Page 49

What am I going to do?

My eyes were blurred when I walked away from him in the empty hallway. I still couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact—therealitythat Jake was the precious father Ben always talked about. I couldn’t process what was happening.

I stepped out of the school, and the evening breeze dried up my face, which was feeling heavy. God, I must look like a mess.What would I do now?Anya was supposed to move out at the end of the week, and I was supposed to move in with Jake. But not now.Where will I live?Shit, this is a mess.

Cinnamon woodsy musky scent wrapped around me and flowed in through my nose, calming my brain. I met his sharp, fierce eyes which clouded with smoldering anger, looking down at my face.

“It’s alright, Bella. I got you,” he whispered, kissing my hair and crushing me against his chest. He let me hide my face in his warm shirt, “Come on, I will take you home.”

Temporary home. I mentally added.

I didn’t know what to say or how to thank him when he buckled me in his car and held my hand while he drove silently. I was clutching his hand so tight that I wondered if it hurt him, but he didn’t complain. I needed to hold on to something as more silent tears escaped my eyes.

“Come on, Kia, we are here,” Ethan mumbled softly in my ear and gently coaxed me out of the car as if I was a fragile china doll. Maybe I was, because he knew I was at my breaking point, and I would either end up shouting at him or breaking something. I hoped neither of them would happen.

“Thank you, E,” I mumbled through a sniffle as he opened the door to the apartment with the key from my purse and sat me down on the couch. He told me to remove my heels and gave me a glass of water, sitting down beside me.

“You don’t have to thank me, Bella,” he said, keeping my empty glass of water on the coffee table. He frowned at me and leaned closer, “Let me help you with that.”

I held my breath when he touched my hair and gently removed the pins which were holding the sides of my hair in place, tucking them back. I sighed in relief when he ran a hand through my hair, tucking the loose strands over my ear. I swallowed the lump in my throat, and I knew the tears were welling in my eyes while I desperately tried to hide them in front of him. But he knew how I felt. He always knew how I felt by just looking at me. We were best friends and more than that. Sometimes he knew me better than myself. I used to hate that when we were teenagers, but not anymore.

My body tensed when he held my cold palms in his warm hands. I fluttered my eyes to him, and he saw he was looking down at the white, tan line on my ring finger.

His eyes flickered to mine and leaned closer. My body stilled at the intensity of his eyes pinning me to the spot. His warm breath fanned on my skin, his hands cupping my face and gently wiping the tears.

“Please don’t cry, Bella,” he whispered silently.

My eyes averted to his hands and saw the swollen bruise on his right knuckles. Clenching my jaw, I held it and observed the swollen cuts on his hand.

I glared at him, “Why?”

Ethan sighed, “Because.”

God, he and his stubborn ass.

I stood up to get the medical kit from the bathroom and tried to ignore my reflection in the mirror. He said that it wasn’t needed, and it was just a few scratches, but he stopped arguing when I gave him a blank stare and clasped his hand to clean it up.

After cleaning the wound and blood from his knuckles, I didn’t want to imagine how Jake must have looked.

“How was he?” I asked, wrapping a Barbie bandage around the injury with gentle fingers.

He was giving me a funny look for the pink bandage, but he could handle it with the big man ego of his.

“I gave him a split lip. He will be fine,” Ethan said as if he did this every other day.As if he had not just punched a model.

Taking a deep breath, I held his hand in mine. “You didn’t have to do that, Ethan.”

“Yes, I did. Any guy who hurts you will have a warm welcome with my fists,” he said without a hint of any guilt. He looked at me and my dress, “Come on, go take a shower. I will clean this up.”

Anya and Andrew stepped in the apartment. She took one look at me before sending Andrew to his room, telling him that she would explain everything later. She took me to my room and before I could explain, she said, “You don’t have to say anything. I figured it out, Ben is his son. That stupid jerk. I knew there was a reason I didn’t like him that much.”

“I thought you told me that you wished you had wooed him with your oral ski—”

She glared at me. “Not now, Kiara. That was before. I wished Ethan had punched him again. Now go take a shower. I will order some pizza and we can watch action movies together.”

I hugged her because that’s exactly what I needed. During the shower, I tried to ignore looking at my mirror, but I couldn’t help it. My eyes looked red and puffy because of all the crying, and my face was flushed red.

I stood under the shower, squeezing my eyes shut as I thought of all the good memories I had made with Jake. The first meeting with him, the night I had spent in his suite that night, drunk and laughing and cuddling with him. All the dates, my birthday, our engagement, the dinner with our family. But not once did he tell me about Ben. I wondered if that’s why he closed off when I talked about children with him. God, I was so stupid.