Cease Fire (Blackbridge Security 9)

“Tell me you didn’t know about this,” I beg because there’s knowing a little something about Jules, and then there’s letting a friend walk right into the middle of a fucking trap without having all the information.

“Not this,” he says. “I fucking swear, Kit. I knew you were the father. I knew that you and Brooks were lying, but I didn’t fucking know this.”

There’s a long beat of silence, and I guess I should feel grateful that I don’t have another betrayal to add to the ever-growing list.

“I hacked her phone,” Wren says.

“You shouldn’t—” I snap my mouth closed, dropping my argument about him invading her privacy. At this point, I don’t even care about the violation. “Just tell me.”

“She has an app on her phone that tracks her ovulation.”

I nod even though he can’t see me because what he’s saying is exactly what I fear.

“And what did it say?”

“She was most fertile the weekend of the wedding. I also tracked her prescriptions, and—”

“She was taking Clomid,” I finish for him.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s—”

“I know what it is.” I press my fingers into my eyes because they’re stinging with tears of rage and betrayal. “She got pregnant on purpose.”

“It fucking looks that way. Listen, man, I think—”

“I’ve gotta go,” I say, hanging up the phone.

I need a minute before I go back out to the living room. I need a minute to pray for this not to be true. I need a minute to wrap my head around discovering that the woman I love deceived me and then had the audacity to ask me to keep her secrets.

I run back through the texts in the Blackbridge Security thread that I missed while I was losing my shit, and although I don’t commit anything to memory, there’s a stark absence of one person in the thread. Brooks hasn’t offered shit, and it makes me wonder if my best friend was privy to this information. I try to shove the possibility away, but even as I know that my best friend would never keep something like this from me, it still niggles in my head.

A soft knock hits the bathroom door. “Kit? Are you feeling sick also?”

The care and worry in her voice makes my stomach turn, a vile ache pooling in my gut like poison.

Instead of answering her, I simply pick up the packet of pills and open the door.

Every answer to every single question I have about this situation shines in her eyes when they land on the item in my hand.

Chapter 28

Jules

I wonder how many people are able to pinpoint the exact second their world implodes.

I wish I could say I didn’t see it coming, but somehow, deep inside of me no matter how much I wanted to convince myself it never would, I knew this moment would come.

This is the moment I lose everyone. This is the juncture in my life where I end up completely alone.

“Kit, please. It’s not—”

“What I think it is?” he sneers, and the look in his eyes is nothing like the last time he was so angry with me.

It isn’t marked with arousal and need. He’s not biding his time until he can strip my clothes from my body and use his to make me bend to his will.

“Are you just so fucking used to lying that you’re starting to believe them yourself?”

I watch as the fertility meds fall from his fingertips and hit the floor at his feet. I’d completely forgotten I still had them in the bathroom after finding out I was pregnant.

“Kit,” I plead, wanting to remind him of how good we’ve been together.

I’ve always held out hope that even if everyone in our lives hated me for us getting together, I’d at least have him, but there isn’t an ounce of the love I’ve seen in his eyes, and he jerks away when I reach for him. The man can’t even stomach my touch, and I understand that too.

“Please don’t tell anyone.” I have no right to ask this of him, but I can’t stop the words from erupting from my lips.

I swipe at tears tracking down my cheeks as I beg him with my eyes.

“Are you fucking serious? I can’t fucking believe you’d hurt me like this, and now you’re fucking bold enough to ask anything of me?”

“I know I don’t have a right, Kit, but please—”

He pulls away from me once again, and my heart just continues to shatter.

“Don’t fucking touch me, Jules.”

His eyes burn into mine.

“Do you know the fucked-up part of all of this?” I shake my head, because honestly, everything about this feels as equally fucked up as the next. “I wanted a family with you before I even had an idea of what that would look like.”

“You have an amazing family. That’s why—”

“I know I have an amazing family. I have a mother and father who love each other endlessly, but as a teen I had no idea that relationships like that included quiet conversations while lying in bed, holding each other. I didn’t quite know that was love. It was also the very thing that was enough to hold so many things together. I knew none of that, and yet I knew I wanted it all with you.”