Page 146 of The Promise Of Rain

I nodded quickly.“I didn’t tell you about Adam because I wasn’t sure you’d believe me,” I answered, my voice shaking.

Tears welled in my eyes.“I wasn’t ready to talk about the baby because it still hurts too much.”

He barely softened.

I swallowed and whispered the last, “And your father wasn’t my secret to tell.”

He scrubbed his hand over his hair, turning and walking away from me before spinning back around on his heel and barking, “Fuck!”

I began to shake.

His dark, angry eyes ran over me from head to toe.“Jenny,” he growled.“I don’t have time for this right now.You’re safe.I’d never hurt you.But my whole fucking worldview just blew apart.”

I nodded, my own anger tightly under wraps.I’d deal with my mother’s final betrayal later.

He blew out a harsh breath.“I need to think.”

I sucked in a breath.

He grimaced.“Not about you, never about you.I’m pissed you didn’t tell me,” he warned, dark eyes flashing with anger.“I would have much rather heard it from you than like this.”

“I know,” I replied quietly.

His eyebrows rose.“Does my father know you know?Does my mother know?”

I chewed my bottom lip and ducked my head.This was perhaps the worst part of all; the three of us holding a secret meant to tear him and me apart.

He stalked toward me and grasped my upper arms.Staring down into my face, he snarled, “No more secrets.”

I swallowed.“She knows.And he warned me not to tell you.”

“When?”he barked, gently moving his big hands up and down my arms as if to warm me.

Only then did I realize how hard I was shaking.

“Back when I found out…” I trailed off.

I didn’t want to be the wedge between him and his family.

“And?”he prodded, dipping his knees to search my eyes.

“And when we went there for dinner, in the kitchen, he asked me not to tell you,” I admitted.

His grip tightened and his lip curled back.“Everything makes fucking sense now.”

Yanking me forward, he stared down into my face and snarled, “He had no right to put you in that position.You are mine, Jenny.You’re not his or anyone else’s to fuck over.Is there anything else?Anything else I don’t know?Any-fucking-body else keeping us apart?”

I shook my head, tears welling in my eyes.“That’s it.That’s everything.”

He held my eyes, his wary.After a moment, he pulled me into his chest and cupped the back of my head.“I’m sorry.You shouldn’t have had to carry that for him.”

My body softened against his.

It was all out in the open, and it was going to be okay.

My breath shuddered out of me in rough pants.

I closed my eyes, pressed close, and drew on his strength as I tried not to cling to him.