ached painfully just from looking at him. His light gray T-shirt allowed her to see those incredible tattoos, while his bottom half had a pair of black warm-up pants with “MARINES” written down one side of his left leg. He was barefoot, his hair in a messy disarray she wanted to push her fingers into as she kissed him.
He was rigid and began pacing back and forth. Everything about him screamed angry, and yet she sensed hesitation.
“You ran.” His accusation snapped across the silence as he stopped abruptly and stared at her. “I called you. Texting. Leaving messages. But nothing. You acted as if I no longer existed to you.” The pain there hurt her to see in this man who’d always been so strong.
“I needed some space.”
His gaze locked on her. “And that means not being able to let me know you are alive? Weren’t hurt? Didn’t need me?”
She flattened her lips before shrugging. “I went to see my friend.”
He shot her a look that not only burned her but also branded her. “And what? He just lent you his car to come back here with?”
“Ry isn’t a he, she’s a she, and yes, she lent me her car, because my truck is overloaded with wood.”
He blinked. “How’s your hand?”
She looked down at the palm that had first inserted him into her life for more than just a passing of an electrical appliance for a party. The scar remained, but she’d removed the bandage.
“Healing. How are you, and how’s Cullen?”
“Missing the fuck out of you.”
His outburst touched her in ways she wasn’t ready to admit to him. “I see.”
Christ, she felt like a stranger to him in her own home. A home they’d shared together and had acted like a real fucking couple in. An engaged couple.
“Why?” His question was ragged, as if the devil had reached down his throat and yanked up the inquiry, not caring of the damage he did in his wake.
“I can’t compete with the mother of your child, Parker, and it’s not fair for me to have to.”
“I didn’t want you to compete with her. Fuck, Skylar. You were my fiancée.”
“That was fake,” she yelled, furious tears burning her eyes only to leak over their containment. “The only reason you put that out there was to keep her off her game and not be in the same house with her. Not because you suddenly fell in love with me, so let’s not pretend it was anything more than that. Then when your parents showed up and fucking bought a house here, it had to continue because you didn’t have the stones to tell them.”
He pushed his fingers through his hair. “You’re wrong. Because it wasn’t fake.” Parker shook his head. “Not to me.”
It was difficult to breathe. Those words gave her dying hope much-needed oxygen to flare back into existence.
He flexed his hands and stared at her. “I talked to Mrs. O’Neary. She told me about your husband and son.”
The room rushed around her like she was in a vacuum with no way out. Her heartbeat reverberated in her ears, and bile pestered her tongue. Tears filled her eyes, and if she had been able to force her legs to move, she would have run right out to the car and driven away as if Cerberus himself were after her. “I see.”
“Even now, you can’t discuss this with me.”
“No point,” she ground out. “She told you.”
“That’s not the issue here. You should have told me,” he growled.
“Why?”
“Because we were a couple.” He shook his head. “Are. And we’re friends. We shared so much, but you never shared that with me. I asked you so many times about your past because I wanted to know everything about you, Skylar. You wouldn’t answer and stupid-ass that I was, I stopped pressing, because I was selfish and didn’t want to ruin the night we were having. But I’m not letting it go now. Why?”
“My past is my past. And we were a fake couple.”
His jaw clenched and his nose flared, but he stayed back from her. She could see him forcing himself to remain calm. “All those talks we had about Reggie and him teaching you your craft, but you never told me he was your husband or the father of your son? You kept that from me.”
There was pain in his words. Tears dangled from her lashes before sliding down her cheeks.
“Why are you doing this to me?” She shook, and her chin wobbled.
Parker dropped to