AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Logan, you don’t want to hear all this.’
‘I do,’ he gritted out.
And he saw her fight one last wave of emotion...and then capitulate.
‘We’d been together since we were fifteen,’ she began slowly, woodenly. ‘I met him in the hospital.’
There was a pounding in his chest. A roaring. A storm. But Logan held it back. He forced his voice to sound even, though he had no idea how he managed it.
‘You’d both had bone cancer?’
‘No.’ She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘But we’d been through chemo together.’
So, of all people, this Kirk should have understood Kat’s circumstances. Down at his sides, out of her sight, Logan clenched his fists. How was it he had the sense that Kirk had been the one to let her down and destroy her trust? Her sense of self-worth?
‘Go on,’ his voice rumbled, low and commanding.
He couldn’t stop himself.
‘Kirk knew about the menopause, and that I couldn’t have children naturally. We talked about fostering together. Even adopting.’
It was all he could to nod encouragingly. But he didn’t speak. He didn’t trust himself.
‘When we got engaged, we started the fostering procedure. Then, about three months before we were due to get married, Kirk told me that he couldn’t handle us never having biological kids together. He said that he might not have been ready for kids at that moment, but that he would be in the future. And when he did, he would need to have a child that was a real part of himself.’
‘He left you?’
For the longest time she didn’t react. And then she gave the vaguest hint of shrug.
It was enough.
Logan seethed on Kat’s behalf. If he could have laid the guy out right now, in front of her, he would have. Though he doubted she would appreciate such a gesture.
It occurred to Logan that the depth of emotion he felt for Kat went far beyond anything he’d felt for anyone—bar Jamie—before. Certainly not Sophia. Even when she’d left him for her wealthy new lover, he hadn’t felt a fraction of the contempt he felt for this Kirk guy.
It only served to confirm that he would walk over searing coals for Kat Steel. He just needed to make her realise it, too.
‘The guy was a prize jerk, Kat.’ He barely recognised his own voice. Or the man behind it. ‘You have to see that?’
She pulled her mouth into a thin line but said nothing.
‘He wasn’t worth your love. He wasn’t worth you, for God’s sake.’
‘I know.’ It was the barest scrap of a voice. It certainly didn’t convince Logan.
‘Don’t lie to me, Kat. Telling me what you think I want to hear. I need to know that you truly believe it. That you really know you deserve better than a guy like that.’
She opened her mout
h to answer, but something stopped her. As though she’d been about to lie to him again but had decided better of it.
‘I understand what you’re saying,’ she managed slowly, though he could see every word sliced her. Wounded her. ‘I think you even believe it. But the fact is that he was entitled to want a family—a biological family—of his own. It’s a basic human desire.’
‘You can’t seriously be defending him.’
She shrugged.
‘I can’t blame him for wanting something I couldn’t give him. A child. A family. One that can’t be taken away from you after years of being the only parent they’d ever known—’ sadness and bitterness interweaved through her tone ‘—just because you didn’t give birth to them.’
