I swallowed hard, shivering.
“Is. It. True?”
“I… I…”
I was backed into a corner. In less than a second, myworld as I knew it suddenly came crashing down on me. All the blood drained from my face as I stood there frozen.
Immobile.
Shocked and nervous.
His reaction triggered something inside me. Our eyes never wavered from one another as I grasped the reality of the future. For a minute, my pain broke through the uncontrollable emotions.
I strained, locking up, staying firmly rooted to the place I stood with the wind knocked out of me. I felt like I’d just been punched in the stomach.
My heart.
My mind.
My love…
Was broken.
Snapping like the strings of Julius’s violin. They were both yanking every sentiment from my body, every last emotion as if it belonged to them.
I might have been standing there with them, but my mind was somewhere else entirely.
“Isla,” Julius stressed, “tell him the truth!”
I gasped, placing my hand over my mouth, not wanting to be heard.
The truth blatantly slapped me in the face again. I couldn’t stop my feet from moving, following the sound of his voice.
Three steps.
Two.
One.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to do, about to feel—sucking all the air from my lungs, taking my heart and shattering it into a million pieces.
It was this raw, excruciating torture.
I was so confused.
Torn between two brothers.
As much as I urged myself not to leave, to run, it willed me to stay in place. I needed to remain strong.
When I came face-to-face with Julius, I mocked, “What truth isthat? Huh? The truth that you left me… the truth that I’ve slept with both of you now…”
Julius’s gaze widened as I stepped away, looking back and forth between them for a moment before I added…
“Or how about the truth that I’m pregnant and I don’t know which brother I’m pregnant by.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-FOUR
