Page 95 of Broken King

He sways back on his feet slightly, like he just took another hit tonight.

Except Jake The Snake and all his training did less damage than that perfectly aimed uppercut.

I knew he’d find out eventually.

I knew I needed to tell him, and I still didn’t.

This is my fault.

“Get out.” My words are barely audible over the ringing in my ears, so I raise my voice. “I said get out.”

“You can’t be serious.” Shock is apparent in every word she utters, but I’m not sure she’s genuinely surprised by my reaction.

“I’m deadly serious, Mother. I want you to leave. You’re not welcome here. You never were.”

She reaches for me, but I step back. “Scarlet, you’re not thinking straight. He has you all mixed up again. He—”

I march to the table and pick up Adaline’s purse, then grab her hand and pull her to my door. “I should have done this years ago.” I shove her through the door and slap her purse against her chest. “Don’t come back, Adaline. You’re not welcome in my life.”

Adaline sputters in shock that she’s being disrespected. “But I’m your mother.”

“The only thing I’ve ever learned from you is the type of mother I do not want to be. Goodbye, Adaline.” I shut the door and bolt it, then walk into the kitchen, pick up my phone, and dial the front desk of my building. “Yes, this is Scarlet Kingston. My mother has just been asked to leave my home, and she’s not welcome back. Please do not let her in.” I hang up the phone and finally look over at Cade, who hasn’t moved a muscle since my mother dropped her bomb.

“Cade...”

He drops the gym bag that had been resting on his shoulder this whole time. The muscles in his face are clenched tight, and I can’t read his eyes. “Is it true?”

“Cade, I—”

“Were you pregnant before? Is that why you broke up with me?” His voice is laced with hurt. With pain. But the anger I was expecting isn’t there... yet. I take another step toward him, but he backs away. “Scarlet... tell me. Were you pregnant?”

I guess the other shoe is finally dropping.

Not dropping so much as catching fire. And now, I have to watch it burn.

I’ve avoided telling him this truth for months, not wanting to relive a single moment of finding out I was seventeen and pregnant. Just remembering the hell I went through is enough to make me taste the bile rising up my throat.

Looking back on my relationship with Cade this time, I’d like to think I’d do things differently. Tell him early on what I went through after he left for the marines. But I don’t know that I would. At least for a few months, I got to know what it felt like to be loved by this man.

I wonder what Tennyson went through when he asked if it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

Only one way to find out.

“Just stay there for a minute.” He starts to speak, but I cut him off. “Please. Just give me one minute. I’ll be right back.” I walk down the hall to my bedroom and step into my closet, looking for a specific shoebox. One I haven’t opened in ages but still know exactly where it sits on the top shelf in the far back corner. Once I have it in my hands, I bring it back out to where Cade’s standing.

Exactly where I left him.

I take his hand and pull him to sit down on the couch with me.

All joking from before is gone. The happy man who wanted to do all sorts of naughty things to me has been replaced with a hard piece of granite.

“Please bear with me. I’ve only ever talked about this with one other person. And they were paid to listen.”

He nods his agreement, and I lift the lid from the box and trace the tip of my finger over the small black-and-white ultrasound image sitting on top of the old cards and letters, ticket stubs, and dried flowers. A box full of memories of the girl I was before I became the woman I am.

Cade does as I ask and stays quiet when I hold up the old ultrasound. “Two weeks after you left for the marines, I found out I was pregnant.”

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