Page 3 of Dash

My chest cracks open, but I don’t react. I can’t. I thought we were building something, creating a life together. I was all in this. She’s the thing my life orbits around and she thinks we’re just fucking?

“Are you fucking pregnant with my kid or not, Kendall?”

“I’m not,” she says, then adds, “not anymore.”

The air is static, charged with oppressive silence. She stares at me, challenging me to come back at her, but all I can hear is ringing my ears.

“Come on, Rhys.” She steps close. “Don’t look at me like that. Nothing has to change.” Her hands rest on my chest, but her touch is no longer my anchor. It burns. It crawls over my skin like dirt.

I snatch her wrist, tearing her off me. “What do you mean ‘not anymore’?”

Her eyes roll like she’s not talking about the most important fucking thing in the universe. “I mean, there’s no baby. I had a termination.”

My stomach drops into a pit of darkness. I can’t stop staring at her. She’s Kendall.MyKendall—the woman I was gonna marry and spend my life with—and yet I don’t recognise her. She made this whole decision without letting me be a part of it.

“You didn’t even tell me. You just made that call to end the pregnancy without me.” The words are flat. Laced with barbs.

“Oh please. Don’t get sentimental on me. It wasn’t a baby and even if it was, we couldn’t keep it, Rhys. You’re a fucking biker. And I can’t become a barrister with a screaming brat on my hip.” She moves to the counter, opening drawers, slamming around like I’m the reason she’s pissed.

The life I built for us—imagined for us—is fading. She never wanted this. She never wanted me.

That rejection claws out of my bones.

“I told Maya to empty that fucking bin yesterday,” she mutters. “What were you even doing going through the trash? That’s psychotic.”

I don’t answer. I can’t. My entire life just dropped out from under me and she’s acting like I’m in the wrong, like asking questions about our child, our relationship is an inconvenience.

“Was any of this real?”

Her eyes soften just a fraction. Not enough to stop me from bleeding. “I thought you knew what this was. We were never going to work long term. My life is galas and dresses and shoes that cost more than most people’s cars. And you’re…” She breaks off before she can deliver that blow.

I do it myself. “A biker? A nobody? Fuck me.” There’s a headache building behind my eyes and my heart is pounding against my ribs. “I would have given you everything, Kendall.”

“That’s the point, Rhys. You can’t give meanything.”

She might as well have shoved a knife into my soul. I straighten my kutte. My jaw aches as I grab my keys off the counter.

“We can still keep sleeping together,” she says. “This doesn’t have to be the end.”

I turn, and she withers at whatever she sees in my face.

“I wouldn’t fuck you now if I was paid to.”

Anger flashes in her eyes. “You don’t get to decide what I do with my body.”

“I don’t,” I agree, but it doesn’t stop this pain from eating me alive. I thought we were a team. I thought I was her safe place. I would have been there with her.

“You’re looking at me like I killed your kid.”

“I’m gutted you had a termination, Kendall. I’m not even going to pretend I’m not, but what I’m more pissed about is that you didn’t include me in your plans because you’ve always been waiting to leave.”

I don’t look at her or her stomach where our kid should be growing. I head for the door, the world unsteady under my feet.

“You’re acting like a fucking little bitch,” she yells after me.

I ignore her, grabbing the latch and tearing open the door. Maya is leaning against the wall outside her room, her perfect sculpted brow arched.

“Guys like you don’t end up with girls like her,” she delivers that parting shot.

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