Page 38 of Hunter

Hunter looked at me with a passive expression, but I could see the thoughts behind his eyes.

“Because you’re a bitch.”

A what?

“Excuse me?” I blurted.

Hunter’s eyes darkened as he looked me over, narrowing them on my face and curling his lips in disgust. “You’re the bitch who hid my brother’s son from me … from his family. The bitch who ran away from all the people she cared about and didn’t look back. The bitch who stole my nephew and dragged him up and down the country from shithole to shithole. The bitch who is cold-hearted, vapid, and selfish.” His hands bunched up tighter on his lap as I sat there, gob smacked.

I had no response. None at all. However, I managed to find them after his next few words.

“The bitch who didn’t give a shit about my brother. Never did.”

“I loved Noble!” I yelled, throwing myself from the chair, knocking my coffee all over the grass. “It may only have been a one-night stand for Noble, but that didn’t stop me from loving him. I loved him then, and I love him now! I took my son from here, because that was the best thing for him, to protect what Noble and I created! Our precious son. Our child. Our beautiful baby boy! I did it to protect him!” The fury and hurt raging through me was impossible to control. “You don’t have the right to tell me who I loved and who I didn’t! You. Do. Not. Have. The. Right.”

Hunter jumped from his seat, towering over me. “Then why run?”

I froze. The words were clinging to my chest, unable to escape. I fought to pry them free, but the ache in my chest began to burn. I didn’t want to tell him.

“Why. Did. You. Run?” Hunter yelled.

“Because it was my fault!” I cried, the words ripping out of my chest. “I’m the reason Noble’s dead!”

“What?” Hunter breathed. His whole body went rigid, his hands pressed into tight fists as his gaze bore down on me.

I couldn’t bring myself to look up.

“I hurt him that day,” I spoke, my voice much quieter than I hoped. “That day, when I came to the club’s parking lot, when I told him that I was pregnant, when he figured out I trapped him like one of those women …” I shook my head. “I betrayed his trust. I betrayed him. I broke my heart that day … and I broke his. It was my fault he got on that stupid bike and didn’t stay at the clubhouse all day like he said he would. It was my fault he got into that accident … My fault he died.”

Not once had I ever told anybody that, but it didn’t make the agony any worse. It didn’t make my sins any more forgivable … Make my heart any less broken.

“Mallory,” Hunter whispered, stepping into my space. I could hear the dry grass crunching under his feet as his scent enveloped me. Then he cupped my chin with his large, calloused hand, lifting it until I had no other choice but to look at his face.

My breath caught in my throat at his expression. So much agony and pain written into his hard features. Ropes of muscles bulged out of his neck, and the tightness of his lips looked like he was fighting to keep the pain at bay. Not just his own pain, but a reflection of my pain as well. Then it all disappeared, and left in its wake was a sad, broken man.

“It wasn’t your fault, darlin’. Never your fault.”

“He died hating me, Hunter. He died mad at the world because of what I did. He drove that bike to get away from me.” I shook my head. “That’s my fault.”

As much as I wished I could be forgiven, I couldn’t. Not now. Not ever.

“No, he didn’t, Mallory,” Hunter whispered, sweeping his fingers across my tear-stained cheek.

“You don’t know that for sure.” I shook my head at him.

“I know,” Hunter said, his voice full of a conviction he couldn’t possibly have. He brought his face closer to mine. “I know, and it’s not your fault. You hear me? Not. Your. Fault.”

I kept shaking my head, taking a step back, but Hunter followed me, not letting go of my face or my gaze.

“Mallory,” Hunter snapped, and I stopped trying to move. “Come here,” he whispered. He lifted his hand to the back of my head, cupping it as if it was the most fragile thing in the world, and then pulled me into his arms and held tight.

I was stiff against him until his lips pressed against my ear. “It’s not your fault.”

“If I hadn’t told him … If I’d just left, or—”

“No, Mallory,” Hunter whispered. “Noble wouldn’t have let you leave. He would have loved Adair, treasured him, treasured you. Trust me when I tell you”—he squeezed me, his face buried in my neck—“it isn’t your fault.”

For a moment, I felt as if my world had stopped; as if it waited for me as those words echoed in my darkest parts.

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