Cease Fire (Blackbridge Security 9)

“When you were a boy,” I whisper.

“Now, Jules. I fucking wanted that now!”

Wanted—past tense, meaning there isn’t a chance for it any longer.

“Do you really think I’ve been here so much for any other reason? You’re the woman of my dreams!” He shakes his head, lips curled up in disgust. “Were the woman of my dreams. I thought you were perfect. I thought I could convince you to open your eyes and see the real me. I guess I should be grateful that my eyes are open now. I see the real you, the selfish, manipulative, hateful, just fucking devious person that you are. It makes me sick to my fucking stomach.”

If he were angry and yelling, this might be easy to handle, but his words are calm, low, heartbreaking.

He turns to his side and slides past me, not even pausing to look at the bed where we’ve made love so much as he leaves the bedroom and heads toward the front door.

I follow, another plea on my lips when he stops with his hand on the doorknob. Hope blooms in my chest. He’s left angry before, and it takes a while to cool off, but he comes back.

“I’ll give you two days to explain to everyone what’s really going on before I open my mouth.”

“Kit, no. I can’t—”

“Two days,” he repeats. “You tell my sister, my mom, every fucking one of them.”

“Kit.” His name is one more plea on my lips that I have no right to ask. I want to reach out to him, thinking maybe if he sees my pain, he’ll be more inclined to listen to me, but he doesn’t turn around.

“I’m going to be a part of my child’s life as his or her father, with my fucking last name, Jules. That’s not even a question. You need to decide whether you’re going to be a part of it too.”

I near the point of hyperventilating when the door closes softly behind him.

I clutch at my throat. Did he just threaten to take this child away from me? Did I read him wrong? Did he mean I need to decide whether I’m going to be in his life?

I reach behind me, looking for something to steady myself on. My fingers brush the back of a dining room chair, and I cling to it like a lifeline.

When reality hits harder, I’m sobbing uncontrollably.

I could argue that he doesn’t know what he’s asking of me, but he does. He’s well aware of what just the secret of us hooking up would do. It wasn’t so bad when I told Beth, when I’d only said those words to her, but tonight it was no longer a lie by proxy. I lied to everyone in his family to their faces. I can’t argue a miscommunication. I can’t say I didn’t have a chance to tell the truth. I was given multiple opportunities.

Kit knows what he’s demanding. He knows that Beth will never forgive me. She’ll put two and two together even if the confession of getting pregnant does roll off my tongue because she knows I was on fertility drugs. She knows I was actively considering getting IVF from a sperm donor, and the cost of that as well as my fear of not personally knowing the baby’s father were major concerns for me.

She’d know I trapped Kit without even saying as much. She’ll never forgive me.

I’m going to lose every one of them. My worst nightmare is coming true.

I can’t just sit by and let my world fall apart. I have to do something. Frantically, I grab my purse and pull out my phone.

“Hello?”

“I need you to help me.”

“You have a lot of nerve right now, Jules.” His sigh isn’t a sound that’s going to work in my favor.

“You’ve already spoken to him?”

“I’m aware of what you’ve done,” Brooks responds, giving me nothing further.

“He’s forcing me to tell everyone.” I cover my mouth with my hand because I know my sobs are so loud.

“You need to put the lies to bed.”

“I c-can’t. They’ll h-hate me.”

“They won’t hate you, Jules. They don’t have it in them.”

“You already h-hate m-me. I c-can h-hear it in y-your v-voice.” I take a deep breath but it doesn’t ease the jerky pain in my chest.

“Tell them the truth. It’s the only way anyone can start healing from this.”

The call goes dead, and I’m left staring down at my phone.

I send text after text, begging Kit to please don’t make me do this. When those go unanswered, I switch tactics, begging for just a little more time. He still doesn’t respond.

I deserve this. I know I do, but even knowing it doesn’t give me any form of serenity.

There isn’t calm acceptance anywhere in sight. I’m devastated, broken, and alone.

Somehow I knew this was exactly how things would end up. I knew it would come to this.