“Packages?” she whispered.
He nodded. “I know about the baby?—”
Color returning to her face—red and vibrant—she hissed, “Is that why you’re here? Now that I’m carrying the Maddox heir you?—”
He quickly pressed a kiss to her lips, silencing her. The desire to deepen the kiss, to taste her, to let the beast free and ravish her was like a fever in his blood, an aching in his bones, but he knew she wouldn’t welcome him, and he didn’t blame her.
There will be time for that once I get her home where she belongs.
“I’m here because I can’t be anywhere else, not if I want to breathe,” he said simply, as though he hadn’t just opened his own chest to reveal his beating heart to her. “I know three words spoken without a history of sincerity are meaningless, that no matter how I phrase it, you won’t believe how truly sorry I am for what I said.”
“You’re right, Gideon; there isn’t a thing you can say that will erase, not only what you said to me, but also the ugly truth about the last three years, and how they meant nothing to you.”
He cursed, thrusting his hand through his hair. It was unlike him to be so…ruffled—losing control, allowing mess or disorder to touch him was anathema—a bane, something that could only herald his downfall. But right there, standing before a woman who unknowingly held so much of this truth in her hands…he didn’t know how to be the man he was before, that uncaring, unruffled, dignified, and utterly malicious asshole.
Gideon didn’t know how to be anything other than the abandoned son of a Greek tragedy and a vicious degenerate. He didn’t know how to be anything other than the unbreakable, invulnerable fortress for his younger brothers, protecting them, supporting them. He didn’t know how to be anything other than the greedy emperor, brutally conquering and laying waste to those who’d oppose him and his family.
He didn’t know how to be anything but the cold, methodical, heartless machine he’d had to become in order to survive.
But Kendra doesn’t deserve the cold machine, she deserves the human…a flesh and blood person with emotions and flaws.
Whathedeserved was a kick in the ass and divorce decree, but he didn’t know how to be anything but selfish, and he found that he couldn’t leave Kendra…and their child.
And that meant doing something he’d never done before.
Apologize.
“You believe that the last three years meant nothing to me, and you have all the evidence to support that; I wasn’t a good husband, I wasn’t even a shitty husband; I was an absent husband, one that was there in body but not in affection or attention or even time. I gave you the bottom of the barrel while the rest of the world—the people and things that don’t truly matter—got the best of me.”
Kendra was staring at him, her eyes wide, her face pale, like she’d just seen a ghost.
Her voice barely there, she murmured, “What?” like she couldn’t believe what he’d said.
He couldn’t believe it either; he was allowing himself to look weak in front of the person who needed him to be strong.
Strength isn’t what she needs, sincerity is….
Why did that sound like Logan’s voice in his head?
Shaking off that thought, he sat beside Kendra, taking her hands in his, and she didn’t fight him.
“I know the last three years seemed like you were emptying yourself into an abyss, that you gave and gave and got nothing in return except a limitless Black card for spending, heartache, and what amounts to transactional sex three nights a week?—”
Her cheeks pinkened at that.
He ignored that, knowing he couldn’t focus on how adorable she looked all flushed and delicious.
“And you didn’t deserve that, my dear, you didn’t deserve any of it—the false intentions in the beginning, the coldness, the detachment, the blame for not conceiving—and you definitely didn’t deserve how careless I’ve been with your love.”
Tears welled in her eyes, and she sniffed.
His heart clenched painfully. For a man who’d made it his business to remain apathetic in his marriage, he really hated the sight of her tears.
And he realized, he always had.
What else have you been lying to yourself about, prick?
Kendra, tears in her eyes, pressed a hand to her mouth, holding back a sob.
