Echo (Black Lotus #2)(30)

With my trembling hand, I reach up and lightly touch his face with the tips of my fingers. He doesn’t flinch or move when I do this, something I thought I’d never be able to do again. And then I mutter my first words on a hushed breath drenched thick in heartbreak, “I thought you were dead.”

His throat flexes when he takes a hard swallow. “I know you did,” he responds, voice strained.

“Your father . . . ” I start, struggling to keep my words alive. “He told me . . . ”

“It was a lie.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want you looking for me.”

Truths are blades. But I deserve every cut that comes my way.

“Your head looks really bad,” he notes. “Why? Why are you doing this to yourself?”

I reach back to touch his gift that burns in my flesh, and I’m embarrassed when I answer him with honesty, because I refuse to hide myself from him anymore.

“I didn’t want to let it go?”

“It’s grotesque, Nina.”

“Please. Don’t . . . don’t call me that.”

He drops his head, saying, “I want to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“My hands itch with the need to rip you apart. I crave it,” he confesses and then shifts his eyes back to mine. They’re dark and bitter, dilated in vehemence.

“I deserve it.”

“You do,” he agrees.

Pulling my knees to my chest, I wrap my arms around them, hugging myself.

“Why are you here?”

“I needed to know something . . . ” His head drops again, and the utter agony in his voice when he continues wrecks me. “The baby . . . ”

A broken whimper forces its way out of me.

“Was it even mine?”

The last thing I want to do is hurt Declan more than what I already have. I want to lie, tell him yes, tell him he was the only one I was sleeping with, convince him of my love.

But I can’t.

I don’t want to hurt him with the truth, but I also don’t want to comfort him with lies.

“I need to know,” he urges.

His eyes shine bright with tears I know threaten him, and I cowardly shake my head.

He takes a push back, widening the gap between us, and leans his head against the dresser.

“Why?”

“I wanted it to be,” I tell him as I begin to cry from what was stolen from me.

“So it was Bennett’s baby?”

“I don’t know.”

Confusion strikes his face. “What does that mean?”

God, I hate this. Hate that I keep deepening the wound. Tears soak my cheeks as I stall.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” he presses.

“Because . . . b-because . . . ”

“Say it.”

“There was someone else.”

My words ignite a fire within him. His neck is tense, reddening in anger. With elbows on knees and white-knuckled fists clenching hair, I know he’s about to blow.

“It’s not what you’re thinking, Declan,” I say in my attempt to explain the f*cked up relationship Pike and I had.

“Besides me and Bennett, you were f*cking someone else?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then it’s exactly what I’m thinking!” he seethes.

“No. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t . . . ” God, how the hell do I begin to explain this? “He was . . . This is going to sound crazy, I know, but it isn’t.”

“I f*cking hate you.”

“I love you! Not Bennett. Not Pike. You!”

“Wait.” He pauses for a moment, and then continues, “That name. That guy . . . I went to see him. Found his name in the file your husband had on you.”

“Yeah.”

“This shit is so f*cked up. I can’t even get my thoughts straight.”

“Pike’s my brother,” I reveal.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“My foster bother,” I clarify in a rush. “He’s my foster brother.”

“The same guy that was beating you?”

I nod.

“Do you know how sick this is? How sick you are? Fucking three men?”

Wiping my eyes, I move to sit on my knees. “I’m so sorry. I know it sounds messed up.”

“Sounds? No, Nina, it is messed up. You need serious help, you know that?”

I don’t bother correcting him when he calls me Nina.

He stands up, looking down on me in fury. “I can’t believe I fell for something as disgusting as you.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I say in a panic. “I didn’t like him like that. There were no feelings attached. It was the opposite of what you’re thinking. I used him so I didn’t have to feel. He was a vice. That’s all sex was with him. A vice to numb me.”

“Numb you from what, Nina?”

“From life!” I cry out. “From everything!”

“Everything? Even me?”

“No. Not you. Once I realized how I felt for you, I never touched him again. I couldn’t, because your hands were the only ones I wanted to be touched by. But I was already pregnant; I just didn’t know it.”