Our Broken Love

by Terri Anne Browning

  Kieran.

  It had been two weeks since his big fight. Two weeks since I had last seen or spoken to him. I couldn’t handle dealing with him. My emotions were raw from finding out about my grandfather’s wild plan, Kevin Stone’s manhandling, and Kieran’s confession that he had known about it all along. But now, the anger was starting to fade, replaced by a deep loneliness like nothing I had felt before. I still loved Kieran. Missed him. But I hadn’t been ready to deal with his brother’s confession on top of his own deceit.

  I’d gone to work, proceeded with my normal schedule. The bouncers at the door to Safe Haven kept Kieran out. The walls I had let him tear down so easily were now back up, with support beams keeping them in place. I didn’t smile anymore, rarely talked to anyone unless spoken to. Not even to Mel. In the month since I had met the beast of an MMA fighter, my world had gone from okay to perfect, and now it was destroyed—crumbled at my feet.

  When the roiling in my stomach eased enough for me to attempt to stand and clean my mouth, I reached for the kit I had picked up at the twenty-four-hour drugstore on my way home from work. I was more than a week late, which just didn’t happen to me. I was as regular as a clock. But the first few times Kieran and I had made love, we hadn’t even attempted to be careful. My fingers shook as I opened the box and went about taking the pregnancy test.

  It didn’t even take a full minute for the digital screen to blink the word I already knew to be true.

  PREGNANT

  I sighed and tossed the box in the wastebasket, then went back to cradling the little stick that was coated in my own urine. Emotions swamped me. Fear. Anxiety. Anger. Excitement. Love.

  No matter what happened now, I had someone other than myself to think about. Someone who already depended on me to take care of, protect, and love it above all else. And since the very second I had suspected life was growing in my belly, I had loved my baby.

  My cell buzzed again. I reached for it.

  Please talk to me. I miss you. I love you.

  That had basically been every other text he had sent me over the last two weeks. Seven hundred and twenty-seven of the same messages. My fingers hovered over the keys. A father deserved to know that he had helped create life. But did I want to share this baby with Kieran? Would I be able to handle eighteen plus years of dealing with my baby’s father?

  I’m pregnant…

  I pressed send before I could second-guess myself. When I could do nothing about the sent message, I leaned back against the toilet seat and closed my eyes. My mind was made up.

  The pounding on my apartment door forced my eyes to snap open. Tossing the cell phone on the sink once more, I left the bathroom with the pregnancy test stick still clutched in my hand. My heart began to pound as I walked the short distance through my apartment. I paused in front of the door and took a few deep breaths to calm myself. I felt shaky, still nauseated, but ready to face the beast standing on the other side of the door.

  The pounding came again, causing the door to shudder under the force, and I reached for the lock. As soon as it clicked, the door was pushed open, and then I was wrapped in Kieran’s arms. “Reese,” he breathed against my ear, his voice choked with emotion, his big body trembling.

  After only a small hesitation, when all my hurt and anger seemed to overwhelm me then completely dissolve, I snuggled into his chest. It was like I had been missing a part of myself over the last two weeks. And now with Kieran holding me like I was everything in the world to him, I finally felt whole again. Tears clogged my throat and burned my nose.

  A sob pierced the quiet of the apartment, and I lifted my head to find tears pouring down Kieran’s handsome face. “I’m sorry.” His arms tightened around me ever so slightly. “So, so sorry. I should have told you from the beginning. I never should have—”

  I covered his mouth with my hand. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have walked away from you like that. I wasn’t thinking clearly. My emotions were all over the place that night, and I was more sensitive than I normally would have been. With your fight, seeing my grandfather again, your brother…” I grimaced. “We won’t have to see him that often, will we?”

  “He wants to apologize to you about how he treated you. But no, we won’t have to see him often. Just Christmas and when I have fights in New York.” He stepped back just enough to look down at my stomach. “So…” There was a new emotion in his eyes, and his voice deepened in a way I had never heard before.

