Page 118 of Fire in You

“I guess he didn’t. I’m not entirely surprised.” She tilted her head to the side. Icy blonde hair slipped over her shoulder. “You probably aren’t even that surprised. You’ve known him since you both were kids, so you know he’s not much of a talker.”

Brockwasa talker—with me, at least. The room felt like it was spinning. “You were pregnant?”

Thick lashes lowered as she slowly nodded. “It was not too long after we got together. Maybe a little over two years into the relationship. I was on the pill, but I wasn’t exactly taking them regularly.” She laughed softly. “I wasn’t very responsible back then and . . .” She took a deep breath. “Since you’re with Brock now, you know how he is. He likes to . . .fuck.”

My stomach turned sour and a dozen mental roadblocks flew up.

“The pregnancy didn’t . . . it didn’tstick,” she went on before I could respond. “It really tore me up. I didn’t want to get pregnant back then, but once I found out that I was, I was happy, and he was happy. I wanted that baby, and I wanted Brock. I loved him, and when I lost the baby, I was a mess.”

I didn’t know what to say. Brock had never mentioned that Kristen had been pregnant and that seemed like something one would share. Then again. Brock rarely talked about Kristen.

“After I lost the baby, he proposed to me about three months later,” she said. “As you know, I said yes.”

I jerked in my seat. “I’m . . . I’m sorry to hear that you lost a baby. I didn’t know, but I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.” And why Brock had never mentioned it to me.

“I’m telling you because when Brock proposed to me, I knew why he had. I managed to convince myself that it wasn’t what I feared, but I was wrong.” Her gaze met mine, and there was a fine sheen to it, as if she was holding back tears. “I wanted to believe he wanted to marry because he loved me, but that wasn’t the case. Brock asked me to marry him because he feltguilty. He felt responsible for me losing the baby.”

“How . . . how did he feel responsible?”

“It was during a rough part of the relationship. He was traveling a lot, leaving me behind. I was stressed out. We were arguing a lot. It wasn’t his fault, but he blamed himself,” she said so sincerely that I wasn’t sure how to process it. “And that’s why he asked me to marry him. He wanted to make me happy again and he succeeded for a while, but I soon realized he was with me because he felt guilty. Not because he truly loved me. But that’s his MO.”

The chill returned, encasing my insides in ice.

“Brock felt guilty when it came to me, but it never touched on the guilt he carried because of you.” Her gaze lowered and her shoulders tightened. “I was there that night. I knew who you were when you were talking to Brock. I could see how much you cared about him, and I could see that Brock barely even noticed that you were there.” She shook her head, exhaling softly. “Anybody could’ve seen it. You left, and he stayed with me. I felt sorry for you.”

Well, that was just lovely. My fingers curled inward. The nails dug into my palms.

“I was there with him when someone came running into Mona’s screaming about someone being shot. We didn’t go outside immediately. His friends did—Colton and Reece. They ran out. I don’t remember how we heard it was you, but we did. He saw you on the ground. It was brief, because one of the brothers pushed him back, but I’ll never forget the look on his face,” she said, a distant look settling into her expression. “Like he blamed himself for me losing the baby, he blamed himself for you getting shot.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” I was quick to tell her.

“I know that. You know that. But no one, not me and not even you, could change the way he felt, especially after that Christmas when he brought me to your house. I just want to let you know, I didn’t want to go,” she said. “I didn’t want him to be there, because I knew what it would do to you and him.”

My heart turned over heavily. “Kristen, I—”

“The entire time we were together that guilt festered. It was an open wound spreading into every aspect of our life,” she interrupted as tiny darts of pain shot across my palms. “For six years, you were all that he would really talk about.”

I sucked in a sharp breath.

Her cheekbones turned pink. “He was already around your family, but I know he talked to your mom about you. I overheard them on multiple occasions, and I never said a word to him about it. I thought that if he knew that you were okay, that you were doing fine, he’d eventually let it go and fully be a part of us—of our future. He never did. And he never stopped talking about you.” She let out a bitter-sounding laugh. “How do you think that made me feel? It was worse than being with someone who was in love with someone else.”

Unable to say a word, I pressed the tips of my fingers to my lips.

“Actually, I would’ve preferred that he had loved you. At least I would have lost him to someone he loved. Not to someone he felt this twisted sense of responsibility for.” Her red lips thinned. “I even asked him, right before he ended the engagement, if he was in love with you—if he had spent six years with me loving someone else.”

The room was still whirling, and I didn’t want to hear what she was about to say, but I didn’t stop her. The woman who delivered the epic verbal bitch slap was gone. I was frozen in my chair, unable to stop this train wreck.

“He said he didn’t. Not in the way I was afraid of,” she said.

My gaze flew to hers, and I got what she was saying. I didn’t need to read between the lines. She just told me that Brock didn’t love me. Truth was, she might be right. We hadn’t exchanged those words, and finding out if he loved me or could love me the way I loved him, had always loved him, was mine to discover from him. Not from Kristen.

But it was too late.

“When he decided to retire and began talking to your father about coming down here to work, I knew he would find his way back to you—find some kind of way to make amends, assuage his guilt, and I’d had it.” Anger colored her tone for the first time. “I told him I did not want him coming down here, because not for one second did I believe that he wanted to be the GM. He was trying to find a way to get close to you. I made him choose, and he chose you and he chose his guilt. That is why we broke up.”

“Okay,” I blurted out. “This sounds crazy, and I don’t know what to say to you. I’m sorry things didn’t work out—”

“You really think I’m making this up? You’re telling me not once has he mentioned his guilt?”

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