Page 219 of Five Brothers

“How many times?”

He blinks hard. “Krisjen, please.”

“How many?” I bark.

I need to know how many times they were alone together. Did he have her in the shower? Where did she touch him? Did he kiss her?

Tight-lipped, he replies. “A few.”

“A few like three, or a few like ten?”

He drops his eyes. “A few like I blocked it out.”

I laugh bitterly, backing away. “She must’ve liked it.”

He must’ve been doing enough right that she kept coming back. Why didn’t he tell me? He knows everyone I’ve slept with. He knew before we did anything. I don’t need his list, but I should’ve known about my fucking mother!

He inches toward me, but I back up, tearing my heart apart with that one step.

I love him.

But I’m confused. I need to think.

“Krisjen, I was a kid,” he pleads, “with an unbelievable weight on my shoulders. I never wanted to think about it again! And years later, there you were. In my house. All the time. With your bare feet and your pretty smile. Your music, your candles, your happy little fucking heart, and I never imagined this would happen!”

I drop the pillow, covering my face with my hands. Images assault me of them in bed together. They must’ve had conversation. Foreplay. A few laughs. Some part of him had to enjoy it, right?

Oh God. The tears stream. I can’t think about anything else. They’re all I see. I’m always going to see them in my head. I’m gonna be sick.

“You should’ve told me,” I sob. “You should’ve …”

“What?” he growls. “I should’ve what?!”

I startle, dropping my hands and looking at him through teary eyes.

“Should’ve stayed away from you?” he yells, advancing on me. “Should’ve let you go? Is that what I was supposed to do?” And he sweeps his arm across my desk, sending all my shit to the floor. “Just fucking let you go?!”

I breathe hard as my pencils and pens roll over my chair and onto the floor.

He grabs me, snaking an arm around my waist, the other handholding my face. He kisses me hard, stealing my breath, but he releases me before I start fighting him.

He stares into my eyes. “Your mother is just jealous that you never had to pay me,” he says in a low voice, filled with disdain. “It was quite my pleasure, actually.”

And he throws me off, wiping me off his mouth and taking out a bill from his pocket.

He backs away, leaving it on the corner of my desk before he walks out the door. “I’ll let Dallas know he’s up.”

28

Macon

I charge out of the house, yanking off my tie and ripping open my shirt.

Whatever buttons were left after last night fly off in the driveway.Fuck her.

She has screwed her way through nearly every bedroom in my house, slept with family members I see every day. And she wanted to do it. There is nothing I wanted about Cara Conroy. So much so I could barely look at her daughter when she started hanging with Trace last spring. Every time she was around, it was a constant reminder of St. Carmen. In a way that Clay never was.

I swing open the door to my truck and climb in, starting the engine and peeling out of the driveway as fast as I can.