Page 110 of Take Her
“Issy,” I said, in a low tone, just short of pleading. “I stayed home today so that I could go with you.” If we were lucky this was going to be the ultrasound we found out the baby’s sex with. “I want to be with you,” I said more firmly, hoping she would hear it.
“And I want time to think,” she said, stepping back.
There was no way in hell I was letting her go. “I need this to work out, Issy.” On no planet was I going to be my father, some derelict hated by his own son. I knew in my bones we were having a boy; I was certain today’s test would only confirm it.
She stared up at me with dark, forlorn eyes and shook her head. “You should have thought about that before you gaslit me.”
I swallowed. My choices were to let her go, or to triple down and crush the very thing I loved the most.
I took a step back, let her pass, and she and the baby died on the trip home, without me—and every extra day that I’d had since then was a day that I’d spent dying, too.
I sat in my truck watching Lia pace back and forth. There was still a stripe of Bobby’s blood from my temple to my chin.
No matter what Lia thought she knew about me—she didn’t deserve this.
It didn’t matter that she knew exactly what I was. In fact, in doing so, I’d probably helped Lia skip over any happiness we might have had. Either I would curse her with the regret of chaining herself to a man twice her age, or, very much more likely, her father would kill me.
There was no way for us to win, and in all my rush to somehow mold her into the perfect woman for Corvo—and for me—I’d forgotten who she was at the core of it.
Someone who had feelings.
All this time I’d been trying to keep her safe from everyone else but me—when in actuality, if we did this, I’d be the one hurting her most of all.
It didn’t matter that she wanted it—I’d seen her wrists. I knew she played with knives.
Lia made bad decisions sometimes.
That didn’t make me being one of them right.
I called her up before I could change my mind, and watched her run to her phone to answer. “Are you okay?” she asked, rubbing her face with one hand.
“Yeah.”
“Did you want to come over?”
My beautiful, horny girl. “No—it’s late.”
I watched her pull her phone away from her face to look at the time. “No kidding.” And then she pouted at the camera. “I hope whatever you went off to do was worth it.”
“It wasn’t.”
She finally heard my tone then, and rose up to sitting. “Can we Facetime or something?”
“No.” Even if I wasn’t still covered in blood, her seeing me wouldn’t have made anything easier. “I’m sorry, Lia. I can’t do this.”
She blinked, and I heard her give a soft gasp. “What do you mean?”
“All this extracurricular shit. We can work together—but we can’t be anything else.”
Her jaw dropped. “Why not?”
“The reasons don’t matter.”
“They do to me!” She got out of her bed and walked over to the camera. “Is—is there someone else?” she asked, her voice in a high arc. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You can’t lose what you never had.”
Her hand clenched around her phone and I was worried she would throw it. “You take that back!” she demanded, but then when met with my stony silence, started to sputter. “What the fuck, Rhaim. You—you—” she started, and I knew what she was processing.