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KANE
“I’m leaving.”
Alma heaved a suitcase on the bed.
“It wasn’t the shortest marriage in history, but it has to be close.” I yanked on my tie. We’d been married two months, but it felt like two hundred years.
“Matilda! Come pack for me,” she called.
I had married a monster. One who was so spoiled she could hardly wipe her own ass.
She moved to the dresser and spritzed some of that awful floral perfume. It created a plume around her neck.
“We’re not getting a divorce,” she said as if I were the dumbest human being on the planet. “I’m taking a vacation.”
Normally couples in our position would be going together, still in some haze of bliss that was supposed to turn to bitterness in ten years. Alma and I had progressed to that stage at warp speed.
“Bon voyage.” I sauntered into the bathroom and turned on the shower. When steam billowed over the door, I stepped inside.
There is a God.
Alma was going on vacation. Maybe she’d like it so much she’d make it a permanent one.
Move.
Don’t move.
JoJo’s hand was still on my knee. Her touch was painful and a balm all at once.
I was torn between wanting her to remove it and covering her hand with my own to keep her in place.
How did the woman have the ability to cause this violent anger in me and then somehow settle it?
I wasn’t sure I’d ever understand how Alma had done what she’d done. But she was the ultimate puppet master. And JoJo was soft when it came to her sister.
If you thought I was crazy protective about the whales, you can imagine how I am about my daughter.
Though I wanted to cut it off, part of my heart was grateful to JoJo for what she’d done. If she hadn’t stopped Alma from—I couldn’t even think the words. I’d had all these years stolen, but at least we still had the years ahead.
What if she’d—
“Thank you,” I blurted.
JoJo’s lips parted. She appeared as astonished as I felt.
“For what?”
“You stopped Alma from doing something . . . irreversible.” A pit formed in my stomach. I’d been so close to losing my child and hadn’t even known it.
If she had just told me she was pregnant and didn’t want the baby, I would’ve given her everything I had and taken Penelope.
I froze.
Was the man I am now thinking that or was it the twenty-something boy who’d thought he was a man?
Back then, I’d had one focus. Work.
That hadn’t really changed.
