wanted to find comfort in sarcasm, to twist the knife in, I wasn’t like that.
Not really.
He might have made me more vindictive than I’d like, but I wasn’t about to prove that to him.
“Talk, Adam.” I rubbed my forehead where tension was gathering—today had been an explosive day all around. “I need some space to think.”
He frowned. “About what?”
That kiss. Fuck, and how it made me feel like two years ago was yesterday. Sighing, I reached up and rubbed my temple again. “I just found out something about my family.” It was a half-truth, and it shamed me that I’d let myself be tempted by him in the face of what I’d learned.
Men…seemed like they were poison to the women in my family, yet I’d forgotten that the second the link between us burned to life once more.
He instantly moved away from the door and came toward me, his concern clear. “What is it? I didn’t realize you were from this area.”
No, and wasn’t that strange? We’d shared so much, but I hadn’t told him that.
“I tried to put it in the past,” was all I said.
“So why bring it into the present if you visited them?” His brow furrowed. “I thought you didn’t have any family left?”
“I thought so too.” I gritted my teeth. “This isn’t something I want to talk about. I’m just...processing, I guess. So, you brought me here for a reason. I want to know what that reason is.”
“Maria’s pregnant again.”
The words were like a dagger to my fucking heart.
I choked out, “Fuck you.”
Before I could storm off, he grabbed my shoulder and held me back. “The kid isn’t mine.”
I processed that and shook my head. “She’s all over you like white on rice.”
“When you’re there.” His jaw was suddenly like obsidian. “We’re not—I haven’t—”
“You haven’t what?”
“We don’t have a regular marriage,” he bit off stonily.
“No? Looks pretty normal to me when I see you together.”
“She’s a bitch,” he snapped. “And it was all Cain’s idea.”
I stilled. “What are you talking about?”
“She told him she was pregnant with his kid—”
“They weren’t supposed to be seeing each other. It’s against Coach’s rules!”
He snorted. “I love how innocent you are. I wasn’t going to wreck your chances, not when it was so important, so I made sure things never got too heavy. But Maria and Cain are horrible. They didn’t care, and they figured our families would get Coach to change his mind if he found out.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because Cain is a piece of shit, as you can imagine, he didn’t take it kindly that he was about to be a father.” He ground his teeth. “I think that’s why he did what he did to you.
“Not only did he want to hurt me through you, I think he was just trying to punish someone because he was angry at being trapped. He knew Maria’s father and our mother would never let him get away with anything other than marrying the bitch.”
I stared at him, processing what he was saying, but feeling like I was listening to him through a wall of water. I knew he was building up to something, but when he shared the truth with me, I wanted to—
Fuck, I wanted to hurt Maria more than I ever had before. And Cain? Damn. Just, damn.
“After, well, after everything, we learned pretty quickly they were going to try him as an adult. Maria told her dad that she was pregnant, told him who the father was, and he went ape shit. Got Mother involved.
“Suddenly, it went from their being in a relationship to Cain raping her. Which is even more bullshit than all the other crap.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Her fucking father told my parents that if they didn’t find a way to make things right—i.e. offer me up like a goddamn sacrifice—he’d go to the cops, tell them Cain had raped her, and well, Cain was a kid being tried as an adult. We all knew he was going to jail for what he did to you. What would they do to a rapist too?”
“Why not tell me all this before?”
“I couldn’t.” He grimaced. “I hate the bastard. I hate him with all the fucking energy I’m capable of, and I hate him for what he did, but Mother? She doesn’t.”
No, Anna didn’t. Even now, even though it was bad for her image and might affect her reelection campaign, she still visited him at least