Page 30 of Broken

I replied, 'Without you, I will.' Then he left.

"I'm sorry Kai. I didn't mean any of it back then." I sobbed.

"I know baby. And I think that's what hurt the most." Kai wrapped his arms around me and held me while I cried.

He held me long after I stopped crying. In his arms, everything was right in the world. I wasn't the girl who sent her father to prison, the reason my mother couldn't have any more kids or the reason a teenage boy died. I was just Sinclair Grant, loved by Kai Carter, and that made all the darkness disappear. I sley demons that hid in the darkest parts of me. For the first time, I was whole.

" I have a daughter." I blurted out before the words formed on my tongue.

"I know."

"How?"

"Really? I'm a doctor. Your body is stunning, it always has been, but I'm a family doctor. I’m well aware of what a woman's body looks like before and after having a baby" His voice was soothing, appreciative, and not at all judgmental.

He put his hands on my hips and rubbed the exposed flesh between my "Your perfectly curved hips." His hand smoothed over the valley of flesh between my hip bones. He leaned into my ear, nuzzling my jaw and down my neck with his nose.

"So, is the father, hell, is anyone, in the picture? "He whispered, husky and low. His breath left chills on my skin, and I could hardly think enough to process words. I needed him inside me again.

"No," I whispered. Tears struggled to break past my lashes, I wanted this so much, but I would destroy us both in the end. It didn't matter though. I was ready for everything fucking burn and take me down with it.

I moved his hand down to the pinnacle of my thighs. His fingers found where they needed to be and caressed the bundle of nerves nestled between my pussy lips. He stroked back and forth. Feather light touches on the most sensitive part of me.

I moaned as Kai met my lips in a kiss. I needed him, I needed to be consumed by him. I was broken, and only Kai could repair me. His touch put together the pieces back together that shattered so long ago.

Somehow, I found the inner fortitude I needed and pushed at his chest breaking our kiss.

Kai and I sat and talked for hours. My head rested on his chest as I told him everything I read in the letters and in my mother's journals. He knew what I lived through when we were kids. The bruises, and the things my father did. He even snuck me food on occasion and would stay the night when the nightmares were the worst. I needed to come clean and explain to him what happened with Adam, and I had to tell him about Aine at some point.

We talked about my career, and how I love my new job. He mentioned coming down to see me, and absent-mindedly I agreed. We talked about how we both wondered what was going on between Mia and Noah, and I told him how pissed off Tess was with me.

For most of the night, it was as though nothing had changed between us, where we were the same two kids that would try to stay up the longest only to be woken by one of our parents and sent home early in the morning.

It was perfect like time had stopped for us. The world outside these walls kept turning, but for me and Kai, at this moment, the world paused. The darkness the ghosts, they'd all disappeared, running from his light.

Sometime close to morning, Kai walked me back to my hotel so I could sleep. He didn't stay with me but promised to be there later that day when I met with the funeral director to decide how to manage my mother's remains.

After he left, I lay on the too-firm bed with its scratchy crisp sheets and lumpy pillows. A smile stretched across my face as newly experienced emotions surged through me. I was hopeful for a future, for a true family with Kai and my daughter.

I was so happy and filled with love that I didn't think about the epic disaster that it was going to be once I confessed everything. In the early mornings of my bliss, I didn't even care about the dumpster fire I lit, because everything was going to change when I told Kai all of my darkest secrets.

seventeen

Sinclair

Whatwashedoinghere? I swear my heart was about to jump out of my chest at the sight of Kai Carter leaning against the hood of my car. I know he got the letter I left him after graduation. I explained I couldn't do this and be the person he needed.

I told him I was bad for him. Kai refused to see the truth. He saw only light and goodness, but no light existed in me, only darkness.

Without thinking, I touched the growing belly under my oversized ASU hoodie. This sweet little thing inside me was the first bit of light in my life, besides my time with Kai.

I couldn't let this baby's light be blown out before it even had the chance to shine. I needed to give this baby a chance, one I never got. I needed Kai to be the man he was destined to be. He deserved happiness and light and love.

He deserved a girlfriend, a wife he could walk through town with proudly. Not the daughter of the town trash. Not the person who ruined everything they touched, destroyed everything they loved. He didn't deserve me and all my demons and darkness.

I stood close enough to speak without raising my voice by the time I got his attention. "You shouldn't be here" I managed to choke out.

He leaned against my car, his arms folded, and his eyes covered by dark sunglasses. His favorite Oakley's. He looked at me, or I assumed he did, since he didn't move, or take off his glasses. He stood there, face blank looking in my direction.

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