fiancé . . . thatâs all I need to know.â
âIt wasnâtâÂâ
âIt wasnât what ?â he asked in a dangerous tone, cutting me off. âSomehow you have everyone around us feeling sorry for you because you had to âdealâ with Benâs death alone. Had to hide the pregnancy, and then pretend Keith wasnât yours. None of that would have happened if youâd kept your legs closed in the first place.â
âYouâre an asshole.â
Deacon barked out a sharp laugh. âWhy? Because Iâm the only one who would dare be mad at innocent Charlie for what she did to a girl who is like my sister? Because Iâm not as blind as the rest of them? You somehow twisted the situation around so that everyone was not only mad at, and blaming, Ben for something that you had equal part in, and then lied about for years; but you also had them feeling fucking sorry for you! Forgive me for seeing the situation for what it was,â he said with a sneer, then pushed away from me and turned back toward my car, but called over his shoulder, âGo on, go tell Grey and Jagger so they can feel sorry for you some more.â
I wiped at the few tears that managed to fall, and gritted out, âI donât need or want anyone to feel sorry for me. I have never claimed to be innocent, and I will always hate myself more than anyone else could for what I did to Grey. But I will never be able to regret what happened because it gave me Keith, and he is the best thing in my life.â
âWhat?â He glanced over at me from where he was now bent under the hood again. âYou mean the kid you pawned off on your brother for a year? Yeah, excuse me if I donât buy your perfect mother act, either.â
No! A shuddering breath left me as fear and lifelong insecurities clawed at me. He doesnât know me; Iâm not like my mother , I thought desperately.
As soon as he released me from his cold stare, I turned and slipped inside the warehouse, letting the weight of my body shut the door as I stumbled back against it.
I looked up at the ceiling and blinked quickly, trying to force the tears away, but my chest still heaved with a silent sob.
I wanted to hate him. I wanted to hate him so much . . . but I couldnât. Because Deacon had just said everything Iâd been thinking of myself for years.
Ben, Jagger, and Grey had been best friends for most of their lives, and even though Ben had been with Grey for years, Iâd loved him for as long as I could remember. He was my Prince Charming, my white knight coming to rescue me from my tower, my everything . . . even if only in secret.
It wasnât until the spring of my senior year of high school that Iâd found out my feelings hadnât been one-Âsided.
âWhy do I want you so bad when I love her? And why do I love her when I know she should be with him?â Tortured, whispered words Iâd waited years to hear, and words I would never forget.
For two nights, my fairy tale seemed to come true. For two nights, everything seemed to finally be right in the world. I had Ben, and Jagger would finally have Grey. The way it was always meant to be.
Before I could even begin to grasp the high Ben had given me, he yanked it away the night he asked Grey to marry him, and drove the knife a little deeper when he told me that what weâd done was a mistake. As I had told Deacon, a mistake I would never regret, because it gave me my son. But months later, just before their wedding, Ben had died from an undetected, rare heart condition. Heâd known about Keith, but only for a short time before he was gone.
Upon my momâs demand, I kept the pregnancy a secret, pretended it was her child, and didnât tell anyone the truth until Keith was two years old.
Iâve never felt so free as when those words left my lips.
Not because a secret that had been weighing on me was