“Only if you cook roast pork,” I called out, holding my breath. She didn’t like roast pork, but she used to cook it for our family, and hers was the only one I loved. I could practically taste the pork crackling while I stood waiting for her reply. I’d invite Devil over, encouraging him further, against all my better judgement, just for her crackling.
“You buy it, I’ll cook it.”
Oh. God.
Devil was coming for dinner.
7
Devil
“You don’t like that King is looking after me, do you?” Jen said early the next morning when I dropped in to check on her.
I rubbed the back of my neck. Not a conversation I wanted to get into. Especially not at eight in the morning, after only a few hours sleep. I’d spent half the night thinking about Hailee, finally jerking off to those thoughts at around three and then falling asleep.
“It’s none of my business what King does,” I said, taking in her exhausted state. She’d looked tired the night before also, and I wondered if she’d had any sleep at all.
She ushered me into the house, and I followed her into the lounge room. Sitting on the couch, she curled her legs under her and rested against the arm of the chair. “It mightn’t be your business what he does, but if you’re gonna come over every day and check on me for him, I’d prefer you to not look at me like you’d rather be anywhere else but here. And I’m guessing you do that because you don’t like me.”
I sat on the edge of the couch opposite her and rested my elbows on my legs. “I don’t know you enough to decide whether I like you or not, Jen. But yeah, I guess I’ve formed an opinion of what you did to King all those years ago. Leaving a man for another man is
n’t high on my list of honourable things to do.”
She watched me silently for a beat. “No, I guess it isn’t. But you don’t know the full story, so I really wish you wouldn’t form an opinion.”
Fuck, again, not a conversation I wanted to be having. Ever. What King chose to do in his life had nothing to do with me. He could have allowed his women to fuck around all they wanted on him and I wouldn’t have cared.
I stood. “Do you need anything? I can swing by later and drop it off if you do.”
She joined me. “I loved King, still do. I would never have left him if he hadn’t given me good reason to, Devil.”
“Yeah, King said as much.”
“But you didn’t believe him?”
“Look, Jen, honestly I don’t care what went on between you two. And I don’t care that you’re back together n—”
“We’re not together.”
Her words caught me by surprise. I didn’t know why I thought that because they were having a child together, they’d stay together, but I had. I’d figured that’d be King’s style.
She must have clued on to the thoughts running through my mind. “I’m not pregnant with King’s child.”
I stared at her. There was another guy involved? Fuck, I was way over this conversation. “Okay.”
She grabbed hold of my arm as I turned to leave, stopping me. “The guy that I left King for? The one who was hitting me… he found me again…” She let me go and covered the sob escaping from her mouth. Tears slid down her cheeks as she tried to get herself under control. Her efforts were in vain, though. A moment later, tears gushed down her face and her body crumpled.
I caught her and held her while she sobbed. I didn’t say anything, but rather waited for her to cry it out, at which point I hoped that she’d just want me to leave without ending the conversation we’d been having.
No such luck.
She pulled out of my hold and wiped her face. “This baby is his.” She paused for a moment. “He forced himself on me about a month and a half ago. I didn’t tell King because I didn’t want to drag him into it any more than he already was. I really didn’t want to cause him any more problems. The only reason he found out that Shannon was still threatening me was because my friend rang him about it.”
“He knows it’s not his, right?”
“Yes, absolutely. And I never told Shannon I was pregnant.”
Thank fuck King knew this. I’d hate to see what he’d do if he thought the baby was his, only to discover later it wasn’t.