Page 34 of Protecting Her Secrets

He chuckles, and it vibrates through my body. “Now, I know it’s because I was waiting for you to come back to me.”

“I never should’ve left.”

His hands palm my ass to hike me up as my legs wrap around him so he can look me in the eyes. “Does that mean you’re done fighting me? You’re not going to change your mind and ice me out tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’m done. I still don’t like the idea of putting you in danger. If anything happened to you, I don’t know?—”

“Nothing will happen. You’re safe here. You’ll see,” he says, and I bite the inside of my cheek, hoping he’s right. He sounds so certain, I’m almost convinced, but life has taught me I’m not meant for good things. It’s hard to believe my luck has now changed. “You don’t believe me, but that’s okay. I’ll prove it to you, and you’ll see there’s nowhere safer for you and your baby.”

I look down at my belly, which looks no more pregnant than when I eat a large meal. “I thought about getting an abortion. Ieven booked an appointment. I just couldn’t follow through. Not because of any moral obligation; I believe uterus owners should have a choice. No one should be forced to carry a baby they don’t want. But I realized I wasn’t being forced. I want this baby, no matter how they were conceived or who with.”

“I agree. It’s good we live in California.” He accepts my beliefs and choices but latches onto the last part of my statement. “But what do you mean by ‘how they were conceived’?”

Shit. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Walker has always been too observant for his own good. “It’s not important.”

“It is to me. I don’t want any secrets between us. If we’re going to fight this battle, we need to be able to trust each other, and we can’t do that if you’re not telling me everything.” One of his hands skims up my back as he lowers me to my feet.

If I thought my anxiety peaked when I decided to tell him about the baby, I was wrong, because I feel stress hives form on my chest and cheeks, hot and uncomfortable. I’m sure there will be so many more things to tell him as time goes on, but he’s right. If he’s going to put himself between Klutch and me, he should know the sticking points.

“Can we sit?” I ask.

“Sure.”

I take up space on the couch while he sits opposite me on the coffee table. He rests his forearms on his muscular thighs and holds my hands, looking almost as nervous to hear whatever I have to tell him as I am to say it.

“Don’t interrupt,” I say. “And don’t freak out.”

“It makes me want to freak out when you tell me not to freak out.”

I can’t look at him while I tell him this, so I stare at our joined hands. His dwarfs mine, and just like the rest of his body, they’ve changed. Gone are the soft, gentle fingertips, and in their placeare the hands of a working man. They’re dry and rough, cracked in places, and two of his fingernails are black, as if they’ve been crushed in the last month or two. Meanwhile, I had my nails done right before this trip. They’re short due to my job with little kids, and I always let them vote on the color when I know I have a manicure coming up. This time, they’re bubble-gum pink.

“The first time Klutch forced himself on me was when I turned twenty-five.” Immediately, he tenses, and his grip on my hands tightens. “After that first time, I ran to my dad and told him what happened. My lip was split, and there were bruises in the shape of Klutch’s fingers on my throat. Do you know what he said to me as I stood there sobbing?”

“Pretty sure it was something that’s gonna piss me off.”

“He said it was my job as a woman to keep my man happy.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me.” His eyes close, and his leg bounces, as if trying to stop himself from raging.

“Klutch looked at it as a trade-off. I kept putting off getting married, which he was fine with, so long as I performed my wifely duties. For a while, I tried to fight it, but he just became violent, and the more I fought, the more he hurt me. Eventually, I stopped fighting to avoid the abuse. I knew if I just lay there and took it, he’d be in and out in five minutes max.”

“If you didn’t want it, it’s still rape.”

“I know, and I told him over and over that I didn’t want it, but he’d threaten me or sneak into my apartment when he knew I was asleep and wouldn’t realize what was happening until I woke up.”

“Fuck me.” He straightens his spine and blows out a breath to the side before settling back into position. “Weren’t you on birth control?”

“I was, but I came down with sinusitis and was on antibiotics for ten days, which weakens the pill. Plus, I knew he wasn’t faithful, so I made him wear a condom. That should’ve stoppedme from getting pregnant, but given my luck, something happened, and here I am.” I gesture to my belly. “I don’t want anything tying me to him, but when I saw the baby on the ultrasound—just a little floating blip—I immediately fell in love with them.”

He does something so unexpected, so sweet, my breath hitches and my heart skips a beat. He moves to my side and places a hand on my lower belly. “You’ll be the best mom this kid could ever ask for.”

I relaxunder the warm spray of the shower, feeling better than I have in years. I know things will get worse before they get better, but for the first time in so long, I’m certain theywillget better.

It has been two days since I came clean about the baby and agreed not to go back to Klutch, and we’ve been living in a happy bubble ever since. I convinced Walker to hold off on bringing his friends over to come up with a plan and continued my lies to Klutch about the weather to keep him from coming after me. It felt like we needed some time for us to reconnect before shit got real.

So, we’ve been playing games, watching movies, and talking a lot, but my favorite is all the making out we’ve done. We haven’t taken it further than that, and each night, he tucks me into bed in his guest room alone, but I sense one of us will break soon.

Though it has been fun to tempt and tease each other, building tension. It feels like we’re sixteen again.

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