Chapter 14

Leg shaving season is here, and I’m not mentally prepared.

-Things that come out of Verity’s mouth

Truth

I shut off my motorcycle and looked at my house.

It didn’t look different, but I knew she was there.

I’d said some awful things to her the other day, so for her to be back meant that maybe I hadn’t fucked things up as badly as I’d thought.

But likely, I had, and she was just here to make me feel even worse.

I swear if she was crying, I was going to apologize on my goddamned knees for years if that was what it took.

The last six days had been pure hell.

I’d said those nasty words to her, and I hadn’t been able to get a hold of her since. I’d called. Texted. Sent out goddamned search parties. The men that I’d put on her couldn’t find her. They reported that she never went home that night after I’d kicked her out of my bed, and I’d been a nervous wreck until she was found shopping at the goddamned mall yesterday afternoon.

Happy as could be buying goddamned lingerie of all things.

When Aaron had spotted her there while he was there with his wife, he’d immediately called me, told me where she was and said that he’d keep an eye on her until one of our prospects could get there and tail her to wherever the hell she’d been hiding.

Then he’d had fuckin’ lunch with her while Aaron’s wife, Imogen, and Verity had a grand ol’ time talking about babies, marriages and what they wanted out of life.

To make matters worse, I’d stayed away, knowing I couldn’t go and potentially expose her.

If Beckett didn’t already know about Verity, which hopefully was the case, then I wanted to keep it that way.

Especially since I’d gone and fallen in love with her.

I’d just dismounted my bike when I heard someone pull up behind me.

And immediately sighed when I saw Destiny pop out of the car, followed immediately by Kenneth, who looked less than excited to be in my driveway.

I heard my front door open, and I turned to look at Verity.

She was wearing short jean shorts that likely barely covered her ass—mostly I could tell this by the fact that they were barely covering her pussy—and one of my sleeveless t-shirts that I used to work out in. It was one of those ones where the arm holes extended from the shoulder all the way to the ribs…when I was wearing it. On Verity, the hole extended from her shoulder all the way to her waist.

I could see a black lace bra underneath, tantalizing me with small glimpses of what it was covering.

Her brown hair was all the way down her back in soft waves, and part of it was clipped back with what likely was bobby pins on top of her head, ensuring that none of her bangs were in her face.

She was holding a spatula in one hand, and a bottle of beer—one of my bottles of beer—in her other hand.

She took a sip, let her eyes linger on me, before moving to Kenneth and Destiny at the end of the driveway.

“What’s going on, honey?” she asked, stepping out onto the front porch.

That’s when I saw her toes.

Her toenails were painted a glittery pink that was so bright that I could see them from where I was parked.

“What are you doing here?” Destiny snapped.

“I live here. What are you doing here?” Verity returned.

I chose not to call Verity on her lie. Instead, I dropped the helmet to the bike frame, then headed for the porch stairs.

The moment I came within reach, which happened to be at the bottom of the steps, Verity launched herself at me.

I caught her easily, pulling her securely into my body and closing my eyes as her scent and the feel of her body washed over me.

I didn’t notice the way I rocked back on my heels when she threw herself at me.

The other two people standing there watching me did, though.

And they made it a point to comment on the fact.

“Even a big man like your ex can’t handle her…”

I stiffened and turned, dropping my hold on Verity’s ass as I did, and felt her go preternaturally still as she tried to figure out what I was about to do.

“Uhh,” Verity started to say.

I held my hand up to stop whatever it was she was about to say.

“You come onto my land, insult my woman, and expect to make it off of this property alive?” I asked him incredulously.

Kenneth’s mouth kicked up into a smirk.

“Just saying what I saw,” he shrugged. “Not my fault it’s true.”

I took a threatening step forward, but stopped when I saw a third person get out of the car.

“Boys and girls,” Eugene grumbled. “This is not the time, nor the place. You came here to say something, Destiny, so say it.”

Destiny’s mouth tightened.

“I’m pregnant.”

Verity, who’d been leaning against my side, stiffened.

My hand clenched onto her hand and held on when she would’ve marched her ass back inside.

“Please,” I said. “Enlighten me on how, exactly, something like that would’ve happened.”

Destiny’s mouth tightened.

“You really want me to give you the talk of the birds and bees?” she sneered. “Because I can if your big, muscled brain can’t figure it out.”

I laughed.

“If I use a condom, and you use your own form of birth control, how would that happen?” I repeated. “And say some sort of accident did happen, how far along are you?”

She gritted her teeth. “Five months.”

I blinked.

“We broke up more than five months ago, and it’d been over two months before that that we had sex. So correct me if I’m wrong, but the timing is not good…right?”

