Page 60 of Blood Money

He paused, but I didn’t say anything.

“My grandfather was a fucking asshole. He controlled everything, to the point that he arranged marriages for us.”

A stabbing pain hit me, and I thought my chest had cracked open. Shock caused me to stumble back a step. “You’re m-m-married?”

“No. But someone came to me the night before you were going to leave, and… well, they made a good point. My grandfather wouldn’t take me leaving lying down. He would’ve come after me. And to punish me and ensure I didn’t leave again, he would’ve killed you.”

I gasped and placed a hand over my neck. “What?” I whispered in a raspy cry. “Who said that?”

“It doesn’t matter who said it. They were right. I would rather have let you go than have something happen to you.”

“Don’t you think that should’ve beenmychoice?”

“No!” he snapped.

“So you would rather I hated you and thought you abandoned me?” I cried.

“Yes!”

“Why?”

“Because if I told you what was going on, you wouldn’t have let it go. I couldn’t risk that. I wanted you to have a chance to find love again. Get married. Have babies. Have a good life.”

A sob broke free, and I fell against the kitchen island. Hand over my mouth, I shook my head. “How could you be so cruel?”

“Cruel? I wanted what was best for you!”

“It was best for me to raise our child alone?” I shouted through my tears.

He froze in the middle of my kitchen, his usually beautiful olive-toned skin ashen. “What did you say?” he asked in a voice so soft I wasn’t sure he’d actually spoken.

“You heard me,” I snarled. “Don’t act like you don’t remember. You were quite explicit about me leaving you alone and you not wanting a child to fuck up your life. So fuck you.”

“We have a child?” He glanced around the apartment like he expected said child to come out of the woodwork.

“Are you fucking crazy? Or are you just trying to twist that knife you planted in my heart?”

Before I could process what was going on, he was in front of me, holding the tops of my arms. His face was inches from mine. Those hypnotizing smoky blue eyes were wild. “Where is our child, Kendall?”

“He’s dead! You knew that!”

He blinked rapidly and took an uneven step back, letting go of me so forcefully that I grabbed the island for balance. His previously pale face went green, and he gave several barely noticeable shakes of his head. “You had an abortion?” he asked, and I swear to God, he looked like he was gonna puke or cry.

Tears were already pouring down my face, the pain as fresh as it was the day of the accident. “God, no. I would never…. There was an accident… the day my nonna told me you didn’t want anything to do with me or the baby.”

His face contorted in disbelief, and he couldn’t seem to get air into his lungs.

His reaction doesn’t sense. Nonna told him all of this. Heknew.

Right?

“I didn’t know,” he practically wheezed. “None of it, Kendall. I didn’t know.”

Though I didn’t want to believe him, I was confused. He looked devastated, like he was hearing all of this for the first time. No one could fake the blood leaving their face, nor the green that colored his complexion at the thought of me aborting our baby. I didn’t know what to do with that.

All I could do was stand there ugly-crying my heart out.

Then I was in his arms, and he was holding me so tightly I thought he might break me. His arms trembled. With one hand, he fisted my hair as he pressed my head into the crook of his neck, where I soaked his expensive suit. The words he kept repeating finally sank into my overwhelmed brain.

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