“Let go…”
My barely audible plea is ignored or he doesn’t hear me.
“Isla,” he snaps at the same time, giving my arm a tug.
That is enough to jolt some sense back into my head.
I jerk free and glower up at him.
“Yes!” I lie and hurriedly shove past him.
My feet practically sprint down the path in the direction of the house. The house full of people and nowhere to be alone with my spiraling thoughts. But I need to be alone. I need to figure out what to do. I get it’s too soon to start worrying about it, but I can’t not worry about it.
At the top of the back steps, Nicolas catches up with me. His fingers curl into my elbow and I’m forcibly made to face him.
“You can’t have a baby, Isla,” he states with a harshness that only adds to the weight already crushing my chest. “I don’t care what Dominic says about it, you are irresponsible and unreliable. You are everything a child does not need.”
I swallow against the bitter pill of truth. It scrapes going down my jugular and burns hitting my gut.
I would make a terrible mother. I know that. But hearing it out loud, hearing another person agree with me has hot tears burning behind my eyes.
“Good enough to be a whore, but not a mother,” I whisper and wrench my arm from him. “Got it.”
“Isla—”
I jerk open the door and throw myself inside before he can slap me with any more of my shortcomings.
Chapter Seven
?Dominic?
Something’s wrong.
I don’t know what, but it hangs over the table, over the heads of the people I care about with a weighty darkness that overshadows the conversation taking place. It’s an ashy smog that fills my lungs as I glance from Nicolas to Isla.
Both are seated across from each other, focused with full concentration on their plates. But Nick looks on the verge of smashing his across the room while Isla keeps chasing the same carrot around the plate with her fork like someone crushed her heart.
I hate it.
Hate the downward tilt of her lips, the faint gleam of defeat. She hasn’t put a single thing in her mouth, despite not having eaten anything all day. I hate the way she keeps sneaking glances towards the window like she wishes she could crawl out into the night and run.
I don’t blame her. If I had Macie as my mother, I would also want to escape. The woman is insufferable. Manipulating. Cruel beneath that airhead smile. While she has never been any of those things with literally anyone else, I’m not blind or stupid. I’ve seen how she treats Isla like some unwanted stepchild.
Oh, sure, she hides it well. She puts on a good face for the world as a fun, quirky mom just doing her best. But beneath the giggles and stupid glass figurines, she’s cold, dismissive. I understand why Isla runs. Why she hides from everyone. Howcan anyone expect her to feel safe when she has nowhere to be safe?
I want to be her safe place. Me and Nick. I want us to make her want to stay. It won’t be easy when running is a default, but I know if she’d let us, if Nick let us, we’d be so fucking happy. I know it. I saw it.
The moment I rounded that corner and found them half naked, peering into each other’s eyes, I knew I was right. It wasn’t just the sex, which had shocked the fuck out of me to witness. It was the way Nick’s face had softened when peering down at her. It was the tender way he pulled her panties from between her teeth.
It wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, but I know Nick. I know how hard it is for him to trust, to let his guard down, especially once he’s made his mind up about something.
Yet, he touched her without being prompted. He more than touched her. I only came in on the last tail of things, but I watched the thick glob of his release pool out of her swollen pussy and I nearly whooped with joy.
Every year we come here, I pray for him to finally make the first move. Every single year. It’s been long enough that I was beginning to think it would never happen so seeing that had been a dream come true. Only… my usually grumpy boyfriend is going through something. Guilt, I’m guessing. I don’t think he regrets what we did, but he definitely wishes he could change what happened. Maybe that’s regret. I don’t know, but the hum of tension is making my asshole itch.
“What do you think, Nicky?”
I despise when Macie calls Nicky — my Nicky — Nicky. He’s not Nicky. He’s Nicolas. Always has been. The only time it hasn’t pissed me off is when Isla said it. But she’s allowed.
