Page 204 of Unleashed
It doesn't mean it doesn't fucking kill me.
"Preoccupied? I need to speak to him," I hiss.
I need to tell him I'm pregnant. That I need help. That I can't do this on my own. That I can't live without him, even though I've spent so long pretending I can.
"No. My friend has had a crush on Ace Sterling for years. I'm not ruining this for her."
The tears stream down my face.
My mind flashes to every nightmare I've had. Ace with someone else. His hands on another woman. His mouth on another woman's skin. The spot below her ear that was supposed to be mine. And as much as I want that man to be happy, to love someone better than I loved him, to have the porch and the kids and the easy life, it devastates me. Because I can still be that woman for him.
I hear Ace’s deep laugh in the background, and my heart almost stops. He’s happy without me.
"Okay," I say, sucking in a breath that doesn't fill my lungs. "Then don't tell him I called. And delete the call history."
It sounds final. A door closing. A punch to the gut that I walked right into.
My hand wraps around my stomach as I try to hold myself together.
"I was planning on it. If it didn't work out last time, I think you're done. He's doing just fine without you, Harper," she tells me and cuts the call.
Bitch.
My mouth drops open as the voice clicks into place. That tone. That smugness. That petty, small-town cruelty I'd recognize anywhere.
Tiffany.
Tiffany fucking Lane has Ace's phone and is screening his calls in a bar while her friend tries to take home the man I love.
I fight the urge to scream. Instead, I wrap the pregnancy test in tissue and drop it in the trash, buried under paper towels. I can't risk taking it home. There is no way I can let Hudson find out about this baby. Not when he's already threatening to control every other part of my life.
I wipe my eyes. Brush my hair. Stare at myself in the bathroom mirror and plaster on a smile that doesn't reach anywhere close to my eyes.
The woman staring back at me is someone I barely recognize. Thin. Pale. Dark circles that concealer can't touch. A wedding ring that feels like a shackle and a secret growing inside me that changes everything.
This confirms one thing. I need a plan. A real one. Notwait for the papers,notone more month,notjust hold on.I need to get far away from LA. I need to start a new life for this baby.
Even if I have to move countries. Change my name. Disappear so completely that Harper Jones ceases to exist.If I don't exist, Hudson's threats become nothing. You can't blackmail a ghost.
I rub at my chest. The ache that lives there is constant now. A dull, heavy pressure that never lifts.
No, that can't be my answer. Running didn't work six years ago. Running won't work now. Not with a baby. Not with Ace's baby.
There has to be another way.
I just have to find it before Hudson finds out what I'm pregnant. Before this city swallows me whole.
Before I lose the last piece of Ace Sterling I have left. Every day that passes, I’m losing him a little more.
I don’t care what he’s doing in our time apart; I deserve it. I just have to hold out the hope that once I get this figured out, Ace’s heart is still mine.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Ace
Song- The Grey, Bad Omens
The bar is packed. Jett has dragged Colten onto the dance floor, and they're line dancing in the middle of a crowd that's cheering them on. Jett's in his element, boots stomping, hat tipped back, grinning at every woman within a ten-foot radius. Colten looks like he wants to be anywhere else, but his footwork is perfect, because a Sterling doesn't do anything half-assed. Even reluctant line dancing.