  “We weren’t careful,” I reminded him. “I know it’s too soon, but—”

  “Do you regret it?” he demanded in a small whisper, as if he was scared of my answer.

  “No, I would never regret this. I love her already.”

  His steel gray eyes turned to liquid, and he pulled me close, cradling me against him. “Me too,” he breathed against my ear. “You both are my whole world.”

  ***

  “Are you sure about this?”

  I turned to face Kieran in the back of the limo. We were in New York, outside my grandfather’s disgustingly colossal mansion. I had called him two days ago and told him I needed to see him, to talk about everything. There was just one thing I needed for him to do for me.

  Somewhere inside the mansion were my mother and The Pervert. It was time to finally face my past. I was ready to deal with it, put it to rest so that I could be complete for Kieran, but especially, for the new life growing inside of me. So I gave the man holding me close to his side a reassuring kiss and reached for the handle of the door. “I’m sure.”

  Of course, he knew that underneath my calm façade, my heart was racing, and nerves were making my already queasy from morning sickness stomach churn. We’d only been together for two months now, but we seemed to know each other inside and out already. He got out right behind me and pulled me close to his side as we rang the doorbell and waited for someone to let us in. I clung to his hand as the butler, someone I didn’t recognize, led us into the library. I had rarely been to this house, had hated it even as a child. It felt cold, empty. This wasn’t a home.

  The first person I saw as we entered the oversized room was Greg. He was standing by the fireplace. He looked like he was made of stone as he kept his eyes locked on the couple seated on one of the three stylish sofas. Greg had aged slightly in the few weeks since I had last seen him. There were a few more wrinkles on his forehead from frowning, and his hair was a little grayer. He had been very sorry for trying to set me up with Kevin Stone, but he had just wanted to make sure that I was taken care of before something happened to him. I hadn’t completely forgiven him, still thinking that perhaps he was more worried about his business than me.

  My gaze moved to the couple. From where I was standing, I could see that my mother had changed very little over the years. Her hair was still expertly colored, her face still ageless from the use of good dermatologists and plastic surgeons, her figure overly thin from drug use. There was nothing about her to suggest that I was her daughter. We looked nothing alike, were as different in personality as night and day.

  Next to her sat a man in his early fifties. There was a little gray streaking his brown hair. His teal-colored eyes and long lashes would have been beautiful on a girl, but on him, they appeared doctored. He had a strong profile, was leanly built, and wore an overly expensive suit. The man cared more about his appearance than my mother probably did. He might have been handsome if I didn’t know how ugly he was underneath the pretty exterior.

  Beside me, Kieran tensed up. I knew this was going to be hard for him. He knew what The Pervert had done to me, down to the very last detail. One night as I’d lain in his arms, I had told him everything about my time as Stephen Thorne’s stepdaughter. Now as he stared at the man, Kieran’s first instinct was to demolish the evil human being who had hurt me. To make him wish he had never been born. But he had promised not to cause bodily harm to the man.

  Not today, at least.

  Greg spotted us in the doorway where the butler had left us w
ithout announcing us as I had I requested. “Reese.” He came forward, and I forced myself to look away from the couple. “It’s so good to see you. I thought after what had happened in Phoenix that I would never see you again,” he muttered in a voice choked with emotion.

  He embraced me, and I hugged him back. We had spoken on the phone twice over the last month. I knew he had only been trying to make sure I was well looked after and had thought Kevin Stone would have made me a good husband. But I had explained to him there was no way I would ever marry that particular Stone. Maybe his brother, though. Someday.

  Until then, Greg had to understand that I didn’t need a husband to take care of me.

  Behind him, Stephen Thorne had stood. He recognized Kieran, who was just a few inches away from me, still holding my hand. “When you said you had company arriving that you wanted to introduce us to, I had no idea it would be such an interesting guest. But I guess I should have remembered how much you enjoy the sports world, Greg.”

  The sound of his voice made my skin crawl. Unconsciously, I leaned into Kieran, who wrapped an arm around my waist. Greg turned to face the man who had married his late son’s wife and gave him a cold glare. “Actually, I have no intention of introducing you to Kieran. Have a seat, Thorne.”

