Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
“Sue?” He fixed on Davis. “What’s going on?”
“Excuse me, sir,” Davis said. “May I ask who you are?”
His frown deepened. He came the rest of the way down the stairs, stepping from the shadows into the light of the early morning. “Who am I?”
“No...” I whispered. “Please, no...”
“Who do you think I am? I’m her—”
Don’t say it.
“Husband,” Alexander finished, pulverizing my heart into dust. “What happened to her—? Sue, what happened to you?”
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
“—in a car accident...” Davis’s voice reached me from far away. “...hit a deer... wanted to come home instead of the hospital—”
“What? And that didn’t seem like a bad idea to you?” Alex rushed me, taking me stiff and unmoving into his arms. “Sue, are you okay? Why would you refuse to go to the hospital? You know how serious head injuries are.” He twisted around. “Guys? Guys, get in here!”
Sounds muted—smothered under the roaring in my ears. The thundering of rushing footfalls tried to penetrate, but it did not do so as successfully as the sight of two other handsome, dazzling men rushing into the front room.
Long, raven hair, and razor-sharp cheekbones. Eyes that weren’t laughing at the moment but were still tantalizing lady-trappers.
“Sue, you okay, baby?” Micah dropped a kiss on my lips before I could squeak. “What happened to your head?”
Coiled, tight brown curls rose over Micah’s head like an umber-drenched sunrise. Dark, almost black ink stole all the color from his iris, but not the concern in his eyes.
I did get out a squeak when he reached around Micah and kissed me too.
“Is this why you didn’t come home last night?” Rhodes asked. “Are you hurt?”
My lips parted—to say what, I wasn’t sure—
—until I heard her voice.
“Mommy?”
The world stopped.
A tiny purple torpedo shot down the stairs and barreled through the crowd forming around me. Throwing her arms around my waist, she looked right up into my eyes—tearing a cry from my lips.
My baby...
In front of me. In my arms. Drowning me in her calla lily eyes.
She was mine.
My angular face. My full lips. My button nose. Even my thick, bushy brows. The only features stolen from me by her father were her thick, curly hair and round, blinking eyes. But everything else was me. Mine. She was—
Sue’s.
Not my baby. Sue’s baby. Her daughter. That she lived with in a house with Micah, Rhodes, and Alex—all of whom touched and kissed the woman they thought was Sue without a trace of jealousy between them. And in that moment... I knew.
I knew why Sue spent eight fucking hours in the car talking about herself but didn’t once mention she was in a relationship, or three, and that she had a daughter.
I knew she didn’t tell me, because she wanted this. She wanted this exact moment where I stood there—eyes blown and mouth gaping like a fish—shocked down to my very soul that Sue went out and landed the only three guys on the planet I truly fell head over heels for.
She wanted to see the look on my face when I realized just how much she stole from me—just how much she won.
The mother’s love I lost. The baby I couldn’t have. The home I never really had. And the men who made my heart skip three beats even then—no matter all the time that passed.
She took it all. And for all her bullshit about wanting to bring me home and make things right with Omma, she still couldn’t resist another opportunity to laugh at my pain as she twisted the knife in.
My promise and resolution to forgive her burned away in an eruption of white-hot hatred.
Looking into Micah’s, Rhodes’s, and Alex’s eyes, I had only three words to say to their worries and concerns.
“That fucking bitch.”
Pitching to the side, my head rushed to meet the floor. Darkness took me before it finished the trip.
Chapter Five
Ilay in the middle of the bed, trying not to look left, right, or forward as the doctor checked me out.
“Hmm.” She flashed that annoying light in my eyes. “Any numbness or dizziness?”
“No.”
“Nausea or vomiting?”
“No.”
“You said before you fainted that you had a pounding headache.” She drew back, which gave my newly acquired niece room to move in and snuggle under my arm. “How’s your head feeling now?”
“Fine. The headache’s gone,” I replied. “The impromptu nap helped.”
“But she should still go to the hospital, shouldn’t she?” Rhodes spoke up from his position on the left side of the bed.
Micah was posted up on the right. Alex had the foot of the bed covered. And even worse, Davis was posted up against the bedroom door.
There was no escape.
“I... I am a little confused,” I confessed. “And my memory...” I swallowed hard. “There are blank spots.”
Doctor Martin was short, bespectacled, and freckled. Her glasses popped up when she scrunched her dotted nose. “Blank spots? Meaning what?”