Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 61942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
My body had been untouched except the bullet wound Benton had given me. But then I got that cut on my arm from Silas. And now this.
Might have to start covering everything with ink.
I took a drink then returned it to the counter.
“Should you be drinking that?” Benton took the stool beside me.
“I’m off the pain meds.”
“So you’re feeling better.”
“No. I just need a drink more than a pill.”
“How’s retirement treating you?”
I slouched on the counter as I looked at him. “Is that your way of addressing the elephant in the room?”
Benton ignored the question and ordered a drink.
“Laura and I are done—for good. So I didn’t see the point.”
“What happened? She shot her father for you.”
“Bullshit, that’s what happened.”
It took Benton a moment to draw the conclusion. “Kids.”
“She won’t change her mind.”
“She changed her mind before.”
“Not anymore.” I hated it, but I also respected it. She shouldn’t be with a man who refused to give her what she wanted. I wasn’t worth it. No one was.
“Then why don’t you change your mind?”
I raised my glass and clinked it against his. “Good one.”
“I’m serious, Bartholomew.”
“Are we really going to have this conversation again?”
“Kids aren’t hard—”
“They keep you up all night, wake you up at the crack of dawn, are entitled little assholes that don’t appreciate a damn thing, and suck the life out of you for twenty years. That’s not hard?”
“Even if that were true, there’s a lot more to it.”
“I argued about this with Laura for an hour. I’m not doing it again.”
“Fine.” Benton took a drink. “Then lose the love of your life. Fuck whores until she forgets about you and marries someone else. Let her move forward in her life while your life stays exactly the same—except your age.”
It took a solid month for me to feel normal again.
The bruises finally faded, and my skin returned to its normal color. It didn’t ache every time I moved. I was back in the swing of things. I’d killed off all the men who’d staged that coup with Leonardo and was looking for new recruits to replace them.
Things felt normal again.
Except for one thing…the big hole in my heart.
It got better, but not by much.
I replayed our last conversation over and over and wished it had had a different outcome. I wished I were a different man so I could be with her. I wished she were a different woman, a woman who didn’t want a family.
But none of those wishes were reality.
I had my guys watch her apartment again, waiting for the moment she started to see someone else. I hadn’t been with anyone since our first breakup, and I continued to hold out just in case anything changed. I guessed there was a part of me that still hoped that it wasn’t over…that she would still be mine.
But once a guy slept over, I knew that would be my cue to move on.
I was in my apartment when one of the guys called. They never called because there was nothing to report. She just went to work then went home, alone. So that meant there had been a change in her behavior.
I already knew what he was going to say, but I picked up the phone anyway. “Yeah?”
“Laura has been getting a lot of deliveries.”
My eyebrows rose at the odd update. “You called to tell me she’s getting shit delivered from Amazon?”
“It’s big stuff. Furniture.”
Furniture? “What kind of furniture?”
He fumbled in the background, searching through photos. “Crib. Changing table. Rocking chair.”
I almost dropped the phone.
“Sir?”
I hung up.
My doctor, Maurice, pulled up the records then slid the laptop across the table toward me. “She had her first appointment with the obstetrician last week. According to the lab reports, she’s about two and a half months along.”
Nearly three months.
She was almost done with the first trimester.
How long had she known?
“What’s the date on this lab report?”
“About six weeks.”
She’d known when she killed her father. Had known two weeks before that. Carried this secret alone and never told me.
Benton opened his front door. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Then call.”
“I did. You didn’t answer.”
“Because I’m busy—”
“I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
Benton looked at me furiously before he shut the door in my face. He was gone for a while before he opened the door and walked out with me. “What is it?”
“Laura’s pregnant.”
Benton stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
That was the first time I’d said it out loud—and it was painful.
“Is she with another guy?”
I shook my head.
“So, it’s yours.”
“Yeah…it’s mine.” I knew I’d been the only man in her life since we met. “That last conversation we had makes sense now. She wouldn’t agree not to have kids…because she was already having a kid.”
Benton studied my face. “She wanted to know how you really felt.”