the rest of the tomatoes and lettuce, she did a mental rewind, trying to remember everything Kade had said and done in the last twenty-four hours. Since coming to my rescue, which was exactly what he’d done, no questions asked.

In truth, over the last twenty-four hours, Kade had been nothing but kind and had behaved more like a father to Rosa than Josh ever had. It was almost as if Josh had been in love with the idea of having a family, but when it came down to the practical realities of it had become disappointed. And there was no way the picture Josh had painted of his brother was accurate.

It had all started at the wedding reception. Kade had just warned her not to hurt Josh.

“What’s going on here?” Josh had asked.

“Good question,” Kade snapped. “I was just saying goodbye.” Then he’d walked away, leaving her upset and confused by his hurtful words.

Josh had cupped her face. “Laia, did he hurt you?”

“No, of course not. Why would you say that?” She stared at Kade’s receding form, wondering how she could feel something so strongly for a man she barely knew.

When she turned back, Josh’s expression had gone hard. “There are things you don’t know about Kade. He can be a real selfish bastard.”

Now she understood Josh’s harsh words stemmed from sibling rivalry. She’d often wondered if Josh had been envious of Kade. Maybe he’d sensed something between them.

Laia dumped the chopped lettuce into the bowl Kade had taken down for her. Despite his words to her that day, and the fact he’d avoided her entirely since then, she’d never stopped thinking about Kade, either, which made her partly responsible for her marriage spiraling downhill.