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So I didn’t say anything. I returned Rhiannon to her mother and leaned toward Ivy for a long hug that I hoped conveyed what I couldn’t say. Not only about August this time. About her too.
I love you. Please understand. Please don’t hate me.
You’re both all the family I have left.
Twenty-One
The first part of the drive to Kinleigh’s was made in silence. I hadn’t even turned on the radio.
What was there left to say when I’d just met—sort of—the man Kinleigh had allowed to help her become a shell of herself? He’d torn her down with words she’d not only listened to and believed, she’ d made them into a life motto and slapped them onto a T-shirt.
Some rich prick who hadn’t even introduced himself to me or done anything but look through me as if my only use was as the possible father of Kinleigh’s progeny.
Seemed to be a lot of that going around right now.
Every time I slid a glance her way, she was cupping her stomach. It probably wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone who hadn’t been trying to plant a baby in her for almost a month and a half now. But I saw far too much when it came to Kinleigh Scott.
And yet not enough to understand all the reasons she was so quick to push me away.
Regardless, we’d been working on this long enough that she could give me a progress report for how I was doing. Because, yes, I was the caveman who expected results when I went without a condom.
Even if I wasn’t sure this whole plan wasn’t insane. If I wasn’t insane to agree to it.
But God, I ached to see her belly full with our baby.
How could I get angry with her for allowing Percy-flipping-Maitland to jerk her around when most of the time, I was no better? She didn’t tear me down with words. Far from it. Her most often wielded weapon was indifference.
“When are you going to take a pregnancy test?”
Her head whipped toward mine and the hand protectively wrapped over her stomach flexed. So much for giving her time. “I will when it’s the right moment.”
“You haven’t, have you?”
“Do you really think I’d take one without telling you? We’re in this together.”
“Oh, really. If we are, then why does Ivy know that punk ass’s name and your history with him when I don’t?”
“I told you what he said.”
“Telling me what he said when you were drunk and your guard was down is not the same as a rational, adult conversation about our exes when you’re sober.”
“What about Serafina?”
The name was like a blast from the ancient past. “What about her?”
“You think I wasn’t around when you kept pingponging back and forth out of her bed? Ivy said she yanked your chain all the time.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll notice we aren’t together anymore. We haven’t been for quite a while. You’ll also notice I never mention her, never see her, never even think about her until you brought her up. Unlike your ex who I just watched render you speechless. You so badly wanted to impress him you even let me kiss you in front of my sister and God and country, so that says the hold he still has on you.”
“He wasn’t the reason I couldn’t speak. He thought I had a baby. That Rhi was mine. And you and Ivy—”
“We made sure he understood you were loved. It’s nice to do that for someone, you know?” I hated, absolutely hated, the edge to my voice, but it couldn’t be helped.
I’d tried to put a choke-chain on my impatience and irritation for weeks now. I understood that I’d been blessed to come from a decent family with good, hardworking parents, an amazing sister, and a halfway respectable brother. Not everyone had such a secure foundation. I got that. But Kinleigh never spoke of her family, which was the only tip I had that she’d had a difficult home life. She never gave me anything about herself that didn’t involve taking off my damn pants.
“I really appreciate you two stepping up for me. I understand that someone like you can’t grasp how my confidence could be knocked by Percy.”
I tapped my thumbs on the wheel. By nature, I was not a violent man. Today was testing that theory. “Percy is the most inane name I’ve ever heard. And what do you mean, someone like me?”
