Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 72196 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72196 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
And honestly, we thought she was handling it better than she had been. It’d been our fatal mistake.
My hands were still on my face, my fingers pressing into both eyes. Which meant that I didn’t see her walk in.
Not until she touched my face.
“You okay?”
I dropped my hands and looked at the love of my life. The woman that I wanted, and couldn’t have.
But then a thought occurred to me.
Dante had had it all.
He’d had a wife. Two children that he adored with all of his heart. A great business.
He’d had everything that he could’ve ever asked for…and then he’d lost it.
He’d lost it, and maybe would never find something like that ever again.
Me? I’d never been happy.
Sure, I had a child. Yes, I loved her with all of my heart.
But her mother was poisoning her. Allegra was shaping her into a person that I knew wouldn’t lead to good things if we weren’t careful.
I’d let Allegra control my life. I’d made a mistake when I married her. When I’d entrusted her with my hopes and dreams.
Now, Allegra challenged those dreams…threatened to ruin them.
And I was letting her.
I’d told Alex about the dog, excited to see her excited for once, and she’d sneered.
She’d sneered.
That was when I knew I wouldn’t win.
“Are you okay?”
I closed my eyes, and then swiveled in my chair and buried my face into her stomach, while threading my arms around her body. My arms wrapped around her thighs, pulling her in tight.
Her belly was soft, and she smelled so fucking good.
“I’m not okay,” I told her, pushing my face further into her soft belly. “I’m so far from okay that I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again.”
She was hesitant to touch me.
I hadn’t initiated this much touch since the moment I’d seen her after I buried her dog.
After she’d come to my house, I’d taken my fill. Then Allegra had happened.
Yet that didn’t mean that I hadn’t craved it every day for the last three hundred and forty-seven days. That I hadn’t wanted to touch her. To caress her face. To beg for her touch.
The one and only time I’d hugged her—made any more contact than a simple touch—had been the day that she’d given birth to TJ.
The day she’d given me a son. A little person that would carry on the Hail name for the rest of his life.
What I did next was likely the most freeing thing I’d done in my entire life.
I decided to fuck everything. Fuck Allegra. Fuck my brother. Fuck everything that was waiting on me.
Hannah? Well, fuck her too.
But I’d be doing it with my body.
The next moment, I showed her.
I stood up, my face even with hers with my legs splayed wide, and I dropped my mouth to hers.
She didn’t even hesitate.
She allowed the kiss, and took everything that I gave.
And when I stopped giving? She took it into her own hands, and forced me to continue.
I couldn’t say that I was upset about providing that kiss.
I also couldn’t say that I was upset when the planter that Allegra had given me ‘from Alex’ for Father’s Day last year fell to the ground and shattered with a sharp crash.
Why? Because that planter hadn’t been from Alex. It’d been a reminder from Allegra that she would be watching me.
And honestly, I hoped that she was watching. I hoped that she saw that I was no longer playing her game anymore.
Because the woman in my arms, currently gasping when I shoved her back down to my desk, forcing my hips between her legs, was the woman of my dreams.
She was my one.
She was my everything.
Even Allegra hadn’t meant the same to me as my woman. Hannah was the one who stayed by me, despite me treating her like trash—and I couldn’t say that I didn’t do that. I always put my daughter first, and if that meant that the woman that I loved with all my heart got put on the back burner, then so be it.
But, as much as it hurt, I wasn’t going to be able to do that anymore.
This was Hannah.
She was the one thing that I could always count on. The woman who, despite my assholeness, stuck by me, and continued to offer me her love, even when I didn’t deserve it.
That was changing now.
Now.
Right. Fucking. Now.
I yanked her shirt up and off, exposing those breasts that I’d been longing to feel again. Especially since they’d grown from the moment that we knew about TJ.
She was wearing a nursing bra.
One that was about as unattractive as one could get, but with Hannah? Yeah, she could have no boobs, and I’d still think she was sexy.
But she did have boobs, and the boobs she had were practically spilling out the top and sides.
“God,” I groaned.
Before I could reach for her bra, though, she placed her hand on my arm and squeezed.