Page 29 of All Our Secrets

I bit my lip.I hoped not.But he’d stopped our conversations, our friendship, like it was nothing, and that hurt. I hadn’t realized how important King was until he was gone.

“Come here,” Theodore mumbled, flopping down on the couch and pulling me with him. “Sarah’s about to put the movie on.”

The door slammed in the distance. I pressed my nose into Theodore’s neck and sighed, already knowing the spot where Silas King had been sitting was vacant.

The creak of my bedroom door had me bolting awake. A slice of pain, not as sharp as it had been, ripped into my incision, and I winced. A cramp caught in my neck, and I gritted my teeth at that too, but all of it faded when I realized what had woken me.

Ice filled my veins, and I jumped out of the wooden chair, causing it to rock back and forth, creaking as it did. A man stood in the doorway, the faint light peeking from the hallway giving his wide form a menacing quality. But the tension drained from my body when I realized it was Silas, not an intruder. I slumped my shoulders and frowned. Why was he barging into my room? And why did he look so… rigid?

“Silas?” I whispered, placing my palm against my throbbing stomach, and wobbled over to him. “Jesus, I thought you were the intruder.”

“Were you sleeping in that chair?” he asked.

As I stepped closer, the light revealed more of Silas’s features. His brows were knitted toward the middle, and his jaw was tight.

“I think I dozed off there,” I lied, stiff because I didn’t understand the anger radiating from him.

“Are you sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“Go to bed.The bed.”

“Yeah, of course the bed.”

That seemed to make him angrier. “The bed, Peyton.”

Huh? Before I could say anything else, he strode away.

What in the world? My mind drifted back to my dream. The way Silas King stormed out of the room was something I should be used to since he’d left my presence so often in the years I’d known him.

So why was he trying so hard to take care of me when, more often than not, he couldn’t wait to get away from me?

Chapter Thirteen:

chasm between us

Silas

Istepped into the kitchen and found Peyton yawning at the sink. I sighed loudly, having to swallow the urge to argue. She was lucky I was a man of few words in the mornings.

She went right back to the rocking chair.

Peyton poured a glass of milk. When she caught me glaring, her eyes narrowed. “Sweet lord, what is your problem this early in the morning?”

Well, some of her attitude had returned. I’d rarely seen it in the last few days. Some of the worry slid off my shoulders at the familiarity of her disposition, but not enough. I’d never been around a new mom, but she was exhausted. The light in her brown eyes dimmed when she had company lately. It was so unlike her. I was the loner, not her. I studied her briefly, wishing she’d tell me what was bothering her. At one point, I had been someone she confided in, but I’d destroyed that. Regret squeezed my heart. I fought the urge to rub my chest, knowing it wouldn’t ease the heartache if I did.

“Are you sleeping at all between T.J.’s feedings?” I asked.

“Yes.” She groaned.

Touching the top of her messy bun, she peeked down at her black T-shirt and shorts. I couldn’t help but follow the movement, and my eyes widened as I took in the curve of her breasts and the nipples poking through the material. She was braless. I blinked as heat rolled over me. The sensation was forbidden—so fucking wrong, but natural for me. Peyton had become a forbidden fruit of my own doing. Any illicit glimpse of her was like a straight shot of ecstasy. The simplest roll of her eyes could make my dick hard, even when she was my best friend’s wife. Even as his widow.

Peyton touched her face. “Do I look that awful?”

I grunted, rubbing my face while she searched for an imperfection. There weren’t any. She did have dark circles beneath her eyes, but not even the exhaustion of newfound motherhood could make her any less gorgeous in my eyes. In fact, seeing her taking care of a life was another treasure.Fuck.She just gave birth to someone else’s child—Theodore’s. That should have put a damper on my feelings, but it didn’t, just like her being Theodore’s wife never had.

She was a mother now, but stillmyPeyton.

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