  Stephen frowned at the older man. “What—” He broke off when he finally took a better look at me.

  I met his gaze without flinching and watched him blanch. “Hello, Stephen,” I murmured.

  Sharon stood and put a hand on her husband’s arm. “Greg, if you are going to be rude, I think we will just go. I’m not in the mood for your petulance tonight.” She had yet to look at me. But that didn’t bother me in the least. This woman, she was just the person who had given birth to me. I had stopped thinking about her as a motherly figure long before I had run away. Mel was my mom in all the ways that counted. Mel loved me. Sharon Thorne had never felt any such emotion.

  “You can take a seat as well, Sharon,” Greg informed his ex-daughter-in-law. “The night is young. And Reese wants her five minutes.”

  “Reese…?” She finally lifted her eyes toward me and frowned. “Who—Rebecca?” She took a step back as if frightened that she had seen a ghost. “My God, I thought you were dead!”

  My brows lifted. “Really? Maybe you just hoped.” I took a step in her direction, and she shrank back. “I’m worth so much more to you dead, after all.” Perhaps she had thought she would inherit all of the Daventry money and other assets if I were dead.

  “How dare you talk to me like that, Rebecca Daventry! I am your mother. You will speak to me with respect.” But she took several steps back as I continued to walk toward her.

  “You are no mother of mine. No mother would ever sit back and let her husband do the things he did. A mother would have killed the man who dared touch her daughter the way Stephen Thorne touched me.” My gaze shot to the man standing white as a sheet beside my mother. “No mother would stay married to the man who attempted to rape her daughter repeatedly.”

  “What do you want?” Stephen asked, his voice not much louder than a whisper.

  “Oh, I want nothing from you. I just needed to face the two of you, one last time. Kind of like putting my past to rest so I can move on with my future.” I watched as his shoulders seemed to ease as if relieved of a great pressure. “You have nothing to worry about from me, if that’s what you thought.”

  Greg stepped up beside me, his hand on my arm lending me the support he had been too busy to give five years ago. “You will, of course, have to deal with me.”

  Stephan nearly fell over when he realized I wasn’t the real danger to him. Greg Daventry had the power to make Stephen Thorne’s career obsolete. The hotshot stockbroker would never work on Wall Street again if that was what Greg decided. And considering all of the insider information he had acquired over the years, a little while in a federal prison seemed likely if Greg felt it was appropriate.

  The thought nearly made me smile. It wasn’t a good kind of smile either. More sinister and evil. The picture of Stephen Thorne, The Pervert, becoming the victim of some big biker in prison was vindicating. But I wasn’t going to turn into that person. Revenge was not something I wanted to consume me. Not when I had so much love in me now.

  My gaze went back to my mother as I put a hand over the life growing under my heart. “I will never be like you,” I murmured, more to reassure myself than anything else. “I will not be the mother that you were. My child will come first with me, now and always. I will be there every day for it, no matter what.”

  “You’re pregnant?” Sharon frowned, her beautiful face drawn and pale.

  “Yes. But you will never be a part of your grandchild’s life. Never. There is no way I would ever let you in the same room as her.” I took a step back, wanting Kieran’s arms around me once more. I felt his heat and then his strength soaking into me before he even touched me, and I stepped into his arms, turning away from my mother and stepfather.

  I was finished with the couple standing defeated before me. My grandfather could do what he wanted with them. With the loss of Stephen’s high-paying career, Sharon Daventry Thorne wouldn’t have the money to accommodate the lifestyle that she was accustomed to. And her expensive drug habit would no longer be easily affordable.

  “I suggest you go home now, Thorne,” Greg instructed Stephen. “You might want to talk to a lawyer. In the morning, you will have a completely different life to worry about.”

  I didn’t watch them leave. Tuned out the sound of my mother’s heels clicking on the hardwood floors as, dejectedly, she made one last exit from my life. Instead, I turned into the arms of the man I loved and let him enfold me in his strength.

  I was safe.