Blaze (Virtues & Lies 3)

Yanking my door open, he reaches across and hauls me out of the Jeep, to my feet.

“Stop being a brat!” he bites out, hands landing loudly and heavily on the roof of the car.

I don’t bite back. He’s crowding me, and although I know I’m safe, I’m too aware that he’s not Casper. I haven’t grown up with him, and I don’t know him. Not the way I knew Casper, even before anything happened between us.

With him it just always was. I just always knew. I just always wanted him.

Ryan, on the other hand, I only want him to be someone else. I want him to be a different man. Taller, darker, earthier, warmer.

“Why can’t you be reasonable? Be fucking easy?” he growls, head falling forward. His hair hangs over his eyes like a dirty-blond curtain between us, and when he looks up, there’s pity glimmering in them. Pity and sadness slice through the frost in his gaze.

Is his sadness like mine? I wonder, still looking at him. Still hoping that he’ll morph into the man I want with me.

“If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for your child.”

Pushing off the Jeep, he takes a step back, fingers pulling his hair back before his hands settle on his hips.

The cold assaults me without the shelter of his body, and I have to clench my teeth together so they don’t chatter. He must be just as cold because his hulking frame is tense.

“Get in the car,” he sighs, shaking his head as he rounds the front.

I hear him get in, but I’m frozen to the tarmac wondering what his outburst was all about. It seems fucking pointless to drag me out into the cold to tell me something he could have said in the car.

Getting in, I pause, eyeing the croissant that’s sitting on my seat. Without saying a word, I take it and climb in. I fasten my seat belt as I stare at it on my lap.

I’m not hungry, but with the weight of Ryan’s stare on me, I take a bite. Then another. Chewing like it’s a task.

“Not so hard, is it?”

“I had breakfast.” I move the croissant around my mouth as I take another small bite to stop myself from bursting into tears.

“A slice of toast isn’t breakfast, especially when you need to keep up your energy.”

“It’s all I could stomach, okay?” I snap at him, almost choking on my tears and the food in my mouth. “I’m trying. I’m really fucking trying, and I am being agreeable. You have no idea—” I gasp for breath. “—no idea how I feel. This is my fault!”

The explosion of tears and emotions knocks me for six. It doesn’t matter how hard I swallow everything down…the food, tears, grief, and the guilt that has been clawing at me.

The croissant drops back on my lap, and I look over at him. He’s quietly staring at me.

“Casper died because of me.”

“Protecting you,” he corrects.

“He died protecting me.” Pain strikes through me, cutting me down the middle. “He’s gone and for what?”

Ryan nods, eyes drifting down to my belly before he turns back to the steering wheel and gets us on the road again.

“If I ever threaten you, you’ll know about it. You won’t have time to stop and shout about it. You’ll run. Because if I threaten you, I follow through. You got that, princess?”

Princess?

Princess.

I’m not a princess. I want to correct him. To tell him that he knows nothing about me. But I don’t. There’s a vacuum inside me that’s stolen all my words.

I’m empty.

There’s nothing left, and I don’t know where that leaves me and this baby. I’m meant to love her with everything I have, and more. But more of nothing is still nothing.