Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84776 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84776 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Tell me… the… truth,” I said, through chattering teeth.
He stopped beside me; his shoes next to my thighs. Maddox glowered down at me and crossed his arms over his wide chest. I could see his muscles bulging through the sweater, and I suddenly forgot what I came here for.
“What truth?” he snapped.
“Grayson told me…”
His expression was thunderous. “Yeah. So?” he seethed. “What do you want to know?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked quietly.
“You never gave me a chance to.”
“You could have yelled it in my face,” I shot back, leaving the comfort of the blankets and standing up.
Maddox and I were toe to toe. His jaw clenched, and his shoulders tightened. A strong wind blew over us, and I shivered, feeling the winter coldness seeping through the layers of clothes I had on.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked again. “Why did you let me believe the worst?”
His blue eyes flared, but his lips clammed shut. He stood stubbornly quiet. I stabbed a gloved finger into his chest. “Tell me! I want to know!”
“Because,” Maddox barked. His arm snaked out sharply, and he gripped my bicep, shaking me. His head dipped low, his cold breath fanning over my frozen lips. “Because I’d rather you believe the worst in me than give you hope, only to have it snatched away from you!”
He released me abruptly, and I stumbled back. Maddox made a wounded sound in the back of his throat, as he ran his hand over his head, his fingers tugging on his hair. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to gather all the proof I needed. I didn’t know if we could reopen and win this case! I didn’t fucking know, and I needed to be prepared. I didn’t want to see that hope in your eyes, only for it to wither away, if we couldn’t… if we couldn’t… fuck, Lila! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?”
“I want you,” I barely breathed through my cold, freezing lips. “Just you.”
“Stop,” he croaked.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “For finally telling me the truth. That’s what I wanted to hear.”
His lips curled with a sneer. “Leave now.”
“Not until you see this.” I grabbed the papers I had brought with me, pushing them toward him.
Maddox snatched the papers from my hand and glowered at the documents. “What is this?”
“Bianca… she’s lying.”
His brows furrowed. For a long time, I had a nagging feeling in my chest about Bianca and her pregnancy. At first, I told myself I was distrustful of her because I had been jealous.
But then the feeling grew, until I couldn’t deny it any longer.
So, Riley and I did some digging. Hospital records, phone calls… text messages…
Maddox stiffened. “Bianca gave birth last night.”
Oh, well…
“The baby would have been premature, right?” I slowly questioned, watching for his reaction.
“He wasn’t.” It was a boy. This baby would have been Maddox’s son…
Maddox confirmed what I already knew. It wasn’t surprising, since Bianca was officially a week overdue. She was farther along than what she had told us.
“You’re not the father,” I said.
Maddox handed me back the papers. His face was impassive, for a mere second, before he pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He put one between his lips, without lighting up the end. Maddox leaned against the wall, rubbing his thumb across his jaw.
I watched him… finally noticing his lack of reaction to the news.
“You knew,” I accused, my voice hardening.
He let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Bingo, Sweet Cheeks.”
My eyes fell on the papers in my hands, before finally meeting his again. “I don’t understand.”
“Lila,” he said my name like a taunt, “I found out a week after you walked out on me. I’m not stupid. I did my own digging, because I didn’t trust Bianca. If you had chosen to stay… you would have known.”
“All this time… you knew?!”
He nodded, the smile on his face pure acid.
“Then why did you bring Bianca here? What was all of this?”
Maddox kept the cigarette between his teeth, chuckling. “Bianca needed a place to hide, while she was pregnant. Oh, by the way… the father of her baby is her boyfriend. The son of her father’s driver. She fell in love… but Daddy Dearest refused to accept the relationship. He was the guy on the wrong side of town, and there was no way, the big and mighty Jonathan, was going to accept him, as the father of his grandchild. He threatened to disown Bianca, so she lied. She said the baby was mine. She needed time. To give birth, to wait until she was twenty-one, so she could have full access to her trust fund.”
Holy shit.
I blinked at Maddox, too shocked to formulate any other words. “She told you all of this?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Maddox spit the cigarette out. “Before I found out my father was dying.”