Page 94 of All Her Broken Pieces

“I like her.” She grins at me. “I take back the cockblock, but if you’re gonna make out, don’t do it around me,” she adds, making a gagging face.

“Ella, can you let Erin and Evie know that we’re going to eat soon and to start cleaning up?” Ashley calls.

“Ugh, they’re not going to listen to me, but I’ll try,” she agrees as she stomps off toward the basement muttering, “This will be minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.”

“Ethan, come here!” Ashley exclaims from the dining room, and we walk over as she points to our casserole on the table. “Is this what I think it is?”

“It is.” I can feel Ethan’s gaze as he wraps his arm around me and pulls me against him. “Bridget helped me make it,” he tells her as he kisses the side of my head.

I blush as my eyes connect with Ashley’s.

“Ethan makes the best sweet potato casserole.” Ashley has tears in her eyes. “He hasn’t made it since he graduated from high school, and then my mom passed last year and I figured the dish died with her. No one makes it better than him, aside from my mom, and only the two of them know the secret recipe. The girls and I have never been able to replicate it. And he’s refused to make it since she’s been gone. I wasn’t sure if he would ever make it again.”

I turn to stare at him. He did this for me. He put aside his grief and shared a sacred ritual with me. One he never intended to repeat. One he only shared with his family. “But that card didn’t have a star on it. You said the ones with stars had secret ingredients.” I turn to examine his face, confusion marring my features. He shrugs nonchalantly, stuffing his hands in his pockets like it’s not a big deal. But it’s a huge fucking deal. It’s everything. “Thank you.”

I throw myself into his arms, not caring who’s watching. This man has let me all the way in, given me every piece of himself. I’m not sure what I did to deserve it, but I’ll do everything in my power to return that love and trust.

“I love you,” he says as he presses a kiss atop my head, his arms wrapping around me.

“I love you too,” I reply, looking up into his deep green eyes.

I hear a door open and shut from somewhere in the direction of the kitchen. “Ethan! You made it!” a deep voice booms.

The blood freezes in my body. No, it can’t be.

I know that voice.

I turn in Ethan’s arms as I come face to face with his father.

Ashley starts with introductions. “Hank, this is…”

“Bridge.” An uncomfortable silence permeates the air.

Ethan stiffens behind me as he growls an almost inaudible “Mine.” In any other situation, I would laugh at the absurdity of it, but at this moment, all humor has left me as I stare into the blue eyes of the man who took my virginity and broke my heart.

The reason I moved schools.

The reason I don’t date.

The reason I don’t trust men.

Ethan’s arms tighten around my waist. He knows I’m going to run. His ability to read my intentions now feels like a lead weight holding me down. “It was him?” I can feel his hot breath against my ear. “My father?” His voice cracks, and I can hear the hurt, feel it to the depths of my soul.

“Henry.” His name is a full sentence on my tongue. A lifetime of running. Of brokenness. Of hiding emotions.

“Fuck, no one’s called me that since high school.” He laughs, the sound foreign in my ears as my heart hammers in my chest. “I go by Hank now. What are you doing here?” His eyes flick down to Ethan’s arms around my waist, and I see the realization hit him.

“Have you two already met?” Ashley asks, confusion all over her face as her eyes dart between me and Henry.

“You could say that,” Ethan mutters behind me.

“Oh shit!” My hands fly to my mouth as it suddenly hits me who Ethan is. I was so blinded by seeing my cheating ex. Floored that he’s the father of the man I love. And now devastated at the realization that Ethan is the product of the affair that destroyed me.

Bile rises in my throat as I attempt to pry myself out of Ethan’s embrace. I can’t be here. “I need some air. Excuse me,” I choke out as I grab my purse from the chair and stumble toward the door. Throwing it open, I sprint outside, not caring that I left my jacket. My entire world is crashing around me, like an avalanche burying everything in its path.

Faintly, I can hear someone, probably Ethan, shouting my name. My feet can’t move fast enough as I run down the sidewalk while digging in my purse for my phone. I need to get away from here. From him, from them, from everyone. Away from the man I am hopelessly and foolishly in love with—my ex’s son.

CHAPTER30

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