Chapter 2 #2
Right now, even his good looks annoyed her. That strong jaw with the red-blond stubble, thick lashes of the same color, that beautiful sensuous mouth with its wickedly curved full lower lip. Perfect jaw, perfect nose, perfect bone structure…perfect bastard.
And as she stared into that irritatingly perfect face she was tempted to leave him asleep in the car. Better than having to deal with the tension and turmoil of the conversation that would inevitably follow when he woke up.
She stared at him for a long, uncertain moment before folding her middle finger beneath the tip of her thumb and releasing it with a hard flick against his cheek. The thwip echoed around the cab of the Land Rover and he snorted and jerked awake with a muffled curse.
Oops. That may have landed a little harder than she’d intended.
His hand snapped up to his cheek and he glared at her, his affront clear to see in the light provided by their driveway security beams.
“The fuck you do that for?” He sounded like a sulky teen.
“We’re home.”
“Not an excuse for assault and battery,” he grumped.
“Oh, let me guess, you’d have preferred a gentle kiss instead?” Her voice was scathing.
“I would never dare to presume you have any kisses to spare for me, McKenna. I lost hope and belief in those kisses many months ago.”
His words confused her and all she could think of to say was, “We’ve kissed.”
He laughed. The sound was dry, dusty…cracked and lacking any semblance of humor.
“If you say so,” he said with a shrug, unclipping his seatbelt and reaching for the door handle in the same motion.
He was halfway out of the door before she wrapped her hand around one thick, hard bicep, halting his movements
“I do say so. We’ve kissed. Made love. I don’t understand what you’re trying to imply here.”
He looked at her over his shoulder, lips curling before he shook his head.
“You’re so fucking deluded, Kenna. None of what we’ve done these last few months was what it could—should—have been. It was passionless, cold, and very fucking unsatisfactory.”
She was honestly staggered, horrified, hurt by his words. “You—we—orgasmed. You can’t fake that.”
“Yeah, we both got off. All that matters right?”
“You’re saying you didn’t enjoy…you didn’t like what we did?”
He sighed, the sound thick with frustration and weariness. “Kenna, I get more satisfaction jerking off in the shower, fantasizing about what we could have had.”
“Which is?”
“Unobtainable.” The word was filled with implacability and finality.
He gently tugged his arm out of her loose hold and exited the car. This time, his manners kicked in and he rounded the car to open the driver’s side door for her.
Kenna sluggishly climbed out of the car and before she could think of anything more to say he’d turned and was heading back into the house.
“Why?” The word was ripped from her lips as she stumbled over her feet to follow him. He didn’t stop, but continued through the side gate into the yard. Warm solar lights led the way down the path toward their front door.
“Smith, why?” she asked again, surging forward to grab hold of his elbow and halt him again.
Another exhalation and this time there was impatience in the movement as he turned to face her. His face was grim, eyes hard.
“Why what?” he asked from between gritted teeth.
“Why is it unobtainable?”
“Because you’re incapable of giving me what I really want, Kenna.”
“What do you want?” She felt confused but hopeful that his reply would offer some kind of solution.
“For fuck’s—” He bit off the rest of it and tore his elbow from her grip, lifting his hand to rake his fingers through his hair. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“Of course not, this is our life. Our future. I want to know what this unobtainable thing is that you think is so impossible for me to give you. If I knew, maybe—”
“Christ!” The violence in the word made her jump and he dragged his hand from his hair to rub his palm over his mouth, green eyes glittering in the soft light as he stared down at her.
“It’s you, okay? Us! That’s what I want. What I can’t have. What I’ll never have.”
“But…” Her voice was small. Timid. “I don’t understand.”
“And that’s the fucking crux of our problem.
You don’t understand. You’ll never understand.
You think that the minuscule parts of yourself that you’ve doled out over the last year and a half are enough.
Carefully curated pieces of a whole picture I’ll never get to see.
I’ve been living with, and fucking, a total stranger.
And that’s not going to change. Nothing’s going to change because you think things are just goddamned fine the way they are.
You think everything is so perfect, you actually want another baby.
Do not fucking correct me, Kenna,” he warned, holding up an assertive index finger, when she opened her mouth to do exactly that.
“Not right now. I’m sick of living like this.
Sick of waiting for you. Fucking sick of you. I’m done. I want out.”
“You don’t just get to decide that,” Kenny said, seething. Hating this. Hating him for doing this. For saying such confusing and cruel things. “You don’t get to lay all of this on me and then threaten to leave before I’m able to process or understand what’s happening.”
“Are you happy, Kenna?” he asked tautly, his eyes were sharp, probing, too damned observant.
The question tripped her up.
“Well, I’m not happy right at this moment,” she prevaricated.
“I’m trying to have an honest conversation with you and you can’t even answer a simple question without tying yourself up in knots. Are you happy, McKenna?”
She swallowed, the sound audible even over the insistent, loud chirruping of an ardent cricket.
He was right. What hope did they have if she couldn’t even answer a straightforward question?
“I-I thought I was.”
“Why?”
“My career is going well, you didn’t leave me, life seemed so settled and…and good.”
“That’s it? Success in your career and the fact that I stuck around like some kind of goddamn fantasy hero after we lost our baby? Which, by the way, any halfway decent man would have done. You’re telling me that’s all it takes to make you happy? Maybe aim higher next time.”
“I think so.”
“You don’t know?” Kenny felt ridiculous and pathetic in the face of his incredulity. “Kenna, when’s the last time you were really, genuinely happy?”
The day I met you. The words hovered on the tip of her tongue and she considered them and wondered if that was indeed true. How could that be? There were nearly two years between that point and now. How could she not have been truly happy since then?
It wasn’t possible.
She hesitated a beat too long because he made an impatient sound and turned away from her again.
“When we met.” She threw the words at him desperately and he froze. Shoulders set, head back, body so taut it was as if he’d turned into a living statue. A beautiful piece of art.
She watched his back, waiting.
“I don’t know if I find that sad or just plain manipulative,” he finally admitted, turning his head to look at her, while keeping this body angled toward the house.
“You wanted honesty.”
“Yeah. And the truth is pretty fucking damning, wouldn’t you say? You haven’t been happy. Neither have I. We don’t belong together. We never did. Having a baby with your pretend husband isn’t going to miraculously fix what’s broken inside of you, Kenna.”
“I’m not broken,” she protested, but it was a lie and she knew he knew that.
He laughed again, the same dry, brittle bark as before.
“You might not be, but I am. You and this fucked-up excuse of a marriage broke me. And that’s as honest as I can get with you right now. I’m leaving. Tomorrow.”
“Please don’t.” The plea emerged on a whisper but he was already on his way inside and didn’t hear her.
Kenny stood in the middle of the path with nothing but a lovelorn cricket for company and her world in tatters around her feet.