Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 95906 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 480(@200wpm)___ 384(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95906 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 480(@200wpm)___ 384(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
Micah let out a little gasp at my admission, but I didn’t give him time to respond before I continued with, “But there’s no putting a pin in what happened with Brady. Even if I thought for one second that you really could put it behind you for a while, I couldn’t. I’d know that every time you looked at me, every time you spoke to me, you’d be remembering that night and the hell you had to endure because of it. Because of me. So no, Micah, we can’t be friends. I’m just not as fucking strong as you.”
With that, I leaned in to press a kiss to his forehead and then stepped back into my room and shut the door. My body was vibrating with a mix of need and rage as I made my way to the bathroom. I forced myself to pull in several deep breaths as I turned on the faucet and waited for the water to turn as cold as it could get, but then I made the mistake of looking up from the sink. My eyes met those in the reflection, but they weren’t mine. They belonged to the man I’d once been. The one who hurt people.
With his fists.
With his cowardice.
I dropped my eyes and wrapped my fingers around the edge of the vanity, but it was no use. I was and always would be that man in the mirror and I was tired of pretending I was anything but.
So it was with some measure of relief that I closed my eyes and did what needed to be done.
I let my fist fly.
Chapter Fourteen
Micah
It’s for the best.
I’d been repeating the dreaded mantra day in and day out from the moment I’d discovered the broken mirror in Con’s bathroom during my routine cleaning.
It’s for the best.
They were the same words my mother had spoken after every fight she’d had with my father in which she always came out the loser. It didn’t matter if she was sporting a single black eye or if she could barely walk because the asshole had kicked the shit out of her, she’d always responded to Brady’s and my begging her to leave the man with those same words.
It’s for the best.
I’d never really understood the words until now. She’d used them to convince herself that suffering at the hand of her husband was better than living without him. I understood her thinking but I didn’t agree with it. Just like I didn’t agree with them when I repeated them to myself every time Con passed me in the hall or walked through the kitchen and did nothing more than nod his head in acknowledgement.
The sight of that mirror should have had me taking the kids and running for the hills because I knew how it had gotten broken. My father had put his fist through enough walls to teach me what a fist could do. Hell, I’d learned that lesson by the time I’d been five.
But knowing Con had taken his anger out on the mirror hadn’t frightened me so much as it’d made me hurt inside.
For him.
I knew I was the cause of that anger with all the mixed messages I’d been sending him from the moment he’d stepped into that room and stopped Ricky from following through on his threat to kill me. I’d lashed out at Con, accused him of vile things and never let him forget that he was the cause of all of my problems.
And that, in itself, was complete bullshit. It had been easy to make Con the scapegoat for everything that had gone wrong in my life when he’d been nothing more than a face on TV. But now that I’d come to know the real man, had experienced his kindness, had witnessed his guilt and regret, I’d had to start facing some truths about myself as well as the events that had happened after Brady’s injury.
So yeah, it wasn’t for the best.
Having Con treat me like nothing more than an unwanted houseguest fucking hurt. I missed him even though he was right there. He still ate everything I made for him, he thanked me for the cleaning I’d been doing, and he was kind to the kids even as he kept his distance from them. There were no more gentle touches to comfort me, no more heat-filled glances, no more heartbreaking admissions.
He wanted me.
Three weeks after his admission and I still couldn’t believe what he’d said. I was supposed to be red in his ledger. But a man who was simply paying back a debt didn’t say stuff like that, did he? He didn’t talk about waking up in your arms or making love to you so he could watch you come apart.
And he thought I was strong? How the hell was that even possible?