Scars of Yesterday (Sons of Templar MC #8) - Anne Malcom Page 0,116

personal. That I hadn’t told you about because I didn’t want to tell you about it. That I didn’t want the fucking world to know about. I don’t need you coming in here with your two-hundred-dollar champagne trying to fix me. Or whatever the fuck it is you’re doing because you feel sorry for me. Or feel guilty about the fact that you have a husband and a life that’s still whole. Just because you didn’t have to bury Brock does not mean you get to come and do this shit.” I waved my hand at the table.

“Lizzie,” Amy croaked, red tinging her cheeks.

I glared at her. “No,” I roared. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I want you to leave.”

She flinched like I’d struck her. I felt guilty, but still angry enough to keep my glare in place.

Her emerald eyes measured me, likely trying to figure out if she could talk me down. Reading me correctly, she picked up her purse from the table.

“Fine, I’ll leave. I’m not going to apologize for doing this, though. Even though you’re right, I did invade your privacy. I should’ve told you. But I can guarantee what would’ve happened if I had tried to talk to you about this. Nothing. You would’ve shut down. Retreated back. Just when you were finally venturing out. Living again. There’s something that makes you push away happiness. The future.”

She sucked in a breath. “I get it. You’re trying so hard to hold on to the past, to hold on to him, you can’t grip anything else. You certainly can’t build any kind of life other than the one you’d had with him. You can’t grow into someone different than you were when you were with him. Because then he’s further away. I get that, honey. Not in the same way, I’m sure. But I do understand. So I’m not going to be sorry for this. For fighting for my friend. For trying to show her that she has a future.”

She left after that.

Luckily, she left the champagne too.

I was pretty much drunk by the time the door opened then closed quietly. We hadn’t come to any kind of verbal agreement, but every night Kace came. Sometimes early enough to have dinner with Jack and Lily. To read Lily a story. To talk to Jack about plans for the car.

Other times it was so late he woke me up with his lips between my legs.

But he always came.

I never slept alone.

He still snuck out before the sun came up, before the kids woke up. Then he strolled in again around breakfast time, acting like he hadn’t just left a few hours before. No way was I ready to have them knowing Kace slept over, though.

It was bad enough I was becoming used to him being there. Relying on it.

Though tonight, I wasn’t. Tonight was a bad night for him to come. I should’ve called and told him that. But I got distracted. By Amy’s words. With the deal in front of me. Then with the champagne.

His footsteps echoed through the quiet house.

I didn’t look up when he entered the room. I kept staring at the number on the page. Amy was right. It was a big number. Now, I might not know a lot about the current state of the publishing industry, but I knew first-time authors were not getting deals like this every day.

Amy had to have pulled strings. She had many to tug on. Her family name carried weight.

It couldn’t have been me. My story. My pain.

“The door wasn’t locked,” Kace growled.

Not a good growl.

A pissed one. I rarely saw Kace really pissed. Nor heard it. He was an easy-going guy, outside of the bedroom at least.

I blinked, looking at the clock, at the darkness that had engulfed the twilight in what seemed liked minutes, then at the empty bottle of champagne.

“I forgot,” I answered lamely.

“You forgot?” Kace repeated.

I nodded. “Yes, I’ve got a lot on my mind tonight.”

“I should fuckin’ think so, in order to forget that some asshole in a suit is borderline obsessed with you and that you’re alone with the fuckin’ kids after downin’ what I’m guessing is an entire bottle of booze.”

I snapped my head up. He was really pissed. And that made me pissed. Mostly because he was right. I’d been sitting here, wallowing and drinking while night fell, my kids asleep, thinking their mother was going to keep them safe when instead, she was too self-absorbed to