My voice was so sarcastic that it was apparent to not just her, but even the dumbass at her side.

Destiny’s eyes narrowed.

“I never said it was yours,” she hissed.

I sighed and rubbed my hands down my face.

“Then what, exactly, is the problem?” I grumbled tiredly. “Why am I even involved in this?”

“Do you mind if I talk to him by myself for a few?”

Eugene’s authoritative voice had me blinking in surprise. He almost sounded like a normal male—one not afraid of his own shadow.

“Sure,” Kenneth grumbled, tossing Eugene an evil look.

When the two of them went to head to my front door, I stopped them.

“I don’t think so,” I snapped. “We’ll go inside, and y’all can stay out here.”

Kenneth growled low under his breath, and I had to resist the urge to laugh at the stupid fucker.

“Come on inside, man,” I said, pocketing my keys since I wouldn’t be needing them.

The minute I got close enough to the door, my eyes caught Verity’s, and she gave me a guilty look before scampering away, leaving the door open.

I would’ve laughed had this situation not been seriously fucked.

Didn’t she know I was trying to protect her?

Eugene followed me up the stairs of the porch, and I gestured him to precede me inside.

“What’s up, Eugene?” I asked as I closed the door on the couple that was standing in the driveway looking like two complete dolts.

They were looking around, not talking to each other, and trying to act like they weren’t as mad as I could so obviously tell that they were.

“I need a drink,” Eugene muttered. “Once I swallow the bile back down, I’ll enlighten you.”

I sighed, thinking he was exaggerating a little bit, but nonetheless got him a glass of ice water and handed it to him.

He devoured it, sucking it down so fast that I immediately got him another.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the second glass.

Verity, who was standing next to the sink peeling potatoes, sneaked a look at me, and immediately returned to what she was doing.

“I’m glad to see y’all are back together.”

I gave him a pointed look. “Get on with it, Eugene.”

He thrust his hands through his hair and took a seat at the table, dropping down so heavily that I wondered if he was sick.

Was that why he drank so much? Was he dying?

His next words had me realizing that no, he wasn’t dying. Though, he may soon wish he was dead.

“I slept with Destiny a week and a half after y’all broke up, but I didn’t realize that I did until I found out that I had an …STD.”

I blinked.

“I’m clean,” I said. “Got checked after I found out she was cheating…why would you think this…”

He sighed.

“I’m not sure what or how it happened. I just think it’s fucking comical that I catch crabs around the same time she tells me that she has crabs, and that was a day and a half after she stayed at my house,” he grumbled under his breath. “I don’t even know how it happened. One second I was sleeping, and the next I was having sex. I wasn’t even aware that it wasn’t a dream until...”

“Until you got crabs,” I supplied.

Verity sounded like she choked, but I couldn’t be sure without taking my eyes off of Eugene, and I suspected if I showed the least bit of reaction, he might very well flip a switch.

“And how did they even know that this baby wasn’t Kenneth’s?” I asked, really tired now. Was it acceptable to sleep a solid twenty-four hours? “And why are they here?”

“I convinced Kenneth that you might be able to help.” He wiped some sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. “She came to my house, drunker than a skunk and high on…something I haven’t been able to identify yet, and spent the night.”

“And fucked you while you slept…”

Eugene nodded once.

“Fuckin’ A. Why’d y’all have to bring me into this bullshit?”

“Because it was either bring you in, or tell Kenneth that I slept with her…and I know how much you like my face…”

Verity, who finally chose to stop hiding the fact that she was listening to every single detail, turned and surveyed Eugene’s face.

“There’s more to it…” Verity added in her two cents.

“The baby has a genetic anomaly that causes birth defects, and they said that if the baby makes it to term, the baby may need an immediate liver and or kidney transplant.” He licked his lips.

“Why not just tell them?” she finally asked.

“Because if I tell them, then I have to tell my brother that I slept with his wife, which will inevitably cause him to beat the shit out of me. It’s bad enough already. I need you to be the buffer,” Eugene admitted reluctantly.

I licked my lips and turned my gaze to the tabletop.

“I still don’t understand why you think I can help,” I told my cousin, who was sitting there looking so forlorn that it was sad.

I was literally sad for the man and what he had to endure.

But I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do. It wasn’t my kid. Wasn’t my wife nor my girlfriend, and Kenneth wasn’t my brother. He was my cousin…a cousin who I despised.

So yeah, I couldn’t really see it. And honestly, I felt no sympathy for the two outside.

The one inside, however, yeah—I didn’t even know what to say to that. You didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that Destiny had taken advantage of him.

How, I wasn’t sure, but I would be figuring that out.

“I want you to tell him.”

