Fern leans in closer to me and kisses my cheek. “We’ll let you talk,” she mutters, her eyes full of sadness. “You’ve got this.”
I don’t feel like I’ve got anything. Not my courage. Not my sanity.Barely my breath.
When they leave, the door closes with a dull thud that feels like a lock clicking inside my chest.
I lower myself onto the couch slowly—carefully—like my bones are glass. The yellow fabric stares back at me. I chose this couch. A sickening thought punches through me.Was he going to fuck Jade on this couch?My body tenses, cold flooding through me.
I press my shaking hands between my knees.
And now I have to tell him the part that will destroy him forever. Like it’s destroyed me.
KADE
My patience is hanging by a fucking thread.
She sits hunched on that ugly yellow couch she insisted on buying—my ol’ lady who used to fill every room with light, now staring at a piece of furniture like it holds the secrets of the universe. Maybe that’s why I was going to fuck a whore on it. Eden loves the couch. I let her pick it. I let her pick everything.
Her fingers twist together. Her lip trembles. She’s shaking like she’s freezing, even though the room is warm.
I sigh and drag the Scotch from my drawer, pouring a small amount into a glass before sitting beside her. I hold it out. The movement snaps her out of whatever daze she’s in.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know if I’m—” She stops herself before the wordpregnant. My stomach knots violently. The idea of her carrying another man’s child burns through me like acid.
“It’s good for shock,” I say, forcing the glass toward her. “Drink it.”
She takes it with a trembling hand. When her fingers brush mine, they’re ice cold. I grab the blanket from behind her and lay it over her shoulders because she looks like she’ll crumble without it.
Then the bitterness rises, hot and ugly in my throat. “Does your new man know about this?”
“There’s no one else,” she whispers.
My jaw clenches. “So he got you pregnant and has done a runner?”
She shakes her head weakly. “If I’m pregnant, it’s yours.”
“I doubt that, Eden. You need to have sex for that.”
She flinches. “The rooftop,” she murmurs.
I laugh but there’s no humour in it. “We’ve been trying for months. That one time on the rooftop when you faked an orgasm would have to be a fucking miracle.”
“My period was due three days ago.”
“I don’t believe you. You lie constantly now. You keep secrets. You killed a man, for fuck’s sake.” A thought hits me hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. “Was it him?” I whisper. “Did Liam get you pregnant?”
Her mouth opens and closes, no sound coming out, and something inside me snaps. I shoot to my feet, pacing, trying to make sense of any of this. If Liam was here that day…Queenie.He was comfortable enough around her, to use my fucking nickname for her.
“Liam?” I roar.
Eden bursts into tears. It’s too much. I knock the drink right out of her hand and she flinches like she thinks I’m going to hit her. I step back immediately, because the horror of that thought turns my stomach, but I’m drowning in rage and confusion.
“Why?” My voice cracks. “Why him?”
“It wasn’t like that,” she sobs.
My heart feels like it’s ripping apart, each tear worse than the last. “Get out,” I choke.
“Listen to me, please—”
