“I hate that I don’t know what you’re thinking anymore,” I admit, scraping the food into the bin. “I used to know just by your expression.”
“We spent a long time apart,” she reminds me, her tone bitter. “Way before I left.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I finally ask, turning to face her. “About Liam? About the rape?” She inhales sharply. “Sorry, I hate bringing it up, but I have so many unanswered questions, and I know you do.”
“This is what you want to talk about?” she snaps, checking her watch. “At eight in the morning?” She shakes her head. “I don’t have questions. I’ve pushed all that to the back of my mind. I’m concentrating on my future.”
“Is that healthy?”
“You think I should keep reliving it?”
I sigh. “No, of course not. It’s just . . . bottling it up doesn’t help.”
She pushes to her feet, bracing her hands against the table. “Are you fucking kidding me, Kade?” she demands. “Coming from the man who shut down completely the second I told him.”
“I regret it,” I tell her. “If I could go back and change it—”
“Well, you can’t.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t believe you?”
She scoffs. “I thought you’d handle it badly, and I was right.” She heads for the door. “I don’t owe you an explanation, Kade. It wasmyrape.Myattack. And it was up tomewho I trusted with that. I’m sorry that hurts you, but it’s the truth.”
We both need a moment, so I let her leave.
EDEN
The fucking nerve of him, telling me I shouldn’t bottle things up when that’s exactly what he did. He’d locked everything away until there was no space left for me . . . until I left.
I pace the living room back and forth, my chest tight, anger fizzing under my skin like it’s looking for a way out. My hands shake. My heart races. It’s a feeling only Kade can bring out in me.
And then I snap.
I rip the door open and march straight back into the kitchen. This is long overdue.
He spins around at the sink, surprise flashing across his face as he twists the tap off. “You okay?”
“No,” I snap. The word tears out of me. “No, I’m not okay.”
He freezes.
“You thought you were protecting me,” I continue, my voice rising, breaking in places as I shake with anger, “but you weren’t. You brought Liam into my life.You.”
His eyes widen. He grabs the tea towel and dries his hands slowly like he’s bracing himself. “I know,” he says quietly, staring at the floor, “and I hate myself for it.”
“All the secrets,” I shout. “All the meetings in church with your fucking biker buddies. You told me you weren’t in those circles anymore, Kade. You told me we were running clean. If I'd known,” I take another shuddering breath, “I would’ve been more cautious.”
“I thought if you didn’t know,” he says, lifting his head now, pain etched deep into his face, “then it wouldn’t touch you.”
“But it did,” I scream. “And then you asked the very man who hurt me to spy on me because you didn’t trust me!”
Something fractures in his expression. His pain is raw, undeniable. “That’s not fair, Eden. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what he’d done. And I never askedhim. I went to Jimmy for someone. He sent Liam.”
“You sent someone to spy on me,” I yell, my voice cracking. “Do you even hear how fucked-up that is?”
“I was going out of my mind,” he shouts back. “I didn’t know why you were acting so weird. You just checked out on me.”
“I flinched when you touched me,” I fire back, counting it off on my fingers like evidence in a trial. “I had no memory. I was covered in bruises and blood. And you decided the most logical explanation was that I must have cheated on you. Do you even know me at all?”
