Page 63 of Sinister Red

Great.

Of all the things we could be talking about, my cheating ex isn’t the one I’d pick to discuss.

Not that I want to have a repeat of the hospital room, but still.

But I nod, even though he can’t see. “You were. You knew you were and I didn’t want to believe it, but I found out you were right anyway.”

“How?”

I smooth out the tape then sit back on my heels. “He’d been staying out later and later without calling, giving me what I could tell were excuses about why. Eventually I got suspicious on my own, and after you said what you said…” Sam cringes. “It was too hard to ignore.”

“You catch him?”

“I did. I went to his office after he texted me during his lunch to say he’d be in surgery for a while and I should expect him home late. I saw him leave with Stephanie and I followed them to the motel.”

Sam nods. “Room four.”

“Yeah…” My brow lifts but I don’t ask him how he knows. Obviously Sam had been following my ex the same way he’d been following me, so I’m sure he knows better than I do what that slimeball was doing behind my back. “They were in there for almost five hours before they decided to leave, and when they did, I was parked next to that stupid Porsche.”

“Good.”

“I gave him his ring back, asked for the key to my house, then went home and packed up all his shit before leaving it next to the dumpster at the end of the driveway. Haven’t talked to him since.”

“Sorry.” He sighs, then throws me for a loop when he asks, “You love him?”

A tear slips down my cheek as I shake my head, unsure why I’m telling Sam any of this but unable to stop myself in spite of it. “No, not really. We had a lot of issues from the start, issues that weren’t going to fix themselves, if I’m being honest, and I think somewhere in the back of my mind I knew things would end this way.”

Sam turns a little to face me but he doesn’t have to ask the questions I see so clearly on his handsome face.

“Our relationship was safe, Lewis was safe. It wasn’t what I wanted, only what I thought I needed, and as time went on and more problems presented, I just settled because I convinced myself it was ok.” Another tear rolls down to my chin. “You were right about that too. I settled and betrayed myself in the process.”

A muscle in Sam’s jaw ticks as he drops his gaze to his hands. He flexes his fingers against the comforter and my heart starts to race because I know what’s coming next. And this time, this time I’m going to tell him everything no matter what the outcome is, and I’m going to try to do it without either of us getting angry.

“Why…” He swallows hard. “Why didn’t you tell me about…”

“I was scared.” Sam clenches his jaw and I rush to explain. “Not of you or your reaction, not of the possibility of… of our baby being like you. You’ve always been the best man I know, Sam, and I know all of those parts would have been in him or her, but I was scared. You were sitting in jail, we were literally getting ready to bury Conner, and I found out I was pregnant right on the heels of all of that. I didn’t know what was going to happen with you or us, I didn’t know anything except that I was pregnant and I needed to protect our baby from—“

“Me and the club.” Sam grits his teeth and balls up the comforter so tightly his knuckles turn white. “I never would have let anything happen to either of you. Even if I got put away for fifty years. I would have done everything in my power to make sure you had everything you needed, the support you needed without me, and I never would have let the club near you if that’s what you wanted.”

I nod and wipe at my eyes because I’m openly crying. “I know that. I knew that then but I just… I didn’t want to be a single parent off and on. I wanted to go into the situation knowing everything I could because I was too afraid to roll the dice on things.”

“So you took off to protect yourself and… and the baby… and never had any intention of telling me I was going to be a father?”

“That wasn’t originally my plan, but when I lost…” A sob threatens to break free, and I wrap my arms around my waist. “When I lost the baby I thought it would be better, easier, if you didn’t know any of it.”

Sam looks away, hiding his own tears from me. “And you just left. Left me to rot and wonder what happened, to worry about you until I was sick to my stomach and crazy with fear. You took off in order to protect yourself and our baby from a life you never wanted to be a part of, and while I really do understand that, what I can’t wrap my head around iswhy. Why would you just cut me out, especially when I thought…” He shakes his head. “If you didn’t want me anymore, didn’t want to be with me or have me be a part of the baby’s life, all you had to do was tell me, Sofie. I would have done anything you asked,everythingyou asked no matter how it affected me because it was you.”

“Sam…” I search his profile, take in how beautiful he is, how broken he is, and let it really sink in.

“I know I’m not a good man, that I’ve made a lot of bad choices and done a lot of things that weren’t right, but I would have walked away and left the club, left everything behind if it meant having that life with you.” He chuckles but the sound is empty. “And I would have walked away from you if you told me to. If you told me that me or the club or whatever was too much and you didn’t want our baby exposed to any of it, that you didn’t want to risk letting our baby turn out the way I did or having something as horrible as what happened to Conner happen to him or her, I would have understood. It would have crushed me, but I would have understood all of that, and I still would have given you my heart before I walked away.”

I scoot a little closer to him as my tears stream down my face. “It doesn’t make any of this right, or ok, or even in the realm of forgivable, but I was too scared to see any of that. I knew it all to be true, that youarea good man and would have done anything I needed you to do, but I was so afraid of all thewhat ifs, that I took off in order to try to figure it out on my own. It wasn’t right, I never should have left you like that, and I shouldn’t have kept the baby from you, but I was twenty-one and within a short few days, my entire life changed and I saw things through different eyes.”

“The eyes of a mother.” Sam nods. “Which already makes you a better mother than any of the ones I know.”

“Hardly.” I scoff. “A good mother doesn’t keep her baby away from its father, especially when she knew he would have been the best he could be for them both.”

“A good mother protects her child though, at whatever the cost. You can’t argue that, Sofie.”

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