It came out so fast, that I had to slow down and think about what he just said.

“You want me to tell your brother that you slept with his wife, my ex-girlfriend, the woman who cheated on me with him. Do I have that correct?” I asked slowly.

Verity started to snicker from beside me, and she quickly turned to busy herself at the sink again.

She was peeling potatoes, and from what I could tell, doing a piss poor job at it since her hands and shoulders were starting to shake.

I leaned back in my chair to see what she was doing, and frowned when I saw frozen chicken thawing in the sink.

I didn’t bother to ask her what she was doing, especially since I could hear my cousin’s sniffles across from me.

I wanted to throw up.

“You still have crabs?” was the smart thing that came out of my mouth next.

Eugene gulped.

“No.” He shook his head. “Thank God.”

Verity dropped something into the sink.

I ignored her and continued to stare at my cousin.

“Are you sure that the kid’s yours?”

He nodded miserably.

“Whose else could it be?”

That was when I laughed.

***

Two hours later, plenty of crying, bitching, moaning and generally bad moods around, my family left—leaving me with one last thing to deal with.

I stomped into my house, in a much worse mood than I’d been in when I’d left it two hours before, and found myself staring at a meal spread out across my dinner table and no Verity in sight.

I prowled through the house, and growled her name. “Verity!”

She didn’t answer, but I knew she was here…somewhere.

Because her car was still here, and because she’d spent the last two hours silently watching the spectacle on the front porch with a look of glee on her face.

Though, it didn’t matter if she had left. I would’ve tracked her down.

Mostly because I wanted to know why the fuck she was wearing a wedding ring on her finger—one that I sure as hell didn’t give her.

She either got married in the short time since I’d last seen her, or there were some other reasons for her to be wearing it. A reason that I didn’t yet understand.

“Verity!” I bellowed when I didn’t find her in the bedroom or bathroom, either.

There was one last place to look, and that was my workshop.

And as I prowled down the steps and opened the door to my office, I was stunned to see it brimming with shit.

A lot of shit.

It hadn’t escaped my attention that she’d moved other shit in, too.

I’d seen the new couch—and had idly wondered what she’d done with my old one.

I’d also made note of the new bed, the clothes of hers hanging in the closet, the bras hanging from the shower rod, and the new fucking ugly ass rug on the living room floor.

The big ass TV, however, was a welcome addition.

I didn’t often watch TV, but when I did, I’d hated watching it on my television.

But you used what you had, and I was too cheap to go buy a new one when I could wait a couple of months and get one on sale on Black Friday.

So I’d ignored the fact that half of my TV was pixelated and shitty, and I hadn’t realized how much I hated it until I’d gotten a brand new one that sat in its place.

The shop, however, was pushing things.

Her shit was shoved in there with my shit, and I could tell immediately it wasn’t going to work.

She was even using my forge!

“What are you doing?” I bellowed. “Get out!”

Verity didn’t bother to look over her shoulder at me. Instead, she continued to do something with the glass she had on the end of one of my goddamned pieces of metal tubing—the ones that I used to shape my swords—and stuck it back into the fire.

“You can’t be here,” I tried for reason. “It’s not safe.”

“Marriage is a matter of public record,” she said bluntly to me without so much as a flinch. “All he would need to do is run a search on you, and he’ll find my named linked to yours…in marriage.”

“We’re not married!” I barked, worry making me say it a little more harshly than I would have normally.

She smiled sympathetically at me.

“Unfortunately for you, we are,” she said, getting up and emptying her pockets.

She came up with a folded piece of white computer paper, handing it to me with an apologetic look.

I opened it and froze, seeing the marriage certificate in all its glory.

“When…how…where…”

She started to laugh, then.

“Vegas, baby,” was her answer. “Apparently, what happens in Vegas, doesn’t always stay in Vegas.”

My jaw clenched.

Her eyes studied my angry face.

“At least I’m not pregnant,” she offered, thinking it’d diffuse the situation.

But the only thing it did was make my mind go wild with possibilities. If she was pregnant, I’d be ecstatic. At least until I thought about all the ugly possibilities that could happen to a child—and a wife—of mine.

“We have to get it annulled,” I shook my head.

“No.”

“Verity,” I growled, taking a menacing step forward.

She took one of her own toward me, and then threw herself into my arms.

“I won’t leave you,” she said. “You could take your name back, but that would only hurt me. And you don’t want to hurt me. That’s what all of this is about, isn’t it? You don’t want me to get hurt.” She leaned forward until her forehead touched mine. “You take your name from me, and that’ll hurt me worse than anything you, or anyone, could ever do to me. It’ll rip my heart out, and leave me bleeding and vulnerable.”