Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 408(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 408(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I worship you,” he replied.
Smiling, I tilted my head back and stared up into the eyes of the only man I could ever love. I didn’t understand how I’d left him before. That haunted me—the cruelty of my behavior five years ago. I was thankful for the accident. Thankful that I hadn’t woken up as that same selfish person who had been able to walk away from this man.
Forty-One
Shiloh
When Sunday finally arrived, I dreaded it. I knew the fight with Gage was coming about my returning to my apartment and job. We hadn’t talked about the future or anything beyond the present. Gage hadn’t wanted us to leave his room most of the time. My cheeks heated at the thought of how he’d taken me this morning in the shower. We had been in our own little world for two days.
Gage, Levi, and Huck had unexpectedly left on some business after breakfast. Trinity had said that happened rather regularly. We cleaned up the kitchen, and I went to get a shower, then pack up my things while Gage was gone. When he did get back, I’d be ready to leave. Not that I expected him to take that well.
Once I was finished, I made up his bed and straightened the room before heading back downstairs. When I reached the bottom step, the closed door that I had seen the guys coming and going from often opened, surprising me. None of them were here.
Blaise Hughes filled the doorway, and his eyes locked on me. “Shiloh, I need to speak with you,” he said, stepping back and holding out his hand for me to enter the room I’d been told by Uncle Neil on day one not to ever go inside of.
I wasn’t sure if I was more nervous or curious. Blaise wasn’t someone I’d gotten to know, and although he wasn’t as large as Huck, he intimidated the hell out of me. I glanced around, wondering where Trinity was but I didn’t see her.
Stepping past Blaise, I saw what was clearly an office. I’d kinda suspected as much already.
“Please have a seat,” Blaise told me, then walked over to sit in a leather chair across from a sofa.
I had expected him to take the chair behind the desk and for this to feel more formal.
I sat down on the sofa, feeling awkward. This was strange, and I didn’t understand why he wanted to speak with me. Why couldn’t he have done this when Gage was here? In fact, why was he here when the others were gone? My mind started going in several different directions, none of which made me feel good about this.
“The workings within this family are a dynamic that most wouldn’t understand. With power comes difficult decisions, and in order to keep the balance, there are secrets. Lies are told, and things are done to protect our own. Even if that means hurting them to save them from themselves.
“I’ve had very little interaction with you since you arrived back into Gage’s life. It was a choice I made because I was protecting my wife from any attachments that could hurt her later. You see, I did know you before. Gage didn’t do many things without you by his side. I was the one who stepped in most times to keep him from ruining his fucking life over his jealousy where you were concerned.
“However, last night, when we walked into that room and you had no fucking idea we were there, I heard you. You were willing to give your life in order to protect Gage and me. But that isn’t why we are having this conversation. You begged for my life to be spared because of my wife and child—the two people who are the reason I wake up in the mornings—so they wouldn’t lose me. If there were magic words into my vault of secrets, you spoke them.”
Blaise held out his hands, and then he smiled. Something I had never seen the man do. It was … surreal.
“I have a truth that you’ve earned. One about yourself. About your past. One that I was waiting to share with you until I felt like you were ready for it. This won’t be easy to hear, but I believe, in some ways, it will also give you some peace.” He paused and picked up a glass sitting beside him and took a long drink before turning back to me.
“You and Gage were fucking toxic. Not because of who you were, but because you were still a kid and he was obsessed with you. The level of his obsession with you was more than any teenage girl could handle. You didn’t understand the depths of it. You weren’t mature enough to see what you were doing to him. He was going to lose everything, and after the fucking hell he’d lived through, growing up, I couldn’t let that happen.