Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
The words made him ache. “I was trying to protect her. Why can’t anyone understand that?”
“Because you hurt her. You might have protected her from Julia Ennis, but who protected her from you? I know this is going to surprise you but a part of MaeBe died when she realized you left her behind. I think a part of her thinks you chose Julia. I don’t know what that woman said to her, but it was poison and it’s still in her system. I tell you that, but I don’t want you to focus on what Julia did or might do. You have to make a choice, and you need to make it now.”
“There’s no choice between Julia and Mae. I love Mae. What I feel for Julia is the furthest thing from love.”
“Oh, baby, that’s not true,” his mother argued. “Hate isn’t the opposite of love. They’re two sides of the same coin. Tell me you haven’t spent as much time thinking about Julia as you do Mae lately.”
“It’s not like I want to think about her. I have to. She’s going to try to kill me. She already tried to take out MaeBe. Are you sure Carys and Luke are safe?”
“They’re here with us. They’re doing online school for a few weeks while Sean is filming,” his mom explained. “And I assure you we have a McKay-Taggart bodyguard. David came up with her so he could do some research.”
So Tessa and David were with the rest of the family. Tessa would take care of things, and David followed her lead when it came to security. His brother had learned how competent his wife was long before they got married.
Would David hide Tessa away if someone was coming for him? Or would he have sat down with her and asked for her advice. Would they have worked out as a couple what to do?
If he’d sat down with MaeBe and asked her to go into hiding for his sake, she would have done it. She would have hugged him and told him she loved him and been waiting for him.
“I panicked. When I found out Julia was alive, I was so angry. I didn’t behave like the trained operative I am. I lost my shit and went to the absolute worst place. I couldn’t see a world where Julia lived and I got to have a happy life. All I knew in that moment was if she thought for a second I wasn’t willing to give up MaeBe, she would kill her. So I did it. I thought I was being unselfish. I thought I was saving her.”
“And she thought you were abandoning her. You’re using the wrong word, Kyle. You weren’t angry.”
His eyes went watery because he knew she was right, but he didn’t like to admit it. Even to himself. “I don’t know. I was pretty pissed at her.”
“You cannot face the truth of this if you can’t put a name to the feeling. This is what I’ve been talking to your uncle about. And your Aunt Charlotte. They understand what you’re going through. They couldn’t move on until they accepted what happened and why they had done what they did to each other. It starts with naming what you feel.”
“Afraid.” He brushed that obnoxious watery proof of his emotional state away. “I was afraid. I was afraid of everything she could do to me. I was afraid if MaeBe had to learn the truth, she wouldn’t love me anymore.”
“Yes,” his mom said with a sigh that sounded like relief.
He looked up and MaeBe was walking through the door. She was in utilitarian jeans and a plain T-shirt, her hair covered with a baseball cap she’d likely had to borrow from someone because she was not into sports.
She looked so unlike the vibrant woman he’d fallen for. He’d brought her to this place.
“Should I walk away, Mom? Should I apologize and promise to stay away from her?”
“Do you love her?”
“So much I ache with it. I hate the fact that I ever thought about another woman.”
“That’s ridiculous and more about you than her. I assure you she doesn’t think you should have come into her life as some virginal sacrifice who’s held off for the right woman. She’s practical and understands the world far more than you’re giving her credit for.”
MaeBe’s head turned and then she stopped in the middle of the hall, her face going stony. The conference room had floor-to-ceiling windows that his uncle often closed the blinds to, but not today. Perhaps because they didn’t have a media presentation. Or it was fate that he was staring at her.
She stared back at him, practically begging him to show his true colors.
What were they? What was he feeling if he took Julia out of the equation? How would he feel if he was just Kyle and not some combination Kyle and the mess having a relationship with Julia Ennis had turned him into?