Didn’t matter I didn’t have the first clue who she really was. She still had the power to command all my senses.
Her bottom lip trembled. “I didn’t want you to find out this way.”
I took two steps back and let the towel drop to the floor.
The words wavered between severe and hurt. “Or you didn’t want me to find out at all.”
Wasn’t really a question. Just another accusation that made me sound like a first-class dick, because there was no question in my mind she was hurting.
But shit…who could blame me?
I gave a harsh shake of my head, pissed at myself.
How many times had I wanted to go rooting around in her dark? Fucking drawn to it like it might be my saving breath.
Now here I was, drowning in it.
As if she accepted my anger, expected it, she dropped her gaze to her fingers twisting like blanched bows on her lap. “I didn’t want you to find out this way,” she murmured like an oath. “This is what I was trying to tell you when the social worker rang the doorbell.”
I swallowed hard, feeling my eyes narrowing as I pinned her to the spot with the heat of my glare, with the demand. Because even though I already knew it was the truth, I needed to hear her admit it aloud. “Martin Jennings is Kallie’s father.”
Shea flinched like she’d been struck, lines of horror striking bold across her face.
Terror.
Hurt.
Regret.
All those emotions made my head spin almost as dramatically as it felt like my heart ached.
Sorrow squeezed my chest.
Fuck, I hated him. Had hated him since the second I saw him coming off the tour bus the night I’d gone in to find Austin sprawled face down on the floor. OD’ing on whatever the bastard had fed him.
Left him there to die.
Wasn’t like I’d thought all that highly of him before then. Asshole had screamed nothing but seedy pretention and greedy arrogance. Like the snake he was, every strategic move he’d made had been to bring him one step closer to whatever devious goal he’d set his sight on.
Money.
Power.
Insatiable gluttony.
But that night was the first time the name Martin Jennings became synonymous with destruction. With the highest kind of threat.
Rocking, she hugged herself tightly. She breathed the admission toward her lap. “Biologically, yes, but in every other way, no.”
Rapidly I blinked and began to pace, raking my hands through my sopping wet hair as I tried to process the fuckery that had spun my life out of control. One disaster after another.
Trouble.
Knew it the first time I saw her. There was just something about her that wouldn’t let me go. Something deep and unfathomable. Funny, I’d still felt like I needed to protect her from the depravity that seemed to make up the definition of who I was.
And here she was, pouring on another layer.
Guess I was right. That shit found me anywhere I went.
Swinging back toward her, I stared her down, unable to contain some of the anger pushing its way free. “You lied to me? After all this time…after everything we’ve been through, you let me go on believing Kallie didn’t have a father?”
“She doesn’t have a father. He has never been her father.”
My laughter was bitter, and I began to storm around the room, my feet eating up the floor while vile images of that sick bastard Jennings touching my girl ran through my brain on an unbearable loop.
I flew back around, my head bent down and cocked to the side as I approached her. Like maybe if I looked close enough, I could see everything she’d been hiding. “I thought we were finished with all the bullshit and lies. I thought I knew you.”
My face suddenly pinched up with the hurt she’d inflicted. Because it was the truth. She’d gutted me. I’d trusted her, and here I was, uncertain if I’d been the pawn in some twisted game.
Everyone wanted a piece of Sebastian Stone.
Now I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d been played.
My eyes locked on her. Soft and frail and glimpses of that light fighting for a comeback.