Page 59 of Nightclub Surprise
What a selfishbitch!
It was bad enough that I’d turned cold on him, but now I didn’t want him to have anyone else in hislife?
Heartless!
That’s exactly what Iwas.
I’d probably never see the inside of the expensive, over-the-top club. But I bet that I’d see plenty of pictures of the man I loved inside it—probably pictures with pretty women all overhim.
Even though I knew exactly who to blame for how things had fallen apart, I still had to ask myself how the hell it had allhappened.
Pounding the steering wheel, I shouted and cried, screaming at myself the whole time. And once I’d gotten it all out, once I’d run out of air, I headed backhome.
Back to the place I knew I had to stay until Calum was out of school. Now that we’d been living this way, the three of us together, it wouldn’t be fair to take that away from him anytimesoon.
Back up the stairs I trudged. Walking down the long hallway, I looked straight ahead at August’s closed bedroom door. My feet carried me right toit.
I stopped just in front of it. Little sounds inside the room told me he was there, just on the other side of the door. Maybe naked, having just come from the shower. A pulse thumped deep inside of me. Wetness filled mycore.
Would it be enough to let him fuck me and then leave him to go back to myroom?
My body wanted to feel his, and that craving was louder than the voice in my head telling me how wrong it was for me to even ask that ofhim.
I gripped the doorknob in my shaking hand. But when I went to turn it, I found it locked. My jaw clenched in frustration. And then the anger set in. He’d locked me out—that’s exactly why I’d shut down my feelings for him in the firstplace.
But those feelings were still there; I’d just buried them under fear, anger, frustration, and most of all—out of weakness. Where had that strong woman I’d been when I was just a kid of eighteengone?
Chapter Thirty-two
August
I wasn’t playing mind games with Tawny, exactly, but I was letting her see what life would be like if she couldn’t come around and realistically deal withthings.
She wouldn’t let me touch her, made sure she was never alone with me, and had even stopped talking to me like she used to. I watched as she let her heart freeze over as she tried to force what she truly felt for me into a place where it couldn’t getout.
Tawny wasn’t Tawny anymore, and I knew it would take something drastic to bring her back. I hated that Calum was being hurt by this, but sometimes it takes a bit of hurt to start the healing process. Like it or not, Calum was a part of us, and when we hurt, he hur,t too. That’s just life in afamily.
It took all I had to walk away from Tawny as she sat at the top of the stairs. But she had to be alone. She had to know what it would be like if she kept building the fortress around her heart. Tawny was hurting us all, not just me or herself, each and every one of us. Something had togive.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, I was just about to turn off the lamp and lay back when I heard the soft rattle of my doorknob. It had to beTawny.
I didn’t have anything on, and I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, so I pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms before going to the door. When I pulled it open, no one wasthere.
Taking a couple of steps to the door to her room, I found it was locked, so I went back to bed. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part that Tawny was there, trying to come into myroom.
Laying down, I looked up at the ceiling, my hands behind my head. Maybe it was still a little too soon. But a month had passed without her allowing me to so much as touch her. I felt the timing wasright.
I had to admit I didn’t think she’d give me the ring back. That wasn’t my plan at all. But when I’d said things weren’t working out, she’d shucked that ring quicker than anything I’d ever seen. The sight of that ring, sitting on the table, had made my heartstop.
When I’d picked it up, it took everything inside of me not to yell at her to just stop this shit already. I’d fisted it in my hand, hating like hell everything that washappening.
I also had no idea anyone would notice the missing ring or ask anything about it if they did. Even as I’d explained things to our families, I half expected Tawny to come around and say something tome.
She hadn’t. She’d stayed quiet. But I knew she wasn’t happy at all. As a matter of fact, I’d seen her growing sadder and sadder as the day went on. And when our son had started crying, she’d broken down, too. But she hadn’t broken down hard enough, Iguess.
What would it take to make her see that she was throwing us away, our wholefamily?
Calum had put it out there, asking about the brothers and sisters, asking about becoming a real family. I thought that might get to her. It sure as fuck got to me. I guess it hadn’t,though.
