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He gives me a light peck on the lips.
“I appreciate your honesty, but that answer is not what a man wants to hear when he proposes to the woman he loves, so we put marriage off for now. Agreed?”
I swallow thickly, and it feels like a lump of clay is becoming stuck in my lower esophagus. Put our marriage off? Just like that? Well, damn, brutal honesty hurts.
“Agreed," I say softly.
“How about one more question? Then we will go fix you and my baby a proper breakfast.”
“Okay,” I reply, afraid of what he will ask next.
“No, I mean you ask me one this time.”
“Oh.”
I think carefully about my question, not wanting to ruin the intimacy of the moment or our recent reconciliation.
“Is my family alive?”
Hunter’s face goes blank. He wasn’t expecting me to ask about them ever again, but I’m not sure that was a realistic expectation. I need closure about those psychopaths either way, plus a part of me wants to know who I’m genuinely sleeping with.
“Yes.”
Knowing what I know about Hunter and everything I’ve seen, I ask him the next logical question.
“Why?”
“Because a part of you is still emotionally tied to them, or you wouldn’t have asked the question. I knew that already. There are many ways to keep them permanently out of your life without putting them in the ground. Killing them would have weighed heavily on your conscience."
“And not yours?”
“Are you worried that you are having a baby with the devil?”
“No, I’m just worried that I’m sleeping with a devil I don’t know.”
He cradles my face with his hands and kisses my forehead. “You know this devil better than anyone on this earth, but you need to get to a place where you believe that. We’ll get there, but for now, let’s eat.”
He lifts me, and I naturally wrap my legs around his waist as he walks us into the kitchen. He places me on the granite counter and kisses the inside of my left palm before he walks away.
“You start the bacon while I go pee.”
“And after breakfast?” I ask as he heads to the bathroom.
“We move your pretty ass back into this apartment where you belong, and then…we fuck.”
Chapter 20
Another Round For Table 21
HUNTER
“We’re celebrating!” Vaughn exclaims, placing down a glass of amber-hued liquor at the table where the three of us are sitting. “Let’s hang out tonight.”
He loosens the silk tie around his neck and then pulls it free from his collar.
“We’re already hanging out,” Christian responds.
“Eating appetizers and drinking whiskey at the club is what we do every other normal night of the week. I’m proposing we go out and get wasted out of our minds like we did back in the day.”