Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 39689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 198(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 198(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
I squeezed my eyes shut, clenching my hands together in my lap. Damien had never known I was pregnant with his kid. I hadn’t found out until two days after he had been arrested, and a month and a half after I’d found out, I had miscarried from stress.
A day after that, I went and visited him to end everything.
“Why the fuck didn’t I know?” Damien demanded harshly. “Fucking open your eyes and look at me goddammit!” he roared at me.
I opened my eyes, swallowing hard as tears filled my eyes. Damien’s expression was torn between being furious and being hurt. “There wasn’t any point in telling you,” Miles interrupted as he came into the living room, coming to my rescue as he had always done when Damien and I were about to have a fight.
I snapped my eyes to Miles at the same time Damien did. “Why the fuck not?” Damien snarled, clenching his fists.
Miles sighed. “Damien, Hayley was under so much stress that the doctor told her it would be pretty much impossible for her to make it out of her first trimester. She miscarried a month and a half after she found out, and then she broke things off with you.”
Miles had been there. He always cuddled with me while I slept because I was so miserable, and he had been the first one—besides me—to see the blood, and he had been the one to take me to the hospital.
Damien sat down heavily on the couch and dropped his face into his hands. I stared down at my lap, forcing myself to hold in my tears. I wouldn’t cry.
It had happened four years ago. There was no point in crying over it again.
“I really did ruin you, didn’t I, darlin’?” Damien asked softly.
The tears flowed freely down my cheeks after that question.
9
l stared out of the screen that surrounded the back porch, lost in my own thoughts. Ever since Quinn had brought up my pregnancy, I had been distant. I had buried the pain of my miscarriage for so long now that I didn’t know how to bury it back down again.
Since Damien had found out that I had once carried his kid, he had been distant, too, barely speaking to me except to tell me that he and Miles were leaving for a few hours to go take care of some things.
I heard the screen door to the house open, and a moment later, Quinn took a seat beside me on the porch swing. He put an arm around my shoulder as he released a soft sigh. I leaned into him. Quinn had been a comfort, too, while Damien had been locked up.
“I’m sorry for blurting that out earlier,” he quietly apologized. “I honestly thought that Damien would have known by now.”
I blew out a long, harsh breath, shrugging my shoulders. “It’s whatever,” I grumbled.
Quinn sighed again and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, I heard the front door open, and Damien’s voice filtered through the screen door. “Thanks, man. We’ll head your way as soon as possible. We’ll be there in a few hours.”
I looked up at Damien as he stepped onto the back porch. “Leave us,” he instructed Quinn.
With a nod and a small encouraging smile directed in my direction, Quinn got up and went inside, leaving me alone with Damien.
“Have you been out here since I left?” Damien softly inquired as he took a seat beside me.
I nodded, looking down at my lap. It was silent between us as we sat there. Finally, Damien spoke up again, breaking the tension-filled air between us.
“I’m sorry for ignoring you most of the day,” Damien quietly apologized. I swung my wide, shocked eyes to him. ‘Sorry’ wasn’t a word that was considered part of Damien’s vocabulary. “The news of you being pregnant, and then losing that baby because of me, was like a few damn good punches to the stomach.” He swallowed hard. “I felt sick, and I couldn’t look at you while knowing what I had caused,” he confessed.
I swallowed hard, casting my eyes back to my lap where I linked my fingers together to stop them from trembling. “It’s in the past,” I softly reminded Damien.
I saw Damien shake his head out of the corner of my eye. “It may be in the past, Hayley, but that doesn’t change what the hell I did to you. I ruined you, darlin’. I hadn’t realized how much I had done to you until Miles explained it all to me.”
I blew out a soft breath, finally lifting my eyes to look at him. “There’s nothing we can do to change what happened,” I admitted.
Damien shook his head, agreeing with me. “No, there’s not,” he agreed. “But I can make sure I do everything right this time around,” he told me, making my heart swell with love for him—love that I had never stopped giving him, even while he had been away.