Page 14 of Broken

"Is there something between the two of them?" I asked, breaking the silence.

Kai glanced up at me and shrugged. He didn't seem uncomfortable in the house alone with me. There was no sign of anger or other negative emotions. He was the same Kai I’d known since I was seven.

He went through the kitchen cabinets, stacking nonperishable food items on the counter to donate to the hospital's food bank. In the few hours we had been in the house, I learned that starting the food bank and free clinic were two of the first things Kai suggested when he returned home and started his residency.

Doctor Kai Carter, the good doctor, always worked for the underprivileged and the disadvantaged.

"I never asked. We don't talk a lot anymore." Kai kept his eyes on his task, working without losing his pace while we talked. "I guess they went on a couple of dates back in college, but I never asked about it.

The two of them and Callum still hang out a lot."

"What about you? You don't spend much time with your best friend and brothers?" I stopped stacking dishes and turned to lean against the counter, looking at him.

"I work. I don’t have much time for dating, or friends." "So, you're boring?" I laughed.

"Sinclair, I assure you; I am anything but boring." Kai kept his eyes locked on mine while he slowly walked towards me. "What exactly do you do for fun, Sin?"

"I work." I cleared my throat. "I also get drinks from time to time with my friend Danielle."

Fucking hell. Kai stood in front of me. He smelled so fucking incredible; I wanted to rub my face, my nose all over his chest, and just breathe him in.

What the fuck was wrong with me? This was Kai, not some random guy at a bar. He was everything right in the world, love and brightness and everything I destroyed with my touch.

"What, no boyfriend? No ring on your finger. I assume you're not married." His strong steady hands cradled mine. A doctor's hands. The heat of his touch sent invisible little flames up my arm. My brain wanted me to pull away, but my body ignored the command. I didn't recognize the look in his eyes. It conjured emotions I didn't want to acknowledge.

My voice didn't want to work. "Kai," I whispered. He was so close, so painfully, gloriously close to me. I stared at him. God, I wanted to kiss him. I craved it. I’ve never wanted or needed to be touched by anyone as much as I needed to be touched by Kai. Here, now, in this very moment.

As if he read my mind, Kai bent down and kissed me. A hard, hot, and searing kiss. A kiss that sucked the life out of me and breathed something else in its place. I wasn't Sinclair, the professional, hardworking single mother who occasionally hooked up with guys at the bar to let off steam.

No. I was the broken teenage girl looking for something or someone to fix her. But there was nothing but darkness in me. No one to fix the shattered pieces of me.

I moaned. It hurt to separate from him, but I had to. I had to stop

this before my darkness consumed him, too. "Kai."

When I looked up, pain and anger were written across Kais' face. That must have been what I saw in his eyes. Hurt, revenge, anger. All well placed and much deserved. "I've waited twelve years to do that again." Kai rested his forehead against mine. "Twelve fucking years." He growled.

The agony was all that came out when he spoke. It broke for me to know that I hurt my best friend. I insisted that everything after prom was a mistake. I told him I hated him; I used him as a tool to make myself feel better.

That was the killing blow I dealt him and our friendship.

The moment Kai told me he loved me, I shattered. Rivers of tears flowed free down my cheeks. I did everything possible to hide the baby growing in my belly, as my best friend in the entire world declared his love to me. If only he knew the secret, I carried that day. The struggle to keep my poison, my darkness from destroying him and the baby.

"Why?"

"Sin." The broken tone in his voice hurt almost as much as the ending of the kiss had. "I'm sorry."

What the fuck? I deserve a lot of things from Kai, none of them kind, but what the fuck?

He pulled away and wiped my tears with his thumb. I watched, filled with a cold emptiness, as he walked back to the stacks of food he had been sorting through.

"Somebody order pizza?" Mia's melodic voice called as she strode into the kitchen with two pizza boxes in her hands, and behind her, Noah. His arms were full of flattened boxes and rolls of packing tape stacked on top.

Can the darkness of this house swallow me whole? Now, please? How the fuck would I get through this week? I hoped they didn't sense the tension that suffocated the room moments ago.

"Yes, please." I said at the same time as Kai said, "No, I'm fine."

The three of them shared a look, and Noah set the pizza down on the counter. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife, and I was ready to be anywhere but this house, in this town.

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