“Convenience?” she finally choked out. “Desperate choice?”
She couldn’t have heard him correctly; he didn’t say what she thought she heard—he couldn’t have…because that would mean?—
“You thought I saw you across that ballroom and, what, fell in love with you?”
She only blinked in response because, yes, that’s what she’d always thought.
Obviously, she’d been wrong.
“Kendra,dear, I looked across the ballroom and saw a woman who was average in every way, looking at me with stars in her eyes, and I wondered if you’d be as easy to fool as you looked. And I’d been right. I’d given myself three months to get you to the altar, and it only took me five weeks—you made it so easy with your need for affection, a fairytale happily ever after, and the promise of a family.”
She was shaking her head violently, refusing to believe what he was saying, when he dropped the bomb that would decimate her world.
“I only chose you because I knew you’d sign the prenup with only a little coaxing, and I figured that a woman without any reported medical issues would be able to give me a child—but you fucking failed, wife, at the one thing women were made to do.”
Failed.
She’d failed.
She was a failure?—
No! Wait. She hadn’t failed. She wasn’t a failure, because there, right beneath her heart, another little heart was beating.
Her baby.
Her child.
How could she have forgotten?
She opened her mouth to ruin her plans for the baby reveal, to tell him, to do something that would make him retract everything he’d just said, tell her he was just angry, that he didn’t mean it, but he didn’t give her a chance.
“Maybe I should be fucking Isabella Mancini,” he sneered, “at least then I’d have some fun while getting her pregnant—and it isn’t like she didn’t offer. Maybe you can be the little wifey that makes the fucking chicken and pours the wine, and she can be the one warming my bed, taking my cock, and giving me the heir you should have three fucking years ago.”
Something inside Kendra snapped.
Striding forward, she swung her arm, and slapped Gideon, hard, across the face.
“Fuck you, Gideon Maddox,” she screamed, rage flaming up her cheeks until her head felt like it could explode.
He snarled, that hideous smile in place, “No thank you, I’ve been to hell already today.”
As his words filled her mind, the rest of her hollowed out—her heart, her soul, her hopes, and her dreams spilling onto the floor at her feet.
The shaking stopped, her heart slowed to a crawl, and mind focused on one, singular purpose.
Survival.
As Gideon stood there, seething, his hands in fists at his sides, his emerald eyes flashing, his chest rising and falling in quick, uneven breaths, she turned away.
Survive.
Instinctively, her hand slid to her belly, warming the place where the last of her dreams was nestled.
She took one step, then another, no idea where she was going, only knowing that she had to escape, to hide, toprotect.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Gideon demanded, but she didn’t stop, didn’t turn, didn’t hesitate.
She didn’t stop to pack or call for a car or plan a trip or arrange anything with anyone. There was no time; the urge to move, to go, to leave, to put distance between herself and her greatest enemy—the man who’d stolen everything from her—was a living, breathing war cry, echoing in her head.
