Page 113 of The Sweetest Devotion

I didn’t let her rejection faze me. “Okay, what’s a while?”

“Maybe just a week,” Kennedy said nervously.

She seemed off. As if a switch had been flipped. “What’s up?”

She looked down at her sheets, refusing to look at me. “I haven’t been…entirely truthful with you, Keith.”

“I’m listening.” And I was. Wide awake now.

Her sad eyes flickered to me onscreen. “That day after we met, I went home and had lunch with my fiancé.”

“Uh-huh,” I said when she didn’t go on.

“H-He made some threats.” Her voice was unsteady. “He said if I ever slept with another man, he’d kill him.”

I squinted, wondering just who the fuck she was dealing with. Because that was a huge red flag. “And what did he say about you?”

Kennedy looked at me incredulously. “He’s not going to hurtme. I’m worried about going out too much and establishing a pattern.”

I wasn’t convinced. It was nothing to brush off her fiancé’s threat toward me. What bothered me was the fact that Kennedy didn’t seem to see the bigger picture. That she must’ve trusted him, too, as if he’d only be a problem for me and not her.

“What did he say to you, Kennedy?” I demanded to know.

She shrank. “He’d keep me barefoot and pregnant so I would be too busy to stray.”

What the fuck?

I gritted my teeth and squeezed my fist shut. “And this is what you want to deal with?”

“No!” She was quick to say.

“Your pops cool with a dude talkin’ to his daughter like this?” I went on.

I could see tears welling in Kennedy’s eyes and I knew I’d pushed too far. She looked away and wiped at a tear that had slid down her cheek. “I was upset with Cain after that. He actually apologized the next time he saw me and said he’d never do it. But he meant it about killing anyone I stepped out on him with. I just… I want to keep you safe.”

“I’m already ready to beat his ass.”

“He has a gun.”

“So do I.”

Kennedy’s fear and unease was palpable.

Her martyrdom only served to annoy me. She was in a fucked-up situation and she was only worried about my safety.

My chest tightened at the reality and my rage lessened a degree.

Fuck, I couldn’t get in it again. Not with this woman. She’d never be mine.

I forced out a sigh. “A week, huh?”

Pitifully, Kennedy nodded. “Just a week or so.”

Or so. “Okay.”

“I’ll miss you,” her soft voice swore.

I needed to just let her go. Tell her I was through with this. Let her go off and meet someone else.

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