Page 133 of Between Hate and Desire

The sadness on her face cuts straight to the bone.

“I’m sorry. I’m—” She chokes up.

“It’s okay.” I see a few tears escape, and it practically destroys me that she’s crying for me.

“You may never have a family,” she says, covering her mouth.

I suck in a deep breath. “I have you, Lennon. You’re all I need.” My stance softens as I watch her emotions bleed for me.

She folds the documentation and places it back in the envelope, then pushes it away like it’s poison. “Wait. Is this why you’ve been so willing to be here for me and the baby? I’ve been asking myself why after all this time you’d do this and…” Lennon trails off.

I know she doesn’t mean it the way it came out or maybe she does. I tense up, not sure how to respond, but I’m offended. Her words make it seem as if I’m using her or something to have a baby, which is so fucking far from the truth. I already feel like less of a man because of it, but for her to think I’ve only been nice to her to have one is absurd.

“Are you serious? How could you think that?” My questions come out harsher than I intend, but my emotions and adrenaline are high.

Lennon pulls her bottom lip into her mouth. “Hunter, no. I don’t think that.” She pulls her chair back, then stands in front of me. “I’ve been trying to figure out why you’d do all this for me, considering our past and how much you hated me. I know we’ve grown close, and we’re friends now, but why come up with the fake marriage, say you’re the father, and all of it? Why would you pretend for me unless you had an ulterior motive?”

I didn’t expect to have this conversation today, but fuck it. I’m tired of holding it all in. She doesn’t realize the avalanche she started.

“Pretend?” I ask, my tone harsh and growing louder. “The time we spent in Utah was more real to me than anything, Lennon. If you haven’t figured it out by now, the way I feel about you, the way I’vealwaysfelt about you has been real since the moment I met you. Sorry to disappoint you, but I wasn’t faking shit.”

“Wait, what?” She steps back as if I’ve slapped her. She’s confused as hell, but after all this time, how can she not see it? “What do you mean?”

My heart is pounding, and I’m no longer calm. Waving my hand in frustration, I continue, “Why do you think everyone made so many comments about how in love we looked? About how they could see the love between us? It’s because I don’t have to act when I’m with you. It was all real for me. Maybe you were going along with the script, but I wasn’t pretending, Lennon.” I need to settle my nerves and slow my breaths, but now that I’ve opened my emotional baggage, there’s no stopping. “And I know it’s fucked up. I know it is. But I’m selfish, especially when it comes to you.”

“You weren’t pretending?” She slowly repeats the words as if she needs to hear them again. “What do you mean since the moment you met me?” She blinks, then looks up at me, her expression hardening. “What the hell does that even mean?”

I don’t think, I just speak, waving my hand in the air as I make my points.

“You didn’t notice I took every opportunity to kiss you, be near you, hold you? Even when no one was around, I couldn’t help it. I told myself we were pretending for your family, but that wasn’t the truth. I couldn’t stop kissing you even though I knew better. I fucking knew I was crossing a line, but you were too. You kissed me like you’d been waiting for it, like you couldn’t hold back either. You can lie to yourself all you want, Lennon, but I know you reacted to every single touch. It wasn’t just me.”

She opens her mouth to say something but then clamps it shut. She looks like she wants to slap the truths right off my face. Whether or not she wants to admit I’m right, I know I am. She could’ve pushed me away or told me to stop anytime we were alone. If she was uncomfortable with the situation, she never made it known. She moaned against me, arched her body, and even held on tighter each time we were close. I know it’s not one-sided, but until she admits it, I’m not going to keep acting like it was no big deal. It was a big fucking deal to me.

This is not how I expected her to react or how I wanted shit to go down, but I deserve it because of how wrong this situation is. She directs her attention to the table, nostrils flaring, and grabs her half-eaten plate of pasta and takes it to the kitchen, where she sets it in the sink.

“You need to eat, Lennon,” I say, following her and not allowing her to escape this discussion.

She looks at me, then within a few steps, she points her finger into my chest. “You need to stop telling me what to do.” Her breasts rise and fall as I look into her eyes. “And I’m still waiting for a goddamn explanation as to why you treated me like shit for two years.”

I gently grab her wrist and move her finger to place her palm against my racing heart. “You feel that?”

Lennon sucks in a deep breath, looking back and forth between our hands and my eyes. Swallowing, she nods.

“The moment I met you, I knew you were so damn special. In here.” I tap my finger against my chest. “I knew.” I shrug, keeping her close. “I wanted you that night and missed my chance to ask you out. But—” Just as I’m about to say that Brandon was the better guy for her, knowing he could give her everything she wanted, she pulls her hand back and walks around me, seething.

“You were awful to me!” she shouts, and I turn around to follow her. “You treated me like an inconvenience and purposely got under my skin every chance possible. You were the worst, Hunter, the biggest dickhead I’d ever met in my life, and I hated you for it!” She’s pissed, but I don’t blame her. I know I was all those things.

“Lennon, I know. I regret all of it, trust me. I’ve lived with the guilt of how I treated you for months,” I tell her, stepping closer, but she maintains her distance.

She snorts, exaggerating her disbelief. “And now you expect me to believe you always had a thing for me? After you brought home random girls and the way you acted toward me? What do you want me to say? Yeah, we kissed. We had to share a bed. We were close and had to pretend to be married. It was all an act, and that’s all it ever can be.”

Her words are a slap in the face, considering there was no acting on my part, and I know she’s only lying to herself and me if she claims she was only acting too.

“I can’t help the way my body reacts to you when we kiss, Hunter. My body may say yes, but my head says no.”

Another slap.

“And what about your heart? What does your heart say, Lennon?”

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