Page 122 of The Pinkie Pact

"By the way, I didn't drive here tonight," he said, interrupting my silent swearing. "I took an Uber along with Kara who went to Gen's."

"She went to Gen's?" I asked, nearly choking on a sip of my water.

He nodded, and there was that smile I adored. "Yep. Gen finally told her husband and he moved out."

"Oh. My. God."

"Right?" he said, looking just as shocked as I was.

I set both of our glasses on the coffee table and then took a seat next to Kieran, turning my body to face him. "So how bad was it? Or do you know?"

Rolling his eyes, he said, "Oh, I know. It's all Kara talked about today. My mom's sister showed up, and I think they were more than glad to get rid of us both tonight."

That cracked me up. "You two got booted from the condo?"

"Pretty much. After drinking an epic amount of wine with my mom and aunt."

Ah, so that explained it. "Getting drunk with your mom?"

"Hell, yeah. We needed it."

"I can imagine."

His eyes bored into mine like he was searching for something, but I didn't know what.

"So, um," I said, not able to take the intensity. "How did Gen's husband handle it all?"

Kieran glanced down, breaking the eye contact. "He did all right. He didn't freak out or anything. He was just really confused and sad, she said. And he needed some space to think about it all, so he went to a hotel until they can figure out what to do next."

"I can understand that. The dude had his world turned upside down." I paused to think about Kara and Gen both going through such upheaval in their lives at the exact same time. "At least Kara and Gen have each other now."

"That's what I keep thinking too."

Neither of us said anything for a moment, and we both took drinks of our water. There was so much I wanted to say, so much we needed to discuss. Most of all, though, I was just worried about Kieran.

"And how are you? How are you dealing with all this?" I asked, reaching out a hand to his.

He took it gratefully, releasing a slow breath. Grasping my hand, he looked down at our fingers as we laced them together, then glanced back up at me, his eyes full of emotion.

"I need to tell you something," he said quietly.

My heart dropped at the sound of that, and I almost pulled my hand away. But he held on tightly like he desperately needed me.

"What is it?" I breathed out.

"It's nothing bad aboutusexactly. I just don't want to upset you with all this because of what you went through personally with my dad."

What could he possibly have to tell me that I didn't already know? "I understand that, and that's really thoughtful of you," I said, "but I want you to feel comfortable telling me anything and everything. I need to know—right?—if we're going to get through this."

"You're right." He inhaled deeply. "So after that night..."

Stopping abruptly, he searched my face, but I only nodded for him to continue. I definitely knew what night he was talking about.

"Well, after that night, I felt awful about—" He shook his head, his mouth curved down in a frown. "In the days after, it dawned on me that if he'd done that to you, he'd probably done that to others as well."

God, my man was smart, and I loved it. "Definitely. I thought the same thing."

His eyes lit up momentarily. "Unfortunately, we were right. But I didn't know what to do about it."

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