you last night.”
“Let me grab the release papers for you to sign and leave you two alone to figure out the arrangements,” the doctor says before she gives Silas a wide berth, scooting around him and staying as far away as possible. I don’t blame her. If I had actually seen him like this before now, I would’ve stayed away too.
Probably.
“How are you doing, baby?” Silas asks.
“What are you doing here?” I huff without answering his question. How does he think I am? And how dare he call me ‘baby.’ “When I told you to leave yesterday, I meant for good.”
“You may have said that, but you don’t mean it,” he responds when he walks up beside the bed. “You’re sad, right? And God knows you’re angry at me. I get it. I deserve it and wish there was something I could do to change that. But I can’t. And you know that. Still, that didn’t stop you from begging me to fuck you last night.”
Gasping in outrage that he would bring that up now of all times, my indignation has me stammering. “That…that was just the crazy pregnancy hormones. Nothing else! And they’re all gone now, remember?” I say as I cross my arms and lift my chin defiantly, refusing to look at him.
“I’ll worry about your denial later. First, we’ve got more important things to discuss.”
“I don’t have anything to discuss with you,” I grit out.
“The detectives come by yet?” he asks.
Letting one of my shoulders rise and fall, I tell him, “They came by last night, but I didn’t talk to them.”
“You’re going to have to talk to them eventually,” Silas points out. His big hands grip the bedrail tightly. “What do you think you’ll say to them?”
“I-I don’t know yet.”
“You can’t be a fucking witness for them, Cora,” he grumbles quietly. “I know that you’re upset and dealing with a lot of shit. I get it. Still, you haven’t even met Nash. He’s a good guy. I know why you gave him up, but he doesn’t deserve to rot in prison just because you’re hurt and angry at me.”
“I didn’t want to tell them his name,” I mutter.
“I know you didn’t, baby. They threatened to arrest you because of your record.”
“I made mistakes, like most other teenage girls.”
He lowers his forearms to the bar to bring his face closer to mine. “You really do like bad boys,” he taunts.
“I made mistakes,” I reiterate. “And learned from them. You lied to me! I thought…I thought you were a good guy.”
“You ever had a ‘good guy’ pull your hair and smack your ass the way I did?” he asks, which unfortunately has an immediate effect on heating up my body from recalling those very vivid memories, even though I wish I didn’t remember.
Why does he, of all people, have to make me feel this way, so out of control and desperate for him? He doesn’t deserve to touch my body ever again after what he did!
“A good guy wouldn’t have gotten me pregnant!” I exclaim.
“You said you were on the pill!” Silas counters.
“I was!” I tell him. “They just didn’t work.”
“So how was it my fault that you got pregnant?” he asks.
“You-you should’ve still worn a condom to be extra safe!” I say, even though it’s an incredibly weak argument.
“You’re the one who said I didn’t need a rubber! Remember our first time? You were in such a hurry to get fucked that you couldn’t wait for me to go get some!”
“It had been a while, okay? I was…stupid.”
“You gonna blame that one on the hormones too?” he asks.
“I was just getting over a bad cold and being terrified of getting murdered. And you…you were being nice and taking care of me. I thought you were protecting me. It was a stupid moment of weakness.”
“Those moments of weakness somehow turned into a daily occurrence for the next few weeks until I left, which is when you came looking for more,” Silas points out. “Admit it, baby — you wanted me then and you still do. You don’t give a shit what my name is as long as I’m inside of you. And no matter how hard you try, you won’t ever be able to forget about me.”
“Is that right?” I ask sarcastically.
“That’s why I’m going to keep showing up, even when you tell me to leave,” Silas says. “I know it’s my fault you’re hurting and pissed. But I’m not going anywhere, because I can’t forget you either.