Page 65 of No More Words

“Good. I’ll be waiting.” Blaze kisses her temple, then slowly squeezes past her in the narrow doorway. He nods at the Fireball clutched in her hand. “Keep Miller’s paws off my bottle. That’s ours when you’re ready. We’ll get stupid drunk and fuck like horny teens.”

“Jesus, Blaze.” Her face heats. She follows him to the front door.

“Keep our bed warm for me, baby,” he says loud enough for anyone in the house to hear. He blows her a kiss and lets the door slam behind him. The windows rattle as if to emphasize his point.

Movement in her peripheral vision draws her attention to the kitchen. Ethan hovers in the doorway, tongs in hand.

“Steaks are ready.” He smirks because he probably overheard most of that.

She smiles tightly. “Great.”

Twenty minutes later, after the potatoes are cooked, Olivia admits she doesn’t have an appetite. By the looks he gives her, Ethan can tell her mind is far from him. He agrees to leave when Olivia asks him. She has more pressing matters demanding her attention. She walks him out.

“What were you going to tell me, back in the house before Blaze showed?” she asks when they reach his car.

He presses a button on the key fob and his engine starts. He turns to her, his expression solemn. “Lily didn’t tell me she was pregnant. I wasn’t supposed to know. She didn’t want anyone to know. But I picked her up from work and a pregnancy test fell out of her bag. She wouldn’t tell me who the father is. Trust me, I asked. She also refused my offer to help. I should have told you, but she asked for my confidence, and I—” He shrugs, regretful. “I kept my word.”

Olivia chews her lip. He would have. That’s the Ethan she knew, not the guy she thought he was when she believed he cheated on her with her sister. He also isn’t the great love she once believed he was and lost.

He lays a flat hand on his chest and taps his fingers. “I, uh ... I overheard you and Theo talking. Sorry, the window was open. You were talking about your dad and it reminded me of something. Lily was scared.”

“Of my dad?” Fresh horror seeps into her like mist under a door. She tried to get Blaze to convince her she’s wrong about Dwight. Butthe facts are adding up against him, flashing light on a man she thought she knew.

“She worried what he’d do to the guy who ...” He rolls his hand. “The father. That could explain why she left the name blank on the birth certificate.”

Olivia digs her fingers under the long hair covering her neck and scratches her scalp. Dwight really didn’t know who Josh’s father was.

“Anything else?”

He nods. “I once noticed bruises on her legs. Another time she winced like her back was hurt. She got pissed at me for helping her up into the truck. She didn’t want me to notice. She was in pain.”

Anger flares brighter than stadium lights. Was her dad beating Lily? “Jesus, Ethan. Why didn’t you tell me back then?”

He has the gall to look guilty. “You’re right. I should have.” He splays his hands. “She swore Dwight wasn’t hurting her. But she was doing something that scraped up her legs.”

“Like what? Sneaking out her window at night to visit her mystery boyfriend?”

As she says it, Olivia realizes it’s plausible. There were plenty of nights she snuck out her window to meet Blaze at their pier. There was a juniper bush under her window. She wore jeans even during the summer months just so the shrub wouldn’t tear up her calves.

Ethan shrugs and she scowls, more irritated with herself than him. If she’d let Ethan more fully into her heart, he would have come to her about Lily. Lily would have come to her.

She had, she reminds herself.

Guilt makes another pass through her like a car circling the block for a perfect parking spot, looking for a place to settle in.

Ethan taps the curb with the toe of his trail shoes before meeting her eyes. “The police questioned me after Lily ran away. That’s how I found out she did. I would have called you, but I felt somewhat responsible for her leaving.”

Not as much as Olivia did. If anyone’s to blame, it’s her. But Ethan’s remark reminds her she’d been lied to.

“Did my dad ever contact you after we broke up?” If Dwight believed Ethan was the father, he would have confronted him.

He shakes his head. “Only the police.”

Olivia stares at him as the last bit of hope she had about her dad burns out.Helied to her, not Lily. She cups a hand over her mouth and closes her eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m not sure,” she murmurs, looking back at the house where Josh is safe inside. For now. Dwight returns in two days. Two days to find Lily or she and Josh will have to leave. Dwight has been known to show up unannounced, and he will show up. If he’s capable of lying to her about Ethan, whom he knew she loved at the time, and can push Josh hard enough to cause a brain bleed, who knows what he’ll do when he realizes Josh is here? Who knows what he’s already done to Lily? Dwight is dangerous. Unpredictable. She doesn’t know this man.

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