AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Maybe that was why I liked it so much.
No one could change it.
She settled her hand on mine on the rail again. “Tell me why you hate Christmas, Lincoln.”
“Why do you always need to poke?”
“Because you don’t make any sense. A guy that goes all out for Christmas in his store, owns a Santa suit that was as carefully made as an Armani suit, and gives to his employees with a generosity that belies your Scrooge-like behavior doesn’t make sense. I like things to make sense.”
“You’ll be disappointed then because I still don’t understand it myself three years later.”
17
Kay
I wasn’t sure what to say. If I pushed, he might clam up again, but if I said nothing, he didn’t react much better. I opened my mouth to ask a question when he finally spoke.
“Christmas Day was supposed to be my wedding day. It was my favorite holiday, so why wouldn’t I want to extend the celebration?”
A swallowed down the lump that formed. “Oh, Linc.”
He shrugged. “That wasn’t even the bad part.”
How could anything be worse? Oh, God, was she dead? I was afraid to ask.
He tightened his fingers under mine. “I lost two people that day in the church.”
He didn’t mean… God, no. I wound my arm around his so I could lean my cheek against his arm. When he didn’t say anything else, I prompted him. “Lost?”
“Sheridan was pregnant. It wasn’t why I was marrying her. To me, it had just been a bonus since we’d been engaged for nearly a year. I wanted a family, so it seemed like everything was falling together perfectly.”
“Did she die?” I whispered.
His laugh was harsh. “No, but I did think about killing her a few times after she disappeared.”
Okay, now I was confused. “She disappeared with your baby?”
“She disappeared with a baby. Not mine.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yeah. Tale as old as time,” he said with a harsh laugh. “Only this time it was the guy left at the altar. With five hundred of our closest friends.”
How had I not heard that story? I mean I didn’t exactly run in the same circles as the Murdocks, but I read the society columns. It was my livelihood after all. Then again, the gossip pages were full to bursting with people I didn’t know.
The tone of his voice made my chest ache and my eyes sting. The breeze off the water was as brutal as his story. “She’s an asshole.”
He laughed. “Pardon?”
“She’s the asshole, not you.” I swallowed. “Was it…how did you know?”
He glanced down at me. “Know?”
“How do you know the baby wasn’t yours?”
“Oh.” He sighed. “A little math. I was in London for a month at just about the time she would have conceived. I’d wanted her to come with me, but at the last minute, she backed out.”
“Okay, I’m going to upgrade her from asshole to stupid bitch.”
